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 ...
I only said that someone who bases his campaign on principles, morality, values, and integrity ought to uphold those principles, not abandon them when it's advantageous to him to do so.
You don't agree?
The moral requirements of freedom what the Founders called self-government. Self-government begins with self-control--the willingness to postpone our material gratification to the extent necessary for economic success and the discretion to limit our passions to the extent necessary to live in peace with our fellow citizens. The real crisis of our times is therefore, a crisis of character. It is a crisis that has been caused by our inability to admit the moral requirement of freedom.
The crisis of our times is a crisis of character Source: Our Character, Our Future, p. 15-6 May 2, 1996
He isn't violating some high flown principle here, Amelia. Parachialism may have some small measure of political resonance, but it isn't about morality.
If Alan erred, it was it blasting Hillary so hard on the issue.
But it is unusual for a FReeper to quibble about someone attacking Hillary too hard. ;-)
So are you now arguing tht Alan is too pragmatic? Cause he sure has been attacked for being so inflixibly principled in this forum.
"Dr. Keyes, please pick up the white courtesy phone. Your country is calling you."
Question for you, deport... Do you think Keyes could win a Senate seat if he were running in the state of Texas?
Question for you, deport... Do you think Keyes could win a Senate seat if he were running in the state of Texas?
Here is what they report:
Keyes paid himself $100,000 per year out of campaign funds. Keyes' 1992 Senate campaign was hurt badly when the press revealed he was paying himself a huge amount out of campaign funds. This is technically legal but rare and sleazy. We don't know of any other candidates for president who have ever paid themselves out of campaign funds from any campaign they've been in.
His staff urged him to stop but he refused. Keyes now says, "I don't think it will be necessary this time 'round."
More generally, Keyes knows that his doomed presidential campaigns can raise his profile and help his career as a public speaker and radio personality. Jesse Jackson and Pat Buchanan have pursued this strategy for years. According to Time Magazine, Keyes' 1996 campaign doubled his speaking fee from $7,500 to $15,000 per speech.
All talk, no action
Keyes has always been a professional talker - first as an academic, then a diplomat, and now as a candidate and talk show host.
Even as a diplomat, his biggest jobs were opposing sanctions on South Africa as one of many Assistant Secretaries of State under Reagan - some feel his career was based on being Reagan's token black willing to defend the apartheid regime - and as Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, a post requiring no actual diplomacy, just lots of speeches. It seems plenty hard for governors to adjust to running the federal government, so the odds that Keyes could wing it are very low. Basically, he's the Republican Jesse Jackson.
Former campaign workers don't support him
Reporter Andy Lamy asked several staffers from his 1992 campaign if they supported his run for president. Susan Saum-Wicklein, Keyes's 1992 campaign manager, said "He's doing what?" "Absolutely not," said Ed Goetz, Keyes's 1992 pollster. "There are much, much better candidates." Sylvia Pearson, of Keyes 1992 direct mail firm, said it is "very safe to say" that she won't be a supporter. Maryland Republican Party Chair Joyce Lyons Terhes said "I don't see this campaign as a Maryland-based campaign."
Unpaid Debts - Keyes denies responsibility.
Keyes was happy to take $100,000/year as salary from his 1992 Senate campaign, but when it came time to pay that same campaign's debts, he said: "I personally do not owe the debt that was owed by the campaign." That was about $45,000, which was unpaid from 1992 through the end of 1996, according to the FEC. Of course, if he hadn't paid himself so much money, he would have had plenty to pay off that debt.
Keyes told a reporter that the money will be paid off -- by the campaign, not by him of course -- but several creditors said Keyes hadn't communicated with them years later. In 1995-1996, for example, his 1992 Senate campaign received $34,821 and spent over $15,000, but he couldn't manage to pay off any of that debt.
Finally, some time during 1997-1998, Keyes paid off most of this money. The FEC reports show that he spent $49,544 during that time, and reimbursed $41,094 worth of loans, but somehow he managed to end up still owing more than $34,000 for his 1992 Senate race at the end of the reporting period. Presumably he took on new loans to pay the old ones (though the FEC data doesn't give enough detail to be sure.)
Incidentally, Keyes still owes over $200,000 on his 1996 presidential campaign as well. At the end of 1996, he owed $350,000; since then, he has raised over $1,000,000 for a campaign that is over, but spent even more ($1,099,972) and only reduced his debt by $150,000.
In 1995, his campaign wrote over $20,000 in bad checks, which his spokesman blamed on a former campaign aide
“I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there, so I certainly wouldn't imitate it," Mr. Keyes said in 2000.
No, it's about principle and federalism. Perhaps it's also about character - does Dr. Keyes mean what he says, or is it all a matter of political expediency? (And I'm aware that the Constitution doesn't prohibit Dr. Keyes running in Illinois, just as it didn't prohibit Hillary Clinton's candidacy.)
If Alan erred, it was it blasting Hillary so hard on the issue. But it is unusual for a FReeper to quibble about someone attacking Hillary too hard. ;-)
I agreed with him on the issue of Hillary. And I think he's being a hypocrite now.
So are you now arguing tht Alan is too pragmatic? Cause he sure has been attacked for being so inflixibly principled in this forum.
His entire public life is based on principles and morality. Therefore, if he abandons the principles he says are absolute and absolutely necessary, what is left?
What sense is there in winning, in success, or even prosperity if there is not truth? We are reaching the point in this society where people are denying that there is any line to be drawn between truth and falsehood, rights and wrong. If that’s the case, then our whole way of life can’t work any more--because it is based on the sense that there are certain self-evident truths, that those self-evident truths support a certain idea of human justice, which require respect for human rights, that therefore you must have elections and due process, and all the other things we consider to be the hallmarks of freedom. If there is no difference between right and wrong, then none of that is true, and there is no need to respect individual rights, there is no requirement that to be legitimate government has to be based upon consent, and the only thing that separates us from tyranny and despotism is that at the moment nobody has yet gained the upper hand.
Truth & right vs. wrong underlies government & society Source: Our Character, Our Future, p. 9 May 2, 1996
Since you posted to me, perhaps you'd be able to answer that question?
Gosh, I don't know; perhaps because so many people who didn't live in California got into that fray? In fact, some of the people on this very thread were some of the most vocal against Arnold.
I'm looking forward to watching him on CSPAN while Frist and Hillary weep and console each other in the background.
You would have made a great lawyer, Amelia.
Thank you, tame - I appreciate that.
I have no idea. Why are you arguing the point anyway? The die is cast. Your words and typing are meaningless and a waste of time for you. I am hoping to dissuade others bothering. Over and out!
Just saw my first Obama bumpersticker.
Want I should try and find you all one?
Is that the best argument you have? Weak.
I thought it was kinda funny...and illustrated your dilemma real well.
Again you have nothing to offer.
I don't vote in Illinois, so I don't need a bumper sticker.
'Nothing to offer'?
How about some small chance to hold this Senate seat for the GOP?
How about a small chance to energze the base so much that the President has at least some chance at Illinois' 21 electoral votes?
How about the chance to tie up Dem resources that they can't afford?
Or the chance to bring conservative principles before the public?
Or the chance for the GOP to make inroads into the black community?
Seems to me that it is you that has nothing positive to add.
I have no problem with criticism, either of Bush or Keyes.
Hypocrisy bothers me a bit, though. Hence the reason I'm pointing yours out...
I'm not gonna put one on my car, but if he does end up being the Dem nominee for president at some point in time, they might eventually be valuable as political collectibles.
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