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4.29.08 @ 12:01AM

PERENNIAL LOSER
Re: W. James Antle III's Out of Keyes:

What happened at the Constitution Party Convention was not accurately depicted/reported by Antle.

You really should contact Keyes and/or his staff, get the correct information, and re-write this article.
-- Chet Stanger
Waddy, Kentucky

Wow. What biased and harmful "reporting." I watched most of the live stream on the Internet of the Constitution Party Convention. Apparently your author hadn't, and only picked up quotes from other journalists. The piece is so full of oft-repeated misinformation, unchecked facts and outright character assassination that it's shameful. Your publication has lost all credibility in my eyes.

Dr. Keyes is an honest man and an American patriot to the core. The American Spectator should have treated him fairly.
-- Christine Szczap
Wheaton, Illinois

I read your "Half Story" on the defeat of Alan Keyes at the Kansas City convention of the Constitution Party. I was not at the convention, however here's the other half based on the reports I've read.

Howard Phillips, the founder of the Conservative Caucus and the Constitution Party, gave a speech on Friday afternoon which has split the party. In it he declared Alan Keyes, a candidate for the presidential nomination and friend (supposedly to both Phillips and the Constitution Party), to be an egotist, an opportunist, evil because he ran for president this year as a Republican, and a neo-con (in other words, pro-life, anti-tax, and anti-communist and willing to sell out on everything else). The part about evil because he ran this year as a Republican was amazing because both Phillips and the winning nominee, Chuck Baldwin, both supported Ron Paul for president who also ran this year as a Republican. In fact, in 1992, when the Constitution Party was known as the U.S. Taxpayers Party, Phillips offered Paul the presidential nomination AND gave him a speaking slot at the 1992 New Orleans convention.

Following the speech by Phillips, the party's national chairman, Jim Clymer from Pennsylvania, took to the podium and repudiated Phillips' speech, saying we should not be attacking one another. (A class act. If he's running for anything this year, he's getting a contribution from me.) Clymer then had to call an emergency meeting for setting ground rules and to try to repair the damage Phillips had caused. Many Keyes people left the room during the speech and some Baldwin people said they were caught off guard by the hostility of it. Keyes then gave his speech and with great willpower (more than I would have had!) did not attack Phillips. At the conclusion of his speech, Keyes got a standing ovation from the majority of the delegates, including those supporting Baldwin.

There have also been reports of "Keyes For President" signs being stolen and Keyes delegates being verbally harassed. It is believed those were done only by individuals, not by the Baldwin campaign.

The words given to describe the Phillips speech have included "character assassination"; "venomous"; "attacked because he is feared the most"; and "stabbed in the back by supposed friends."

For the sake of disclosure, I worked for Howard Phillips, the Conservative Caucus, and the U.S. Taxpayers Party in 1992, as convention manager for the first national convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was also a delegate from the District of Columbia, where I lived at the time. Phillips did not tell me that as a requirement of my employment I had to vote for him at the convention. I was fired by Phillips the following Tuesday for the crime of casting my vote for president for Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, who was running as an independent against Senator John McCain. I filed a lawsuit against Phillips, et al., and there was a small out of court settlement. I now wish I had gone ahead and taken Phillips to a courtroom so that people could see the sort of person he is, which Alan Keyes and his backers now, sadly, know about.

From the way he has been treated, is it any wonder Alan Keyes is running as an Independent?
-- Michael Skaggs
Murray, Kentucky

W. James Antle III replies:
In my column, I link to a post-convention interview with Alan Keyes and an account of Howard Phillips's speech from a Chuck Baldwin delegate who nevertheless thought Phillips's remarks were inappropriate. I also blogged about Phillips's fusillade and noted that Keyes's speech to the convention was well received. One of my major sources of information was the streaming video on Keyes's own website.

In the end, Keyes just didn't have the votes on the convention floor because most delegates didn't agree with him on issues that were important to them and also feared he would turn their party into his own personal vanity project. There is some disagreement as to whether the Phillips speech helped or hurt the campaign to deny Keyes the nomination but, either way, he lost. People are certainly entitled to be unhappy about that outcome or the criticism of Keyes at the convention, but that is the full story.

13.1 MILES, THANK YOU
Re: Joel Miller's Running Fool:

Letter to the Editor

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Taxes, Education, John McCain, Economics, Business, Religion, Abortion, Hollywood, Constitution, Law, Iran, NATO, Africa, Socialism, Conservatism, Immigration