I wasn’t in on it either at the time, I went to the big Keyes rally. What a foolish young pup I was. I can’t believe Keyes didn’t realize what a horrible idea it was and that he was dupe.
See the rationale the IL RINOS gave was that they “needed” a black man (or woman some RINO non politician was mentioned) to run against Obama and there were zero black Republicans in the state and they just plum couldn’t find a brother in the whole state so they went to Alan Keyes.
Then they smiled as he was painted as an “ultra-conservative” (which well he’s to my right on some things and he has that image which they knew) and carpetbagger which he was (I could give a crap about that, give me a good senator from anywhere but people outside of NY! care about this).
The party bosses of the Illinois GOP actually made a deal with Berry to let him walk into office and preferred him to anti-corruption Republican Pete Fitzgerald. Deplorable but there is no alternate explanation.
I could have gone to a GOP thing this week but Andy McKenna the party chairman who a was key anti-Fitzgerald figure, (he was gonna run against him in the primary) was there and it cost 15 bucks.
...and how can we claim to be a better party when we act as bad (or worse) than they ? It’s not a political party in IL, it’s a social clique.