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 don't think much of people like Keyes and Buchanan who try to cut their political teeth on the highest office in the land.
His calling of George W. Bush "evil" in 2001 for a very difficult stem-cell decision was also something I won't forget, unless he apologizes for it.
Keyes articulates his own version of conservatism, a conservatism that, according to him, the rest of us unwashed can't even begin to appreciate or follow.
Guess I missed it on that thread as well. Sinkspur provided it here.
I agree. I just have a bad feeling about the whole story...I can't really cite any evidence, but I get the sense this could backfire on Bush if the GOP isn't careful.
I think the reason many people find Keyes repellant is that he goes quite beyond not being a lockstepper.
It's one thing to be critical of the President's policies - that, I think we could all live with - but it's crossing a line to refer to President Bush as someone who sat down and tried to figure out how much "evil" he could "get away with"...or to call the Bush "the bullet that kills you".
If he was simply "not a lockstepper", that would be all right with most, I think.
Judging from most of your posts, that wouldn't be all that hard to do.
Could you possibly read & respond to my #256?
My criticism of Keyes has to do with his seeming violation of his own morals and principles, the fact that he has frequently violated Reagan's "11th commandment" but his supporters still expect it to apply to Keyes, and other apparent hypocrisies.
Regarding Keyes' remarks about "evil"--in the August 2001 speech referred to, he never called GWB "evil," he spoke of evil several times, and the real danger of making decisions that opened the door to evil, as in this passage from that speech:
Keyes:
"What is the antidote to all of this? Well, I think it’s pretty simple. I think that if you simply remember the principles whereby we claim our rights and dignity you can see with crystal clarity what are the limits on our claims to power. The principles that are the basis for our claim to freedom limit our claim to the abuse of power. It’s very simple. And I know this for a fact because I just sat there thinking to myself during the whole course of all this ‘agonizing’ Bush was supposedly doing, that if the man would just sit down and read the Declaration of Independence and think about what it means, this issue would have been really simple. Because the Declaration says we’re all of us created equal, it doesn’t make a distinction between whether that creation is published in the womb or in the petri dish. It just said that God’s Will determines our dignity, not human action, not human intervention. In the forgetting of this principle, you open the door to a plethora of evils. In the remembering of it, you lay the solid foundation for further human progress but in dignity and in decency and in honor. I think that that is the real meaning of our gathering tonight...."
The entire speech can be found at: http://www.declaration.net/speeches/keyes-arlington.asp
I feel the same way; I mean, I believe their stories and I think they have the right to say whatever they feel, but I think the RNC should stay as far away from them as they can get.
And as long as we're talking about that, we're not talking about everything since 1971.
Listen, we've all had this dicussion back in 2001 when the remarks were made; I know people who were there -- Freepers that I know and respect -- and they knew EXACTLY what he meant; there was an audible GASP in the room when he said it.
Of course. He knows it works in his favor. That's why Bush stated emphatically he will never criticize Kerry's Vietnam service
Keyes will lose by 25% points. While I love his fiery defense of conservative values, he is too handicapped coming into this race. Come on, a guy who never has lived in the state suddenly turning up and saying "vote for me, but just ignore that I am on record for excoriating Hillary Clinton for the exact same thing a few years ago." Now there are reports he is a debtor from previous campaigns and owes back taxes in Maryland. This is going to be a bloodbath.
The man is so condescending - 'agonizing' and "supposedly" - ugh. And though you didn't post it (someone else did, though), he referred to President Bush as someone who sat down and tried to determine how much "evil" he could get away with.
Is that what you think President Bush did?
To be clear, I have sent the Swift Vets money.
Part of my concern is also that their story fits so much with what conservatives want to hear that I worry there's some embellishment there.
Regardless of the veracity of their story, I don't know that it will help Bush. I agree with sinkspur's theory - every minute spent talking about Vietnam helps Kerry.
If you're down on Keyes, it only confirms my suspicions all along that you're a phony conservative.
It seems someone is afraid of Keyes entering the race...
Let the people Vote
and We'll Decide
The media is getting spoiled and thinks
they can hand-pick our candidates on the left
and the right.
Go for it, Keyes!!
Let those Democrats squirm!!!
Where is it written that in order to be considered conservative, one must give his or her blind support to a man who has condescended so bitterly to President Bush?
I don't understand that. I never have.
As I have said before, as mad as I get about all the lies and distortions, this Vietnam issue has hit me the hardest.
And not his service; I fully believe the idea that he went to Vietnam with his political career in mind, explaining his movie camera, etc.
For me, I have had to come to the realization that I did, in fact, let the things that John Kerry and his friends said about Vietnam color my perception of what exactly was going on during that time; I was never involved in the antiwar movement, but I can't dismiss the fact that what I heard them say formed some of the opinions I held back then.
I wish I could claim youth as the excuse; but I have been forced to face the fact that I just let others do my thinking for me. I was horrified when the truth finally hit home.
I'll never believe another word he says. EVER.
If you had one ounce of credibility on FR, I'd be worried to death about that.
But as I have told you before, you disagreeing with me is a badge of honor.
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