Gnostical Turpitude: Alan Keyes Returns

August 06, 2004

Alan Keyes Returns

According to The Chicago Tribune, it looks like Alan Keyes is about to accept the Republican Senate nomination here in Illinois. As readers of this blog probably know, the Republican candidate--Jack Ryan--dropped out of the race in June after a series of embarrassing revelations from his divorce case; most of the state's prominent Republicans refused to enter the race against Barack Obama. In the end, state GOP leaders turned to Keyes, a former presidential candidate and Senate nominee Maryland, even though he has a reputation as an extremist and has never lived in Illinois.

Josh Marshall has written the best quick summary of what Keyes is like:

Keyes is something else to watch on the hustings or in a debate. But calling him a master debater is rather like saying Dolly Parton has a dynamite bod or Lou Ferrigno is toned -- or, perhaps mostly aptly, that the Tasmanian Devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoons is quick on his feet. In other words, impressive in his own way, but also a bit cartoonish and rather less than subtle.

If and when these two guys debate what we're going to hear are rants from Keyes -- both spellbinding and inane -- about how tort reform is necessary to bring America back into compliance with natural law, how drug reimportation is incompatible with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and how gun control has been outlawed by God.

Keyes, I think, is making a big mistake. Right now he's often viewed as principled, but a bit loopy; by moving to Illinois to seek office, he'll lose his reputation for having high principles. Moreover, I think that Keyes's reputation won't stand up well under the spotlight of a Senate race. In a weird sense, Keyes's presidential campaigns were a success: they got him just enough support and attention to help him become a well-paid lecturer and talk-show host, but not enough to put his ideas, his background, or his personal life under scrutiny. Newspapers treated him, reasonably enough, as comic relief during a boring campaign, but if he'd ever had a chance of getting more than 5% of the vote in a primary, their tone would have changed dramatically.

This campaign, I'd argue, will be different. When he ran for the Senate in Maryland, Keyes was a low-profile candidate in a low-profile race. When he ran for president, he was an amusing diversion. Now he's a nationally recruited candidate in a high-profile race: no one expects him to come close to winning, but the national media will be paying attention because of Barack Obama's rise to prominence. His recruitment from out-of-state, moreover, will make the Illinois Republican party look really bad, especially when it becomes clear just how nutty he is. No one has ever taken Keyes very seriously, and he'll still have some fans among the country's less discerning voters, but his reputation may now take a turn for the worse.

Posted by Ed at August 6, 2004 03:40 PM

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