As A Senate Candidate…Keyes Will Force Debate On The Real Issues

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

And if the 1% rabid 'Bush isnt good enough for us' folks were to get their way - President Al Gore would not have responded to 9/11 as Bush did, would not have taken the fight to the enemy, would not have cut taxes to restore the post-bubble economy.

WE cannot AFFORD to be complacent about how bad Kerry and his gang could be on both national security AND values issues AND his willingness to be a radical tax-hiking tax-and-spend President.

And the list of Bush conservative accomplishments is too long not to notice.

I was so sure that we were going to see change on the domestic front having control of 2 branches of government."

As long a there are 41+ Democrats in the Senate, we dont fully control the legislative branch. dont forget that!!

Every single example of more spending v less spending - the Democrats are on the tax-and-spend-more side ... oh, except when it come to supporting the troops in war.

worrying about the budget when we are in a war is imho misplaced.

Bush has fixed many regulatory problems and other problems along the way. He's fixed law enforcement and homeland security, is transforming the military and has transformed
education accountability.

Can we do more, much more? You bet. we ave proposals by Bush admin to make tax cuts permanent and to permanently CAP SPENDING. Stop growing the Government! Bush proposed that in January ... And before you get bent out of shape about spending in the last 4 years, consider the new challenges in the war on terror and the fact that with more military spending and with 'no child left behind' Bush was keeping promises he made in 2000. Although Clinton left our military in weaker state than it should have been, 'balancing' the budget by mainly cutting army divisions, we managed to persevere with the military and restore our capability and win two wars.

it's real simple on tax-and-spend:
Kerry wants to cut the deficit in half - by increasing taxes
Bush wants to cut the deficit in half - by restraining spending

Which is better?

lol ... the media is falling for the Keyes trap!! Look, any publicity is good right now for Keyes, the more the media covers his 'controversial' notions, the more he becomes known as the conservative alternative. Keyes' needs the highest profile possible and he knows how to get it.

"Real politicians learn how to take the press questions and give them the answer they want, rather "

* yawn * press will print that kind of bland evasiveness on page 41, ignored news, end of story.

1%? Don't use hyperbole to make your point.

Yes, if Gore had won the 2000 election it would have been a disaster. He would have served as an example to the rest of the country that we should NEVER elect a bleeding heart enviro-wacko liberal to the Whitehouse ever again and we would be coasting to a Republican presidential victory right now no matter who we put up. Instead, Bush is neck and neck in the polls with a leftwing lying Vietnam hero wannabe because he's pissed off a lot more than the "rabid" 1% you claim.

BTW, the war and 41+ Dems in the Senate causing trouble is no excuse for all of Bush's domestic largesse, endorsing moderate/liberal candidates, signing unconstitutional legislation, lack of serious border control, making it hard for pilots to carry weapons, working with Kennedy to draft "No Child Left Behind", and on and on...

The things you cite as Bush accomplishments would have been accomplished by any TRUE conservative. A TRUE conservative would have at least wielded the veto pen some of the time.

If Bush wins, I hope we see the things you predict. I won't hold my breath. And in 4 years I hope I never hear the phrase "compassionate conservative" again.

"He would have served as an example to the rest of the country that we should NEVER elect a bleeding heart enviro-wacko liberal to the Whitehouse ever again"

Didnt Clinton serve as enough of a reminder?

Do you really think Gore would be heading for defeat today?

How do you know? He might have gotten the lamestream media to cover his crimes and aid the demonization of the remaining Conservatives out there..

"and we would be coasting to a Republican presidential victory right now no matter who we put up."

Yeah, so why didnt we win in 1996????

You seem to misunderestimate what we (including Bush) are up against.

"The things you cite as Bush accomplishments would have been accomplished by any TRUE conservative. "

which is my point. I'm not saying he's a pure bred conservative, but he has done MANY GOOD THINGS. Even just signing the partial birth abortion ban, and standing up against kyoto and ICC is worth re-election. That is just 3 out of 100 pro-conservative things he's done.

the fact that he is 80% good and done 20% things that are frustrating to conservatives shouldnt blind you to how GOOD we've got it with him. ... let me ask you - X

From how I count, GWBush is the SECOND-BEST PRESIDENT of my lifetime:

Reagan
George W Bush
G H W Bush
Gerald Ford
Nixon
Clinton
LBJ
Carter

that's my order ... and I fully expect kerry to be QUITE WORSE THAN EVEN THE LYING CLINTON WAS, perhaps as bad as Carter. HOW OFTEN DO YOU EXPECT TO GET A PRESIDENT ALMOST AS GOOD AS REAGAN?

The choice between 2nd best and 2nd worst ... is it really that hard to pull the lever for Bush?

Last point, barely touched on:

Let's grant your point that Bush is a bigger spender than you or I would like. He is trying to pander

That still leaves two huge issues:
- Global war on terror
- Values, marriage, pro-life, etc.

Kerry wins = media and activist judges takes it as green light for gay marriage. We will be impotent to stop it,
and kerry will appoint 4 justices who will, like the Mass supreme court, do for America what that court did for massachusetts.

there is no way a constitutional amendment will pass, because 40 Democrat senators are in hock to gay rights community.

what holds for gay marriage holds for abortion as well.
Kerry win means both will be called 'constitutional rights' by a left-wing Supreme Court.

GAME OVER.

If you want to save marriage, you have to save the courts from the liberal activists. The only way to do that is to make sure Bush wins.

Bush has been very solid on his judicial nominations.

You're doing a great job pointing out the 40% (you say 80%) that I agree he's done right. (Let's not quibble about percentages.) And he's second best in a long line of Bozos (excluding Reagan). But if the American Conservative Union rated Presidents, Bush would rate far worse then a lot of the current crop of Representatives and Senators.

As much as we like to point out the Democrats are NOT voting for Kerry as much as they are voting AGAINST Bush, true conservatives are resigned to do the same - vote against Kerry. Many here at the FreeRepublic are gung-ho Bush for no other reason then he's all we got. I understand that and I don't begrudge them...or you.

This doesn't mean I don't want to see Bush re-elected. I just can't get excited about it. At the very least I hope it's an excruciatingly tight race where Bush comes out looking like Joe Frazier after the first Ali/Frazier fight. How else are we going to force politicians to experience consequences for their transgressions? I'll do my part by sitting this one out.

During the Presidential debates I'll be thinking about you when I hear both Kerry AND Bush argue about who'll spend more on this, that, and the other federal program.

You may have the last word. I'm done.

"But if the American Conservative Union rated Presidents, Bush would rate far worse then a lot of the current crop of Representatives and Senators. "

And if this were a primary fight, that might be relevent, but the real apples to apples comparison I said is with President v President... There are plenty of great Consrvative leaders (eg DeLay) that are simply unelectable. Now, the irony is that Kerry is a FAR LEFT as we have people to the RIGHT, and yet this FAR LEFTIST may win!!! Do you know why? A MAJORITY of voters dont even think he is liberal!!

do you dispute my rating GWB as the second-best President to Reagan? Ahead of his Dad? (who btw is not a bozo).

GW Bush has had the most significant tax cuts since 1981 under Reagan, something GHW Bush 41 never did. And Bush has made controversial and *correct* calls on social issues that are miles ahead of any previous President, especially vs Clinton.

"Many here at the FreeRepublic are gung-ho Bush for no other reason then he's all we got."

I am gung-ho on Bush not just for the tax cuts, but because Bush has done the right thing on the war on terror - liberating Afghanistan and Iraq, going after the terrorists where they are, so the fight is on their turf, no ours, taking out 2/3rds of Al Qaeda and removing 2 odious regimes.

I am gung-ho about replacing liberal activist judges with conservative juges who practice judicial restraint.

And I am gung-ho about a president who wants to make the pro-growth tax cuts permanent, and who will certainly be less of a tax-and-spender as his opponent.

There are plenty of positive reasons to be excited and pleased with Bush. There are certainly issues to lobby him and the administration on when he is re-elected. I know they will listen. I know that Kerry and his band of brother socialists will not.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040513-8.html

"During the Presidential debates I'll be thinking about you when I hear both Kerry AND Bush argue about who'll spend more on this, that, and the other federal program."

Last word comment, to clarify my points:
1. Most of budget policy is set in Congress anyway
2. Kerry is worse than Bush on this issue (Kerry's ACU rating is near 0%)
3. Even if we granted a "tie" between Bush and Kerry on this spending issue (I dont but for the sake of argument), the fact remains: There is lot more at stake this election than how big the federal budget is on certain programs.

In fact there is more at stake - our nation's security and the success in Iraq and the war on terror; the future of the courts; the future of marriage and protection of the unborn; pro-growth vs anti-growth tax policies - than in any election in recent times.

If you're vote were to determine whether Bush or Kerry were to be President, would you or any informed Conservative really having *any doubt* who is better?

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.

This is what the campaign is all about.

Let the debates begin. Soon!

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