The Illinois Leader and the Chicago Sun-Times are reporting that the Republican candidate for Peter Fitzgerald’s Senate seat will be either Alan Keyes or Andrea Grubb Barthwell. The former is an ex-U.N. ambassador, ex-television show host and permanent political gadfly who doesn’t live in Illinois, the latter an unknown federal bureaucrat who, as soon as her interest in the position became known, was preemptively attacked for “sexual harassment” (consisting of evidently good-natured, though risqué, remarks to a homosexual colleague).
By any rational political calculus, neither Ambassador Keyes nor Dr. Barthwell has a chance of finishing within 20 points of Barack Obama, whom media adulation and astonishing luck have elevated to superstar status. (If you’re interested in where the state’s next Senator stands on issues of national importance, you won’t find out by reading the Tribune, though the Obama Truth Squad is struggling to fill the gap.)
Virtually inevitable defeat stems not from the candidates but from the circumstances. The bumbling state GOP leadership, from either panic or less creditable motives, drove Jack Ryan out of the race, then searched for a replacement with all the adroitness and grace of Inspector Clouseau tracking down suspects. They reached the end of the farce today, when the state central committee interviewed 13 prospects at the Union League Club, some of them eccentrics, the rest mostly millionaires promising to throw their own cash into the losing cause. Egotism is a great redistributor of wealth.
The committee’s decision displayed, for the first time since this sorry affair began, a trace of astuteness. If it isn’t possible to win, one can at least lose strategically. It remains to be seen whether Judy Baar Topinka & Co., having mismanaged everything else, will comprehend the reasoning behind the strategy.
It does not lie in fielding a black candidate against the part-black Obama. Blacks are not going to start giving Republican candidates a chance just because the party occasionally runs somebody of their own ethnicity. What is needed is a black candidate who can make the case for black conservatism, who will explain forthrightly, over and over again, why conservative policies are better for the black community than failed liberal nostrums. The effect won’t be instantaneous, but every journey begins with a single step.
For that step to be the start of a useful journey, rather than a random jog, two conditions have to be met. The first is, obviously, a candidate who can explain conservatism forcefully and clearly. The second is attention to the black media. As one observer recently noted:
[I]t’s not uncommon for radio stations that serve black residents to reach two-thirds of them in a given week. One-quarter of black voters watch Black Entertainment Television daily; more than 60% tune in at least weekly.
Democratic operatives saturate this minority media with a campaign of negativity and misinformation that would make Michael Moore blush. Republicans are cross-burners who want to put a semiautomatic in little Jamal’s hands and take money way from little LaWanda’s public school. For fun on weekends, Republicans drag black men to their death behind pickup trucks with Confederate flags attached to the rear bumper. Republicans want to racially profile blacks, incarcerate them in high numbers and disenfranchise as many as possible. And so on.
In election after election nationwide, Democrats define Republicans to massive black audiences in this manner. And they do so with almost no serious GOP push-back. When Republicans do bother to respond, they turn to outlets like C-SPAN-2 and Fox News. This is like not responding at all.
If Republican leaders understand these points, there is hope that this year’s defeat will bear good fruit a few election cycles from now. If not, they might has well have tapped one of those millionaires.
Update: Alan Keyes is the man. There won’t be many Senate races any time, anywhere like this one. But he has only been offered the nomination and has said that he will make a decision by next Sunday. Come Monday, the GOP could still be sans candidate, at which point I am going to give up and plan on having to vote Libertarian.
Update (8/6/04): All of the news media are now reporting that Ambassador Keyes will accept the Republican nomination. The Illinois Leader has details (and just about the only favorable reaction). As I say above, the only rationale for this race is to try to evangelize for conservatism in the black community. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media are doing their best to apply prophylactics by insinuating that nominating an out-of-state black Republican represents some obscure form of racism.