My initial reaction to the Illinois Republican Party’s selection of Alan Keyes as its Senate candidate was hopeful: If the leadership’s fumbling had made the race unwinnable, at least we could lose in a way that would enhance the chance of victory in future years. What I overlooked was that fools get a reputation for folly, and even their possibly wise decisions are tarnished. John Fund, writing in the OpinionJournal Political Diary (subscription only, but a bargain at $3.95 a month) sums up what I fear is the consensus reaction:
The party has spent six weeks interviewing prospective candidates and last Wednesday decided that not one of Illinois’ three million adults over the age of 30 would do. They offered the nomination to Alan Keyes of Maryland, a radio talk-show host and former diplomat who has never lived in thestate. . . . No doubt the 90-day race will be fun for him as a skilled debater and polemicist. But that doesn’t obscure what a bad decision this is.
In effect, the selection of Mr. Keyes is an admission by the Illinois GOP that only a black person has the moral standing to go up against Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s candidate and its “great black hope.” That’s the worst sort of cave-in to identity group politics.
Secondly, Mr. Keyes himself says that having a Maryland resident parachute into a Senate race in Illinois is “as a matter of principle” not a good idea. Republicans attacked Hillary Clinton for carpet-bagging her way into the 2000 New York Senate race and they appear to be hypocrites for defending having Mr. Keyes do the same thing, with the only major difference being that Mr. Keyes doesn’t have a chance of winning. That makes me wonder all the more whether the Illinois Republican Party deserves to be put into receivership and new management installed.
The charge of a “cave-in the identity group politics” is unfair. The members of the state central committee who pushed for the Keyes selection were the conservative minority, who find the candidate attractive for his opinions and his skill in presenting them, not for the color of his skin. Given the absurdity of the figures who presented themselves as potential nominees, a mixture of crackpots and ego-driven millionaires, turning to an outsider was a desperate but understandable idea. As for hypocrisy, everybody gets to play by the same rules. Hillary Clinton won and thus established a rule that residency really doesn’t matter in Senate contests. The hypocrites are Democrats who argued successfully for that position in New York and now want to turn around and take the opposite tack in Illinois.
What makes John Fund’s view of the situation plausible is that caving in to identity group politics is what one expects from the incompetent GOP establishment. In fact, its alternative, a black woman who had never run for office and whose only past political donations were to Democrats, looked very much like a black-for-the-sake-of-black candidate. There are already signs that the Topinka wing of the party acceded to choosing Ambassador Keyes only reluctantly and will now do its best to undermine him. Today’s Chicago Sun-Times quotes establishment stalwart Kirk Dillard, Jim Edgar’s former chief of staff and now chairman of the DuPage County GOP (who turned down a chance to run for the Senate seat himself), launching multiple complaints about Keyes and promising what sounds like Laodicean support. The same sort of backbiting chased Peter Fitzgerald out of his Senate seat and Jack Ryan out of the race to succeed him.
Receivership and new management? The sooner, the better. If that’s a side effect of the quixotic Keyes bid, the ambassador will deserve hearty thanks from Illinois Republicans.
Further Reading: Hunter Baker, “Keyes In” and “An Off-Keyes McCainiac” (wildly optimistic, but it is obvious that the writer is impressed by Ambassador Keyes’ oratory and couldn’t care less about his race)
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