Picking up the Keyes to the Senate

So the Illinois GOP convinced Alan Keyes to run against Barack Obama for Peter Fitzgerald's soon-to-be-vacated Senate seat. I can just imagine how those meetings went.

"Do we have any black guys who could run against Obama?"
"Black guys? What are you, kidding? This is the Republican Party, man. The GOP: Gentlemen Of Pallor only."
"Come on, there's gotta be somebody."
"Well, who was that black guy who ran for President the last couple of times? Short fella, talked a lot."
"Alan somebody."
"Keyes. Alan Keyes."
"Yeah, him. Could we get him?"
"I dunno. Is he even from Illinois?"
"No, I think he's from Maryland or someplace."
"Who cares? He's like the only black Republican anyone's ever seen since Sammy Davis Jr. kissed Dick Nixon."
"What the heck. Give him a call."

The ironies of the Keyes for Senator from Illinois campaign are almost too numerous to mention, but let's tick off a few, shall we?

1. Keyes royally ripped Hillary Clinton on his then-extant talk show for carpetbagging her way into New York's junior Senate seat. In fact, just last week when asked his opinion about possibly running for public office in a state where he's never lived, Keyes said, "I don't think it's a good idea." Hmm..."happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves."


2. Keyes is fond of preaching the gospel of personal responsibility, but he still owes half a million dollars from his two abortive Presidential campaigns, plus more than seven grand in unpaid income taxes in Maryland. He's already saying he's going to rely on the GOP, and GOP voters, to bankroll his campaign. Way to take responsibility, Alan.


3. Keyes routinely lambastes affirmative action, but here he is taking a nomination that he's only being offered because the Republicans want a black candidate to divide the vote. I think that's the Clarence Thomas "it's only affirmative action if it helps some other black person beside me" defense.


4. Keyes talks a good game — he's been the Republicans' most interesting and engaging candidate the past two Presidential campaigns, and seems like a decent guy — but he's never actually run anything. He's a Harvard PhD who's mostly lived on the taxpayers' ticket his entire adult life, as a Foreign Service officer, an ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and a State Department official.


5. Keyes has never held elective office; in addition to his two quixotic Presidential runs, he's twice run for and lost Senate seats in Maryland. The last time, he caught major flak when it came out that he was paying himself a salary out of the campaign kitty, which isn't illegal but isn't especially ethical.

Let's not forget that the reason the Repubs need a fresh candidate in the first place is because their previous golden boy, Jack Ryan, aka Mr. Seven of Nine, got outed by his TV-star ex-wife, whom he apparently tried to persuade to have public sex at swingers' clubs. Yeah, that sounded pretty conservative to me, too.

Of course, I'm a Californian, so neither Obama nor Keyes has any real reason to care what I think. But as I've written previously, I believe Barack Obama has a future on the national stage, and when he gets there, I'll certainly consider voting for him. Alan Keyes? He's a pretty good talk show host, from what I hear.