The American Spectator

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The Keyesters Play the Race Card

By W. James Antle, III on 4.29.08 @ 12:17PM

A few of Alan Keyes's online supporters have started suggesting their man lost this weekend because the Constitution Party is racist. As I've written before, the CP definitely contains some very extreme and kooky elements but the Keyesters' evidence for their specific claim is awfully thin. It seems that a Chuck Baldwin column was once excerpted on David Duke's website. Yet the column in question, which actually appeared on another site, is about remembering the men who died at the Alamo. It's a fairly unfocused rant but it has absolutely nothing to do with race.There is also an article on Baldwin's website by another writer defending the Confederate Battle Flag.

Keyes's largest bloc of votes at the convention came from the California delegation. The CP's California affiliate is the American Independent Party, which nominated George Wallace for president in 1968. Paul Venable and Ricardo Davis, two of the most prominent African Americans in the party, were leading Keyes opponents. The further right you travel, it's never surprising to encounter a certain amount of wackiness and ugliness, but there is no real evidence that race played a role in Keyes's inability to secure the Constitution Party nomination.

UPDATE: Several Keyesters have weighed in to discourage the anti-Baldwin dirt-digging.

topics:
Constitution, Africa