Posted on 08/07/2004 7:24:44 PM PDT by Graybeard58
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - At one point during last week's Republican leadership gathering in Chicago, the debate over conservative activist Alan Keyes grew so contentious that journalists standing outside the closed doors heard - and reported - the shouting.
The Illinois Republican State Central Committee later barred reporters from the entire floor where they were meeting to choose their party's new candidate for the U.S. Senate.
But with Keyes' candidacy likely to become official Sunday, it will be much tougher for Republican leaders to hide the internal strife in their divided party.
On Wednesday night the committee formally asked Keyes - a former United Nations ambassador and two-time presidential candidate who has never lived in Illinois - to run against Democratic candidate Barack Obama for Illinois' open Senate seat. All indications are that Keyes will accept, kicking off his campaign Sunday at a Chicago-area rally.
Keyes will replace Jack Ryan, whom Republicans nominated in the primaries for the Senate. Ryan bowed out of the race last month amid embarrassing sexual allegations.
While Keyes' candidacy solves one problem for the GOP, it generates another: His far-right views on most major issues will, once again, highlight the deep fissure in the Illinois GOP between moderates - like former Govs. Jim Edgar and James Thompson - and the more conservative wing, which has been trying for years to move the party rightward.
"The state party is divided in the same way the national party is divided. The difference in Illinois is that the more moderate branch tends to run the board," noted political scientist John S. Jackson of Southern Illinois University Carbondale. "The hard-right decided they wanted this ... but it will magnify the fault lines" with moderates.
Shouts and silence
The first rumblings of that fault line were heard through the cl
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
The biggest problem it highlights is that they do not have a home grown candidate who could win. It will be intereting to follow the race in the black community, though.
I'm looking forward to voting for Alan Keyes -- finally, a black candidate I can vote for! It gets lonely living as a black Republican in Chicago. At the same time, I don't have much hope for Keyes's candidacy. Unless something drastically changes, he will be crushed by a margin of 2:1.
I like the idea of Alan Keyes in the U.S. Senate.
A dose of Alan Keyes may be just what Illinois needs.
There was a news report on a Chicago radio station the Keyes still owes $520,000 for his Y2K presidential campaign and $75,000 in Maryland back taxes.
I'm looking forward to it. We haven't had his kind of passion and oratory, (and entertainment value), since B-1 Bob Dornan got the rug yanked from under his feet.
I'm hoping that the GOP treats Keyes exactly like the Dims treated Obama. Keyes should be delivering the convention keynote.
Well, I agree with Keyes on most issues, but I consider myself pretty far to the right. He talks about abolishing the income tax, abolishing social security and medicare, etc. I'm really glad that he has the intellectual integrity to take such positions. But you won't find many people -- present company excluded -- who share them.
I wish Alan Keyes had come to Arkansas to run for the Senate.
Yep problems abound thoughout the GOP it seems.....
what? There's no white candidates you can vote for?
I can hear the cries now if I wrote "Finally, a white candidate I can vote for!"
I wonder if there are any quotes from Keyes regarding Hillary moving to NY to run for Senate (carpetbagging) a few years ago? I may google around for it.
Is this about the same?
Dr. Keyes' views are far right.
Translation: They are what would have been referred to a few decades ago as moderate and mainstream.
As with many of us, it isn't Dr. Keyes who has changed. It is simply that the liberal agenda has become increasingly tolerated, condoned, accepted and promoted in our time, making reasonable and mainstream views appear radical by contrast.
Dr. Keyes is a mild-mannered, upright, loving, 1950's moderate who has been transported into our time. He has simply kept the faith while the seas of liberalism have engulfed our country.
I voted for him in the 2000 Presidential primary. He would make a great senator. (He would make a great President.)
I wish him well.
That's not right. Dornan devolved into a clown. He's not well.
Keyes is brilliant. Alas, he has no place in today's GOP. You'll hear the smug GOP hacks snickering at him while saluting every hackneyed malapropism out of Bush's mouth.
That smear story was on WLS in the 5:00pm (cst) news cast.
Again, the Chicago Tribune is the culprit. This is the paper that declared democratic senatorial candidate Obama as a
"phenom of the party".
Well let me see.... Hmmm. I think we lost California, Washington, and Illinois in the last presidential election.
I'll say it. He's a sacrificial lamb.
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl
and he's always at home with his back to the wall.
He's proud of the scars and the battles he's lost
He struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross
But it's okay. He's been doing it for years.
YEAH, Me too!!
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