Well, don't be so hard on yourself. Keyes is just a politician and this reparations proposal is just an idea he had.
What would it take to win you back? How about if he said that now that he's heard from many of his supporters, listened to their thoughts, and has had a chance to think about it some more, he's convinced that it's the wrong approach?
Well, let me offer, if I may, another line of reasoning.
I don't know ANY one who supports EVERY position of any politician that they support.
I'm a Keyes backer and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this myself. I can't just completely blow it off since it comes from someone who's intellect I respect, but on the surface it looks like something that has too many problems - philosophically and practically - to support.
that said, I agree with the man on far more issues than I do any other public figure i can think of - that being the case, I can overlook a loopy tangent now and then - especially one which has zero chance of ever being enacted.
Personally, I wish he'd never brought it up - but i have an equally hard time accepting the notion that people who support him on most everything else are going to ditch him completely because he has one screwball intellectual idea.
How many of us are ditching Bush for his goofy immigration ideas? How many will wash their hands of him because he signed McCain/Fiengold? Need I go on?
I'm not going to lecture you on who to support, but it seems to me that a lot of folks are seriously over-reacting to this pseudo-reparations idea both because it's unrealistic to expect 100% agreement with any candidate's position and also because it couldn't pass if God-himself were a co-sponsor.