Alan Keyes

[CatholicforChrist]

I do not live in Illinois, but I saw part of the debate between Alan Keyes and Obama tonight. Did anyone else see this? Does anyone know the odds of Keyes's chances? It was amazing the way he brought so many issues into the realm of morality and Catholic teaching, but I fear for him among the liberal voters and even the mostly secular "conservatives". Does anyone live in Illinois who can vote? What are the polls saying about this race?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I haven't been watching much and an a Nebraskan, but as I understand it, Obama has been way ahead since the start...

[CatholicforChrist]

That is what I have seen from my online research. On Keyes's website he states that the he has gotten into a dead heat in the "collar counties" in Illinois, Obama leading 47-46. These counties, the website reports, are generally more liberal and were not supposed to give Keyes much support, hence the name. These counties are 20% of the vote. There has been a 20-30 point increase to Keyes since earlier polls. This is all reported on his website in a recent article dated October 19, titled "Keyes closing in on Obama". I have seen an entire group called "Republicans for Obama" that are "embarassed" of Keyes. It is pitiful. Apparently, early on, there was an estimate that 35% of Republicans would vote for Obama. Apparently this number has decreased greatly. Hopefully the debates will aid Keyes.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='CatholicforChrist' date='Oct 22 2004, 02:28 AM'] On Keyes's website he states that the he has gotten into a dead heat in the "collar counties" in Illinois, Obama leading 47-46. These counties, the website reports, are generally more liberal and were not supposed to give Keyes much support, hence the name. [/quote]
I live in Chicago, I saw the debate, and I am proud of the way Keyes handled himself. He almost convinced me on some of the issues I didn't agree with him on.

On the train ride into work this morning, I read the Tribune's report on the debate, and I was extremely disappointed. All they focused on was the exchange about religion. They wrote NOTHING about the intellegent exchange regarding Iraq. And I have yet to hear the reaction about Obama's performance - most of the time, he was stuttering, but when Bush was unpolished and nervous, that was the talk of the town and contributed to the perception that Kerry won.

Pollwise, the latest I've heard is that Obama is leading 68-25 (roughly).

And the "collar counties" are traditionally Republican, although Democrats are making inroads.

[BLAZEr]

Keyes has been a huge disappointment in this race. Not only has he shot himself in the foot time and time again, it still evades me why the Illinois Republican Party thought it could pull Alan Keyes from Maryland Obscurity and thrust him into a senate race in the most liberal Midwest state in the country.

Keyes needs to learn to crawl before he can walk. He's gone about this race all wrong. What a disappointment.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='BLAZEr' date='Oct 22 2004, 09:46 AM'] it still evades me why the Illinois Republican Party thought it could pull Alan Keyes from Maryland Obscurity and thrust him into a senate race in the most liberal Midwest state in the country.
[/quote]
That's because all the pro-life Republicans in Illinois (except for Oberweis, who would have been hit as racist due to his anti-immigration views) didn't want to run. So, it became either:

1) Someone who would be hit as racist due to vocal anti-immigration views;
2) Someone who is pro-abortion;
3) Look for someone else

Funny thing.....the state GOP chairwoman, who is not enthusiastic about Keyes, uses the same veterinarian as me....we chatted briefly last week in the waiting room, as she had an appointment following me. Politics never came up, though.

[the protector]

Alan Keyes has become one of the biggest jokes in recent political history. Frankly, he has a better chance of becoming the next American Idol. What goes through his head?

"Gee, I really want to win this election. What should I do? I know!! I will push my borderline fundamentalist ideology on the masses. I will call the VP's daughter a hedonist, even though my own religion teaches me that judgement is in God's hands. I will say that Christ wouldn't vote for my opponent. Of course, I haven't me him before.

Yes, that should do it!

Hopefully, there will be enough people out their with plenty of religious guilt who will vote for me.

Nine babies for every family!"

He is going to be laughed out of this race, and I will be there to point at him.

[Mr. Cube]

Keyes has no chance at all.
[list]
[*]He doesn't even live in Illinois.
[*]He has less campaign money than Obama.
[*]While the Republicans were looking for a new candidate, Obama was already campaigning.
[*]He called Johnsonville brat Cheney's lesbian daughter a selfish hedonist.
[*]He supports reparations for slavery.
[*]He doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut (see above).
[/list]

[Oik]

I think you are going about this all wrong. If Keyes loses, he does. Homosexuality is a hedonist lifestyle, I should know, my Mom civilly divorced my Dad to live with her lover. And actually, Senator Keyes was asked a question, and that was his response, so it was not an out and out accusation.

Money, who cares? Who cares where he lives? If the Republicans won't support him, they is shooting themselves in the foot.

I support reparations for slaver, so what? I also support reparations for Native Americans. Why are these bad.

Alan Keyes is an eloquent, learned and intelligent speaker. He is passionate debator. It is a sham that more politicians are more worried about playing the game. They have a lot to learn from Keyes.

As for the issues, see above, Norsemans post.

[Mateo el Feo]

Just a quick note: I have been a huge fan of Alan Keyes. I've always thought his speaking ability is second to none and that he's incredibly articulate and passionate.

I listened to the entire Obama/Keyes debate. Unfortunately, I think the debate with Obama was abysmal. Obama's clear objective was to act like a centrist (something he is not) and treat Keyes like a right-wing extremist. Keyes neither significantly challenged the false claim of "Obama the centrist" nor did he defend his own position very well. In fact, his own answers were often off-topic...and Obama called him on it every time.

It seemed as if either (1) Keyes had resigned himself to a loss and was just using the debate as a platform to get his message out, or (2) he just ain't too good at one-on-one debate. I would be surprised if it were the latter, because he often fields questions when he gives live speeches.

I sat through the debate thinking, "Boy, doesn't Keyes see a way to word his position in a way that is both uncompromising to his principles and more palatable to the audience?"

One problem is that Keyes' positions included not only anti-abortion/pro-life, but also the slavery reparations stuff and the flat sales-tax thing. So Obama had plenty of ammunition to use against Keyes.

In the end, I was just shaking my head in disappointment.

Just my thoughts...

[Oik]

Obama is well-liked and a democrat. He did not come off as anything other than a pretty face, well-liked, easy-going and medium-minded.

I have seen too much of people in this round of election focus on apprearance. I believe keyes did well, but that's just me. Unfortunatly, people want rockstar politicians nowadays and not the type of politicians that would firmly and strongly lead this country.

[Mr. Cube]

Homosexuality is a hedonist lifestyle, but if I remember correctly, the line of questioning was something like, "What do you think of homosexuality?" "It's a selfish hedonist lifestyle." "So you think the vice president's daughter is a selfish hedonist?" "Yes." Come on, he's running for senate, he should've thought ahead.

I would never repay you, Oik, for slavery, because you were never a slave, at least in America before the civil war. That being said, I wouldn't vote against him for publicly supporting reparations for slavery, because I don't think he'll do anything about it. It just makes him look like a crackpot or a panderer to the black vote.

Everyone I've talked to in person thinks it's a strike against Alan Keyes that he doesn't live in Illinois, as do I.

Money does matter, because it costs money to run a campaign.

In my opinion the republican party has already shot itself in the foot.

I'm writing in Jack Ryan.

[Oik]

Hey, I don't live in Illinois. If I did, I'd vote Keyes. As it is, if you don't vote Keyes, your going to vote in Obama. The reality is, you guys need to be really careful, your state is pushing Democrat and Obama is the poster child for the future of the Democratic party. I don't think voters are thinking about what is at stake.

Obama wants to get rid of the Electoral College. Keyes doesn't.

What is at stake here is the Republic. America is dangerously approaching a Democratic form of govenment.

Next stop, Immorality and Holland!

I don't want this and the Democratic party is going to take us there. That is what is at stake. Please consider that.

[Oik]

Also, Keyes has said he will live in Illinois and Obama said he did know where his residence will be.

[Socrates]

Alan Keyes is about the only political candidate out there who speaks the truth on things, without regard to whether it's what people want to hear. This may hurt his political chances, but Keyes is a prophet of the truth. (Though I strongly disagree with him on slaver reparations!)

We need more people like him and fewer spineless, [color=red][Edited by Kilroy the Ninja: Donkey loving(?)][/color] politicians!

Edited October 29, 2004 by Kilroy the Ninja

[Iacobus]

Keyes is down in the polls by over 30 points. He was down by at least 20 points when he 1st came up and never made any headway.

IL is a fun state, of course I am partial. Most of the people are moderate in every sense of the word. I think it was the Sun Times that said when the endorsed Obama that they do not agree with some of his left leaning views and his views on Iraq (note: the same paper endorsed Bush, if I am not mistaken). However, on Keyes they said, "is too far to the right wing to apeal to any IL voters."

Keyes was a mistake by far in a centre of the road state. Maybe they will learn when IL has two Democratic senators.

[immaculata]

What I don't get is... why Illinois? He stands no chance against Democratic Chicago (which should be it's own state anyways )

[immaculata]

A friend of mine emailed this to me.. Sorry I don't have time to remove all the little arrows.

This is part of an article from the Chicago Sun Times (Aug. 22, 2004). I edited the first part to focus more on Alan Keyes faith. I also wanted to shorten it. Jean
>
> ALAN KEYES
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Age: 54
> Raised: Roman Catholic
> Now: Roman Catholic
> Attends: Our Lady of the Visitation in Darnestown, Md., and a parish
> to be announced in Calumet City
> Words to live by: "I rather want people to think God is on their
side,
> because that means they know he's watching them."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Born in a New York military hospital in 1950 while his father was serving
in
> Korea, Keyes describes himself as an "Army brat." Along with his sister
and
> three brothers, he was raised on military bases across the United States,
> and, for a time, in Italy.
>
> His parents, Alison and Gerthina, both now deceased, were converts to
Roman
> Catholicism.
>
> Keyes says his first concept of what God is like is inextricably bound to
> Catholicism.
>
> "My earliest idea that I remember was Jesus Christ, he was my idea of what
> God was like," he says. "When you grow up Catholic, I remember being
> encouraged to think of Jesus as your friend. Just a friend, like the
friends
> you had on the playground, or in school. And I can remember that that was
a
> part of my developing thought life when I was a child, having
conversations
> with Jesus in my head, as if he were one of my playmates. . . . He was a
> child, just like me."
>
> And now what does he think God is like?
>
> "He's grown up," Keyes, who is married with three children, says, busting
> out in a belly laugh. "He's grown up. And I hope, I've grown up a bit. But
I
> think that depth of it hasn't changed. We go through 'times.' We advance,
we
> retreat, we struggle, we wrestle."
>
> Keyes insists his faith has remained fairly constant throughout his life,
> though there were times when he says he felt more distant from his faith
> than he does today.
>
> "I think the Bible is right [when] it says that you raise up a child in
the
> way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it," Keyes
> says, paraphrasing a passage from the 22nd chapter of the Biblical book of
> Proverbs. "That obviously implies -- doesn't it? -- a kind of gap. There's
> something in youth that somehow implies that people do depart from it a
> little bit. But if you raise them in the way they should go, then the
roots
> take over again. And one returns."
>
> When he was a doctoral student in the late 1970s at Harvard working on his
> dissertation about constitutional theory, Keyes says, he struggled a bit
> spiritually.
>
> "When you're a graduate student, you go through your ups and downs and
> sometimes you hit really great lows. Some people, as a result of that,
give
> up and they never reach their degree," he recalls. "At a moment of crisis
> for me -- I'll never forget -- I was feeling just that low, sort of
> thinking, 'I've been working at it and I'm never going to finish and it's
> just hopeless.'
>
> "I called my mom, and that conversation, in which she really did nothing
but
> listen to me and remind me that I'd gotten through different things in my
> life through faith -- sparked an experience I still remember," he says,
his
> voice breaking with emotion. "And it transformed my sense of what my faith
> meant to me."
>
> He received his Ph.D. in government from Harvard in 1979. He also earned
his
> undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1972.
>
> Keyes describes a mild crisis of faith that had grown alongside his
> intellectual pursuits.
>
> "In American academics, it's difficult to be a person of faith. There's a
> certain kind of patronizing, a sense of, 'Oh, you'll grow out of it,' " he
> says.
>
> "So you begin to push your faith into the background, and maybe not really
> want to show it and so forth and so on. You start to doubt whether or not
> you are being intellectually honest if you are relying on premises of
> faith."
>
> It's a conundrum Keyes seems to have resolved with a vengeance.
>
> The word became flesh
>
>
>
> Keyes would never make himself out to be some sort of Biblical scholar,
but
> when it comes to Scripture, he knows what he's talking about.
>
> He reads Greek -- he travels with a laptop loaded with Bible software,
> including a copy of the Septuagint, the Greek version of Hebrew
> Scriptures -- and can wax eloquent at length about the etymology of
certain
> words and how they correspond to theological principles.
>
> "I try to read or think about some element of the Bible every day," he
says,
> leaning back in his office chair, and propping his feet up on the desk.
>
> When asked what portion of the Bible he most enjoys reading, he says,
> without hesitation, "Genesis."
>
> "I often tell people that my greatest problem in the Bible is that in any
> serious way I've never been able to get past Genesis," he says, chuckling.
> "Now, I have read the whole Bible and I read other books, but what I mean
is
> the book that I keep going back to over and over again is Genesis.
>
> "For the longest time, I was really going back over and over again,
thinking
> and writing about, the creation myths, because it seemed to me that
there's
> an enormous depth of kind of philosophical implication," he says.
>
> In addition to his Biblical studies, Keyes is a philosophy buff.
>
> "People will think this is strange I suppose, but . . . there are books
like
> Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Hegel's Logic and things like that, and
> every once in a while I get hit by this mood and I have to wrestle with
> these books that are very abstract and that are kind of philosophy in the
> viewless realms where you are really dealing with concepts that have no
> corresponding material images or anything to go along with it," he says,
> excitedly. "You just have to go with pure concepts to think about things.
> And I think, in the sense of that kind of philosophical thinking,
meditation
> and reasoning, Genesis is an enormously powerful experience."
>
> This launches Keyes into a 20-minute discussion of what he describes as
his
> latest "breakthrough" in examining a portion of Biblical text.
>
> Specifically, the candidate says for four or five months he had been
> reading, re-reading and picking apart several dozen verses from the 4th,
5th
> and 6th chapters of Genesis, beginning with one of those "begat" passages.
>
> So and so, son of so and so, begat so and so, father of so and so, who
> begat.. ..
>
> These particular begat passages start with a descendant of Cain, the son
of
> Adam and Eve who murders his brother Abel, and end with Noah -- the fellow
> with the ark.
>
> With an almost childlike enthusiasm, Keyes recounts how he traced the
> lineage of Noah and the descendants of Cain, examined the ancient roots of
> certain words, and learned, according to his interpretation, that God's
> covenant with Noah after the flood included the institution of capital
> punishment for the first time.
>
> "It's fascinating, don't you think?" Keyes asks, smiling broadly, when
he's
> concluded an exegesis of the text that, at least in its methodology, would
> give any seminary professor or preacher a serious run for his money.
>
> A boundless sorrow
>
>
>
> Keyes could be a preacher, a Biblical scholar, or professional apologist
for
> Christ. But instead, he's chosen to enter the secular political realm.
>
> Why choose a field that can so often obfuscate faith?
>
> It's a question, apparently, that moves Keyes to tears.
>
> His eyes turn red, he stops talking for several minutes, stares at the
> ceiling, drums his fingers on the desk, and apologizes for his loss of
> composure.
>
> After several attempts to begin speaking, only to have his voice crack
with
> emotion, Keyes tries again to explain what he's feeling.
>
> "I'm sorry, I'm getting a grip," he says, eyes red with tears. "When I was
> young, I encountered a problem, I guess. A challenge. And I guess it was
an
> encounter that disillusioned me, yes, in the literal sense. And that was
my
> first encounter with the reality -- intellectually and emotionally . . ."
he
> pauses again, his voice trailing off for a few moments. " . . . Of what
the
> slave experience meant to my ancestors. And I think I've been working that
> out ever since.''
>
> When pressed to explain just what this "encounter" was, Keyes reveals that
> it was, in fact, an intellectual incident.
>
> When he was about 15, he read Lerone Bennett's book Before the Mayflower:
A
> History of the Negro in America, 1619-1964. And it broke his heart, he
says.
>
> "It's sorrow," he says, explaining why 40 years later he's still so
> emotional about something he read as a teenager. "It's not a sorrow for
> yourself, it's not a sorrow for individuals, it's a sorrow for the reality
> of our kind of sad experience . . . of life without God."
>
> And it's that sorrow and outrage that in part has led him into politics,
> Keyes says.
>
> "It's a problem of justice and to understand it and resolve it somehow is
> not an intellectual exercise. You have to meet the challenge of it in your
> own time and life. And at some level, that's what politics remains at its
> heart, in America," he explains.
>
> "It's impossible to be a Christian and really live out your relationship
> with God apart from life and action," he says. "And that action requires
> that you kind of be aware of and sensitive to how in fact the injustice
that
> was involved in slavery is like one of those difficult plants where you
cut
> off what appears on the surface but the root is still there. And it
springs
> up again in another place, in what seems like another form, but it is the
> same evil. It's the same root."
>
> Christus victor?
>
>
>
> So, what did he mean, exactly, back at that podium in Arlington Heights,
> when he exclaimed that "the victory is for God"?
>
> Was he saying God is on his side -- the side of the righteous -- and not
on
> that of his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, a man who professes the
same
> Christian faith?
>
> "Well, professing is the operative word," Keyes says, in a moment of
> snarkiness conspicuously absent from the rest of the interview.
>
> "I thought it was pretty clear. Maybe it wasn't," he says, reflecting on
his
> acceptance speech a few days earlier. "What I meant by it was the victory
is
> in God's hands for his will and decision. That's why I couldn't promise it
> to people. I might lose. I don't know. None of us knows.
>
> "The notion that you can stand there and say, 'Rah! We're gonna win!' I
know
> you're supposed to do that, but I find it very difficult to say stuff that
I
> know, even if it's rhetorical, is not true," he says.
>
> Keyes is puzzled by the idea that some people would be afraid of the
notion
> of "God on our side."
>
> "I rather want people to think God is on their side, because that means
they
> know he's watching them, and that his rules still apply to what they do,"
he
> says, smiling. "I hope that's the result."
>
> "I often tell people that my greatest problem in the Bible is that in any
> serious way I've never been able to get past Genesis. Now, I have read the
> whole Bible and I read other books, but what I mean is the book I keep
going
> back to over and over again is Genesis."
>
>