Posted on 08/17/2004 9:04:17 AM PDT by Forgiven_Sinner
CHICAGO — In football terms: With his back to the goalposts, limping with injuries and the clock running out, the Illinois GOP’s quarterback faded back hurriedly and threw a long, spiraling pass far over the heads of the players to a lone receiver whose arms were extended in a seemingly hopeless attempt to receive it. It was, in fact, truly a "Hail Mary" pass brilliantly completed. Who was the quarterback? An amalgam of several all-but-faceless Republican committeemen. Yes, I know, like you I wince whenever sports commentators refer to last desperation tosses as "Hail Mary." Or when Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf referred to it in a military briefing. Used for sports or battle, it seems irreverent.
But for a party to recruit the nation’s most articulate defender of the Judeo-Christian ethic, one of the outstanding lay Catholics in the nation today, the term fits. And the Hail Mary pass completed here two weeks ago was a final appeal to a superbly equipped intellectual athlete to rescue a party that once stood for human rights. And draft pick Alan Keyes (a frequent speaker at Wanderer Forums) jumped up in faraway Maryland to catch the ball, becoming the first candidate in modern U.S. history to be truly begged by his party to run for the Senate.
Other recent out-of-state candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert Kennedy, had arranged for inside pals to "urge" them to run. Keyes had literally no one on the 19-member Republican State Central committee who knew him personally. One did — only by reputation. But that reputation, for courage and brilliant cognitive acumen, was enough.
In an earlier piece I reported somewhat on the agony of the state GOP. Henry Hyde and a few others notwithstanding, Lincoln’s party here has fallen upon evil days. For decades its fortunes were in the hands of pro-abort relativists, Governors Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar, whose bywords were to meld indistinguishably with the ascendant liberal Democratic philosophy.
A supreme irony: The only president to be born in Illinois, Ronald Reagan, was never deemed worthy of emulation by the two Jims. Their social policy involved pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, and anything liberals seized upon.
A Stewing Pot Of Corruption
Then came what was supposed to be a great conservative faux hope — the secretary of state, George Ryan. With a great jowly face and Irish mug, Ryan didn’t go out of his way to inform people he was an Orangeman (a Methodist). He was a pol’s pol, with many a wink and nod-cutting deals with the Dems — but still, his friends averred, a pro-lifer and social conservative. In reality he didn’t sell out, he rented out years earlier.
Despite tons of money for TV in 1998 he found it an incredibly rough gubernatorial race, going against a pro-life Democratic congressman named Glenn Poshard, a downstater so honest he wouldn’t accept PAC checks. George Ryan not only accepted all kinds of money, he sucked it up as one gluttonous vacuum cleaner. Once in office, he betrayed his trust to the pro-lifers, but venality did him in and he was indicted in a spectacular bribe scandal stemming from his secretary of state days. The feds allege he then presided over a stewing pot of corruption involving illiterate foreign truckers receiving their commercial licenses in exchange for bribes.
In all, the Ryan scandal was the worst one involving a governor in a state where many pols have detoured from the political straight and narrow since its admission to the Union in 1818. Moreover, Ryan had, in his single term, so misspent an inherited surplus that its operations were running on empty. Small wonder the GOP was repudiated at the polls in 2002, all its state officials replaced by Dems save one: the state treasurer, a female pro-abort who played her accordion at gay pride celebrations.
I want to tell you, in no other state have pro-life conservatives more reason to be downhearted. And even more so when the state treasurer accordion lady was made state GOP chairman.
Too Good To Be True
For a state GOP flat on its back, it did come back in the spring primary of 2004 with a number of good candidates for the U.S. Senate. And the man who won the nomination, a multimillionaire and part-time teacher at an inner-city high school, seemed too good to be true. He was slated to run against one who might become only the third African American senator in modern times, State Sen. Barack Obama, whom the gushing liberal press passionately embraced as the living embodiment of Martin Luther King and Sidney Poitier.
Alas, Jack Ryan (no relation to the indicted ex-governor) was indeed too good to be true. As the world knows, he took his now ex-wife to sex clubs, the subject of her complaint in divorce records regarded as sealed. When the nosy Chicago Tribune sued to get the file unsealed, everybody ran for the exits — everybody, that is, except Jack Ryan who for weeks dithered and did not resign his candidacy.
During that time the GOP was a living Little Shop of Horrors. Good potential candidates were entreated, only to turn the nomination down. Then the party seemed to hallucinate about celebrities. Ex-Bears coach Mike Ditka was suggested. He pondered for three days, then declined. The names kept coming fast and furiously: even ex-tennis star Jimmy Connors.
Under law, the State Central Committee has the job of naming a replacement. And so this 19-member body convened in executive session. For two full days the committee met at this city’s Union League Club, under the erratic presiding gavel of the pro-abort state treasurer accordionist. The liberal metropolitan press gathered outside could hear shouts of anger bursting through the seams of the heavy walnut door.
The first day they adjourned not sine die but almost dead. Then on the second day there seemingly appeared a puff of smoke signifying a decision was being formulated — but the smoke was not conclusive. A spokesman said the GOP was considering two candidates: both of them black. The media looked incredulous. For a party that probably could only list about 12 African Americans with the courage to call themselves Republicans to have two black contenders for the U.S. Senate was a stunning anomaly.
One was one Andrea Grubb Barthwell, until recently deputy director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, named by President Bush. The second was Alan Keyes. But it looked like Barthwell would get it. She was fulsomely invested in the modern Illinois wishy-washy, lukewarm bland GOP tradition: liberal, evasive about party philosophy, pro-abort and pro-gay rights, having earlier contributed to Mayor Richard M. Daley. Thus she was in sync with a long line of liberal Republican losers including Lynn Martin, the ex-Labor secretary under the first Bush, who got only 33% against incumbent Paul Simon. She was a natural for committee endorsement.
Perseverance
But there were those who would not give up. Notably attorney Steve McGlynn of Belleville, the party’s pro-life vice chairman, and Maureen Murphy, of suburban Chicago, another solid conservative. Point man for Keyes was a Protestant state senator, Dave Syverson of Rockford. And good offices were supplied by one J. Dennis Hastert, speaker of the U.S. House who, while not a committeeman and not present, supplied his formidable weight to the Keyes candidacy.
And inside the closed-door committee, the vetting process of Barthwell rolled fast and furiously. Barthwell was asked to explain her own confessed status as an ex-drug addict. Committeeman Murphy, an able prosecutorial mind, led the questioning. "You hate her!" yelled one liberal. Murphy turned to an alleged sexual harassment charge against Barthwell (yes, women can be accused of sexual harassment, too).
Finally, in a key vote Barthwell was edged out by the man who wanted the job passionately because he sought to do battle with Obama on a host of outrageous State Senate votes: Alan Keyes. Keyes who had flown to Chicago for an interview, announced he would accept, declaring that at this late date he couldn’t promise victory but that he would wage the most energetic fight of his career. Thus, with only a handful of votes to spare, Illinois’ GOP turned the corner on its errant liberalism in favor of a man of conviction, a Catholic scholar no less.
Illinois became the first state in U.S. history to have two African American nominees seeking the Senate, both Harvard graduates (Keyes with a Ph.D. and Obama, the first black to edit the Harvard Law Review). And on the Sunday following his nomination, at a suburban restaurant jammed with cheering, sweating supporters, Keyes ticked off an indictment of Obama based on his own voting record. Together with his wife, Keyes moved into a modest house in heavily Democratic suburban Calumet City, far from the Hyde Park University of Chicago neighborhood where Sen. Obama lives.
Voted "Present"
The Obama record includes a vote, in April 2002, against the bill to protect live babies born of botched abortions. In the U.S. Senate even hard-line Democrats had supported the measure: not Obama when the bill came up in Illinois. In the U.S. Senate many strongly pro-abort liberals voted for a partial-birth abortion ban: not Obama when the vote came up in Illinois, twice voting "present" rather than state his convictions. In 2001 he voted "present" on a bill to notify parents when their minor children seek an abortion.
In 1999 he voted against requiring school boards to put Internet pornography filters on school computers meant for students’ use only. He twice voted "no" on a bill to let school districts require disruptive students to complete suspensions before being readmitted in a new school district. He voted "present" on a bill that passed the State Senate with heavy majorities requiring students who fire guns on school grounds to be prosecuted as adults.
In 2001 he voted against a bill that added extra penalties for crimes committed in furtherance of gang activities. He voted against a bill making it a criminal offense for accused gang members, free on bond or on probation, to associate with known gang members. In 1999 he was the only state senator to vote against a bill prohibiting early prison release for criminal sexual abusers.
Keyes is using these issues.
Also on tax increases, disregarding his own rhetoric on fighting the high cost of health care, Obama voted last May to hike the tax on insurance premiums. On the same day he voted to preserve Illinois’ death tax, hike taxes on casino visitors, and slap new sales taxes on business.
While Democrats point to Obama’s keynote address as typifying a smooth, nonconfrontational candidacy, his campaign has received an outpouring of funds from extremely liberal PACs, including Progressive Choices ($5,000), Planned Parenthood ($5,000), the National Education Association ($5,000), and People for the American Way ($1,000), the group blocking President Bush’s judicial appointments. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Leadership PAC gave him the maximum contribution of $10,000 as did the American Federation of Teachers and the National Abortion Rights League.
On June 7 Obama was the recipient of a good haul of radical money from George Soros, who has charged that President Bush is akin to Adolf Hitler — $60,000 total from four family members. They’re able to contribute such large amounts because under the McCain-Feingold law the limits are stretched if one of the opposing candidates was a self-funding multimillionaire (as Jack Ryan was).
Lincoln-Douglas Revisited
Seemingly in Illinois, the secular media and the Democratic Party of Barack Obama are fused. The first assault out of the box on Keyes is the "carpetbagger issue." Yet the founders knew what they were doing when they refused to add a long-term residency requirement to candidates for the U.S. Senate. Illinois has only the provision that a candidate reside within the state by election day, November 2, 2004. Consider not only Hillary Clinton and Robert Kennedy but Texas’ Sam Houston.
Born in Tennessee, Houston served as congressman and governor there, then moved to Texas where he became president when it was a republic and later its senator.
And also Illinois’ most peripatetic second senator, James Semple: Born in Kentucky, he moved to Illinois, then to Missouri, back to Kentucky where he got a law degree, moved back to Illinois where he served as state attorney general, then representative and House Speaker, then to Bogota, Colombia as charge d’affaires, back to Illinois for election as State Supreme Court justice, then to the U.S. Senate.
The criticism of Keyes is not a self-starter.
But even given that Keyes may well lose, due to his late start, why does his campaign engender enthusiasm? Because the candidacy gives the nation’s most articulate defender of life a platform that can work a change on the character of the GOP in Illinois and the nation — and that’s not an exaggeration.
Here the Lincoln-Douglas debates are a stirring example. Abraham Lincoln was by no means the firebrand for abolitionism that Keyes is for life, but in debating Sen. Stephen A. Douglas he stirred the nation’s conscience. Lincoln lost the U.S. Senate election, but went on to national reputation and glory.
In Illinois — it is fair to say — the cause of life now has its greatest opportunity ever to become a front-centered issue.
Keyes For National
Convention Speaker
The fact that the competitors are both African American ensures that race will be taken off the table. The issue will be the cultural swamp that threatens to infest us all. And if the national GOP were astute (about which there is considerable doubt), it would invite Keyes to address its convention to match the keynote speech Obama gave to the Democrats.
That’s why as I wrote last week — when the Keyes opportunity was only a glimmer — I was heartened.
Already Obama is trying to renege on a six-debate pledge he gave Jack Ryan. The media are pushing him to debate Keyes all six times.
To find out more about Alan Keyes’ campaign, go to his web site: www.Keyes2004.com or call 312-756-1766.
1. Obama is discredited for his pro-abort, high tax positions. 2. Keyes cuts through the election rhetoric with incindiary comments that reveal Obama's leftist leanings. 3. ALL conservatives in Illinois register and vote for Keyes.
I'd say Keyes has a 10% chance of winning. Before his nomination, I'd say there was a 0% chance.
Does the website have a transcript of his press conference yesterday? The press coverage in the Chicago papers have him saying something about reparations for descendents of slaves and I'd like see exactly what he said.
Anybody want to place odds on a Bush endorsement?
I think the commentary has a small error: Wasn't Sam Houston BORN in VA, not TN?
What real issues? Abortion and reparations for blacks. Yeah those are the real issues. Barf!! The idiot Keyes is now in favor of reparations. However rather than pay cash, he wants to give blacks freedom from taxes for two generations. Yeah that's a conservative idea. NOT!
250 to 1 AGAINST endorsement. GW is no fool and he doesnt put up with fools like Keyes.
Sam Houston
Birthplace:
Rockbridge County, Virginia
Based upon this site:
http://www.who2.com/samhouston.html
I skimmed through the article and didn't catch anything about reparations.
A Karl Rove endorsement: 0% chance.
A Bush endorsement: 10% chance
If specifically asked in a press conference, President Bush will endorse Keyes.
As much as I like Keyes, as a candidate he's brought up: (1) his support of his version of reparations (in contradiction of his earlier statements); (2) his desire to get rid of the direct election of U.S. Senators.
This isn't mainstream stuff and Keyes is making it easy for the Dems (and the press) to paint him as a wacko. Alan needs to get a grip and only talk about things that can win him the election.
Like reparations?
Watch this issue carefully:
What he said was that, rather than cash payments as reparations, he favored exempting from federal income taxes those who could prove they were descendants of slaves - leaving out for example his opponent Barak Osama.
Now: How many of those who can prove they're the descendants of slaves actually have federal income taxes to pay? And how many instead are receiving "negative taxes" or rather the federal "earned income credit"?
Will the "exemption" from federal taxes mean the end of those federal handouts?
Would that be a bad thing?
You've got to be kidding.
Keyes has plan for reparations
...Prompted by a reporter's question, Keyes gave a brief tutorial on Roman history and said that in regard to reparations for slavery, the U.S. should do what the Romans did: "When a city had been devastated [in the Roman empire], for a certain length of time--a generation or two--they exempted the damaged city from taxation."Keyes proposed that for a generation or two, African-Americans of slave heritage should be exempted from federal taxes--federal because slavery "was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment." In calling for the tax relief, Keyes appeared to be reaching out to capture the black vote, something that may prove difficult to do, particularly after his unwelcome reception at the Bud Billiken Day Parade Saturday.
The former ambassador said his plan would give African-Americans "a competitive edge in the labor market," because those exempted would be cheaper to hire than federal tax-paying employees and would "compensate for all those years when your labor was being exploited."
Under Keyes' plan, African-Americans would still have to pay the Social Security tax, because "it's not a tax in the strict sense," said Keyes, calling it instead a payment to support a social insurance program...
As for our domestic spend-happy compassionate drunken sailor of a President, he's done a hell of a lot worse.
Actually, Keyes doidn't bring this up. The Illinois press printed an article based on comments Keyes made about 5 years ago.
Basically, you mean - if his arm is twisted out of its socket. Yep.
You forgot race.
As we were informed yesterday, Keyes is blacker than Obama.
One of us is, me or Alan Keyes...
So he did bring it up then, right?
Ironically, Obama is the candidate of the racial segregationist. It is not because segregationists want him to be a Senator. It is because he is classified African-American using the standards of racial segregationists.
Obama is called an African–American. However, Obama is half-white. His father, who was black, abandoned him and his mother when he was about two years old. He lived with his white mother and white grandparents.
Considering a mixed race individual an African-American is a typical liberal practice. They routinely refer to anyone who is partially black as black. Tiger Woods, Halle Berry and Mariah Carey are all mixed race celebrities regularly referred to by the liberal media as black. Tiger Woods has had the gall to complain about this. (With good reason; his mother is Asian.)
Ironically, this custom by liberals and Democrats of referring to partially black people as black is simply a reiteration of the old racist, Jim Crow, "one-eighth law." In racist locales, such as segregation-era Louisiana, people with as little as one-eighth African-American ancestry were classified as black. This classification led to dramatic curtailments of freedom. In Missouri and Mississippi, "The marriage of a white person with a negro or mulatto or person who shall have one-eighth or more of negro blood, shall be unlawful and void." Obama is black only by the standards of white segregationists.
By insisting that mixed-race individuals be considered black, Democrats -- the party of the unreconstructed South -- are displaying their segregationist roots.
Obama the candidate is conservative only when addressing a national television audience. Ironically, the oddball Black Commentator magazine is partially correct. Obama is a stealth candidate -- a liberal stealth candidate.
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