As Tony Norman observes,
Four years ago, Alan Keyes told his fellow conservatives to "shove it" when they asked him to run against Hillary Rodham Clinton for U.S. Senate in New York.Or not. Maybe he'll send Hillary an apology.
At the time, Keyes was mired in a neck-and-neck race for last place in the Republican presidential primary and couldn't be bothered with such an impractical ideal. Besides, the offer stunk of tokenism and a transparent stab at affirmative action, two things he's always been against whenever it was convenient.
"I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there," Keyes told the frat boys at Fox News on March 17, 2000. "So I certainly wouldn't imitate it."
...Because Alan Keyes is such a principled man, he'll have no choice but to refuse the Republicans' condescending overture. After all, to run for an office in a state he's never slept in would make him as much a carpetbagger as Hillary Clinton, right?
Update: Keyes has said much more about this issue. It remains to be seen how he'll respond to the charge of political hypocrisy in the name of expediency.
"This must be a terrible feeling," Keyes tells his would-be supporters. "You make a decision based on expediency, and it doesn’t work. And then you are left without expediency and without principle. With nothing. This is sad, I never want to wake up the day after an election or any time else with that emptiness in me, knowing I have given away the things that matter most for the sake of what I thought would win and finding that I have lost and have nothing."And elsewhere:
Keyes concludes that if a person acts from principle, "it doesn't matter how many times I lose because I'm not losing anything. I will carry it home right with me to the grave, until that moment when I look to see whether God approves. And that is all that really matters."I don't imagine God approving hypocrisy.
4 comments:
The Atlantic Monthly ran a short on Obama. The author seemed really emoared (???) with him, finishing with "Indeed Obama has the characteristics of a not just a black politican, but a great one." The tone was also one of, "he can go anywhere." Obama 2020?
You're thinking of "enamored." And even if he doesn't win the election (which is a long shot, at this point), another great Illinoisian* didn't win 'em all, but still became one of our greatest presidents.
*Illinoiser? Illinoiter? Illinoisan? Illinoisican?
Having relatives in Illinois the best way to say it is "lives in Illinois" or "from Illinois." There isn't any point in denoting their "state-inality." Just add an "s" to really piss them off.
And on that tangent...The issue that bakes my knoodle is that for the dwellers of Chicago (that was his state district) it isn't an issue of race--he's advanced good policy, as well as policy that people liked. He's an able politican--not a figurehead, or symbol. At least in the Alan "black conservatives really do exist" Keyes sense.
It smacks of GOP not doing their researching and finding a competent opponent. They are focusing on race as the most important issue--when the real issue is that he's competent. And then black.
I'll add stuff later on the history of effective politicans...
Sounds good--lookin' forward to it. And yeah, it is really smarmy of the Illinois GOP (and goes to show how out-of-touch they are on the "race issue") to think that to win the black vote they have to run a black candidate. Can anyone say, "Bill Clinton"?
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