August 7, 2004
GIVE THE PEOPLE A CHOICE:
Keyes' candidacy will expose rift within GOP (Kevin McDermott, 08/07/2004, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
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.
Where were the moderates the past few weeks when their party needed a credible Senate candidate? Posted by Orrin Judd at August 7, 2004 10:29 PM
This is going to be great. Keyes has no reason to hold back. he can just tell it like it is. The MSM is going to be in shock.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at August 7, 2004 11:43 PMAs I've commented on other sites, while I'm a great admirer of Alan, and agree with him on a majority of issues, I cannot discern the difference between his running in IL, and the world's most famous carpetbagger, Hillary, running in NY.
Posted by: Mike Daley at August 8, 2004 12:23 AMShe won.
Posted by: oj at August 8, 2004 12:30 AMThe moderates wanted Mike Ditka, but Ditka begged off.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at August 8, 2004 1:34 AMHillary was born in Illinois, so she could have credibly run there had she wanted.
Posted by: AC at August 8, 2004 8:57 AMThe rift in IL party politics is not so much between moderates and conservatives, but between the corrupt and the non-corrupt.
The central committee is dominated by what John Kass calls "the Combine", which is a bipartisan collection of criminals and near criminals who raid the treasury of IL and Chicago for their friends' businesses.
At least two people on the Rep. Central Committee are their because Democrats chose them. (such is the clout of that party here), and the majority of the committee is dedicated to a Democrat winning so that he can replace Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor who is going after "the Combine."
Jim Thompson started, and George Ryan, and to a lesser extent Jim Edgar completed, the transformation of the IL party to a creature of financial plunder run by a cadre of gay activists.
Into this maelstrom, Alan Keyes is thrown. He doesn't stand much of a chance without finding a way to create a coalition of conservative Dems and POC's (pissed off Conservatives).
The problem is that there are too few of them left in the state.
Posted by: BB at August 8, 2004 10:37 AMMetropolitan Chicago should be cordoned off and quarantined in order to stop the liberal madness from infecting the rest of the state.
Posted by: MB at August 8, 2004 12:27 PMThat makes Chicago; Raccoon City (Resident Evil
reference