Tuesday, August 10 2004
THE ALAN KEYES PROJECT: What to say? The Illinois Republican Party richly deserves the scorn that's being heaped upon them for choosing Alan Keyes to run for U.S. Senate. The selection process was like a really bad reality tv show that you couldn't turn off. The race itself isn't going to be much better.

It didn't have to be this way. Republicans missed a golden opportunity to dump the baggage of the last few years and put forward a new, fresh face. Someone who could benefit from the tremendous amount of exposure that comes with a Senate race and someone who could run a credible campaign in an environment where expectations are virtually nonexistent. To use the famous sports analogy, they could have chosen to draft a promising rookie and start rebuilding the franchise.

Instead, the party put forward a carbetbagging political retread in a choice many view as a cynical racial maneuver in addition to offering a candidate that may be even less electable than a political no-name. Mike Murphy is right, the choice of Keyes is "likely to set the already tattered Illinois Republican party back at least another five years."

In addition to the embarrassing fact that the GOP couldn't find (or chose not to field) a reasonable candidate from their own ranks in Illinois, in Keyes they've selected someone who isn't particularly well-suited to the state ideologically.

Illinois now a consistently Democratic-trending state - thanks in part to the continued incompetence of Republicans but also to the Democrats' ability (led by Bill Clinton) to make deep inroads over the last few years in the ever-expanding suburbs. A firebrand like Alan Keyes isn't going to win back the votes of these people, he's going to scare the pants off them.

Yesterday Keyes provided a good example of what I'm talking about:

Up at dawn for a whirlwind round of broadcast interviews, the conservative former diplomat started his first full day of campaigning as the GOP candidate by saying Obama, a state senator from Chicago, had violated the principle that all men are created equal by voting against a bill that would have outlawed a form of late-term abortion

Keyes said legalizing abortion deprives the unborn of their equal rights.

"I would still be picking cotton if the country's moral principles had not been shaped by the Declaration of Independence," Keyes said. He said Obama "has broken and rejected those principles-- he has taken the slaveholder's position."

Put aside your own personal feelings about abortion for a moment and slip into the mindset of a moderate or independent voter. Is this language going to persuade you to vote for Alan Keyes?

Morally, Keyes makes a strong argument for the right of the unborn. Tactically, his use of language is self defeating. A smart politician would frame Keyes "outside the mainstream", which is exactly what Barack Obama did yesterday.

Think about this for a minute: Obama, a man whose position is that you should legally be able to kill a baby up until the moment its head starts poking out of the womb, is able to cast his opponent as the one who is "outside of the mainstream." It's preposterous.

But Obama is able to get away with portraying himself as moderate because Alan Keyes is so ridiculously over the top. Keyes uses a blow torch when a scalpel will do. The question Keyes should pose to Obama is a simple one: How can you reconcile the view that killing a baby 5 minutes before it exits the womb is a "woman's choice" but 5 minutes after is "murder?"

No drama, no theatrics, no distracting rhetoric. Just a simple question that highlights a stark choice and points out the glaring moral and legal inconsistencies of Obama's position.

A THING OF THE PAST: As usual, The Belmont Club hits the nail on the head with regard to the War on Terror:

The geographical scope of the struggle is staggering: pursuit across the Arabian peninsula, North Africa, Southwest Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. The instruments of struggle are equally various. Defensive security, diplomatic pressure, covert operations, bilateral training, special operations and conventional combat. An old world is being torn down and a new one -- for better or worse -- is being created "in a fit of absentmindedness". The failure by the Left to articulate an alternative vision of a post-September 11 world except in the negative has banished what should have been the most momentous public policy debate of the last 50 years into the outer dark. By declaring discussion of the transformation of the world illegitimate and then only belatedly presenting a Presidential candidate whose countervision consists of a "secret" but unstated plan, liberals have effectively left matters in the hands of President Bush. It is a staggeringly reactionary performance and a fundamentally unhealthy one. Because the one certain thing is that the antebellum world, the universe of September 10, can never be restored. The Clinton era, like the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, has been borne into the past.

Meanwhile, John Kerry's position on Iraq gets curiouser and curiouser. Now he's saying he would still have voted to authorize the use of force had he known at the time that WMD did not exist.

It's another step closer to Bush, one which Kerry wants to use to blur the central distinction between the two men: as President Kerry would not have put boots on the ground in Iraq under any circumstances. Period.

It's also probably worth noting that Kerry is now setting a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The AP story says "Kerry's aim would be to pull out a large number of the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq in the first six months of his administration." I'm sure terrorists everywhere are marking their calendars.

We know a large contingent of troops will have to remain in Iraq for some time to come. We also have no assurances from France, Germany or anyone else that allied forces will replace U.S. troops to ensure the safety and stability of Iraq, only the wishful word of a man running to be president.

"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED": General Tommy Franks says it was his idea. Hmm. You mean it wasn't that dastardly, bungling Karl Rove exploiting the war for political purposes? Nope. Just a President doing a favor for the guy commanding the troops. - T. Bevan 8:25 am Link | Email | Send to a Friend