The American Spectator

Campaign Crawlers

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won the party's nomination.) But there's a larger question: How did a man who was once considered a conservative rising star and one of the more promising young Reagan administration alumni turn into the punch line of a cruel political joke?

It seems hard to believe now, but Keyes was once in heavy demand. Jeane Kirkpatrick brought him into her United Nations delegation, a career move that came back to haunt him in the out-of-the-UN Constitution Party. In 1988, the Maryland Republican Party recruited Keyes to run for the Senate to replace another candidate. The Illinois GOP did the same in 2004. In 1992, Keyes actually beat 14 other candidates in a Republican primary to make his second run for the Senate, his only win at the ballot box (one wonders if any of the others put "lost election to Alan Keyes" on their resume).

Keyes even launched his first presidential bid after being drafted by a group of pro-life Georgians who were impressed by a series of impassioned speeches he made on behalf of their preferred candidate in the 1994 GOP gubernatorial primary. His second run for the White House won him third place in the Iowa caucuses, a million primary votes, and a short-lived talk show on MSNBC.

Yet for all Keyes's rhetorical brilliance, there are reasons he has found himself on the losing end of so many landslides. "I would rather bankrupt my family than live any longer with policies and views that are bankrupting my country, morally as well as financially," he thundered during his 1992 Senate race. "I will campaign against Barbara Mikulski on foot in the streets and sleep in homeless shelters if I have to, but I will never give up." In fact, Keyes paid himself an $8,500-a-month salary out of his campaign funds and then denounced national Republican leaders for racism when they did not give him more money and a prime speaking slot at the convention.

When Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's invitation to jump state lines to run against Barack Obama, it became difficult even for some of his admirers to deny that he was a man in search of a podium. From arguing that Jesus Christ would not vote for Obama to calling Mary Cheney "a selfish hedonist," he also became a shrill parody of himself.

By the time Keyes appeared onstage at the Des Moines Register debate last December, conservatives had grown tired of his shtick. Asked what he was actually doing to campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, Keyes insisted to National Review's Byron York, "I have had several campaign events here in Iowa, but I will not define those events as you do." How did he define them, then? "[E]very time somebody comes forward and takes the [online pledge to support Keyes], that's an Iowa event." And every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.

There is no word yet on whether Keyes will soldier on as an independent, but his national political director is sore with the Constitution Party. "They just rejected the most qualified man to be president," he sulked to the Kansas City Star. "Chuck Baldwin will have no impact on this election whatsoever." No electoral defeat has had any impact on Keyes before, so why should this time be any different?

topics:
Foreign Policy, Barack Obama, Abortion, Constitution, Iraq, United Nations, NATO