Jamie

Weinstein

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April 28, 2008

The Fall of Alan Keyes

Last week Alan Keyes ended his quixotic quest for the Republican presidential nomination and announced that he was leaving the Republican Party. I know what you are thinking: Alan Keyes was running for the Republican nomination?

Even the most ardent followers of presidential politics could be forgiven for not knowing Keyes was actually a GOP contender this year. After making a late entrance into the Republican contest in September 2007, the former ambassador, conservative activist and perennial presidential candidate got very little press attention with the exception of one embarrassing debate performance in Iowa. 

But when Keyes left the Republican Party last week, he did not throw away his presidential ambitions. He plotted a new path to the White House as the nominee of the Constitution Party.

As I began interviewing people in Kansas City, Missouri on Friday at the Constitution Party's national convention, I came to realize that there may be a problem with Alan's master plan. It became clear that Constitution Party members didn't want him. Sure, they liked him generally. But Keyes wasn't actually a Constitution Party member and he didn't subscribe to the entirety of their platform.

I didn't really know much about the Constitution Party before arriving in Kansas City. After reading their platform and their literature, it became evident that Keyes was not ideally suited to be their nominee. While he may fit the party's agenda when it comes to immigration and social issues, Keyes believes in a responsible foreign policy approach that is proactive against the terrorist threat. The Constitution Party thinks that we can hire mercenaries like the A-Team to end the terrorist threat – thus elucidating why the Constitution Party is a third, unelectable party.

Let's back up. How did Alan Keyes get to this point, again? Keyes's story is a sad tale of potential wasted. A brilliant PhD from Harvard with oratory skills that would make Barack Obama envious, Keyes should have been a rock star in the Republican Party. Yet, since entering electoral politics as the Republican candidate for Maryland's U.S. Senate seat in 1988, Keyes has been roundly and thoroughly defeated in every general election contest in which he has ever participated. 

After giving a rousing speech on behalf of his own candidacy Friday afternoon, I witnessed Keyes engage Constitution Party delegates for hours on end in debate and discussion outside the convention hall. He waxed on knowledgably about foreign policy as an experienced member of Ronald Reagan's national security team. The only area where Keyes failed to seem like an expert was in the area that maybe mattered most – how to be diplomatic. He was good at preaching, but not at listening.  

Keyes knows how smart he is and he is very aware that most of his inquisitors are not nearly at his level of intelligence. When someone challenges him on a point, he not only defends his position eloquently, he often makes clear that the other person doesn't know what they are talking about. He has no qualms about telling a persistent challenger that their "statement borders on the irrational."

This is entertaining, but it is not a quality that is useful in the business in which Keyes has sought to succeed. Few politicians could speak as expertly on as wide a range of issues as Keyes can, but most politicians know how to placate a crowd. Keyes will have none of that.

When I interviewed Keyes in his suite on Saturday, a few hours after his defeat to Florida Pastor Chuck Baldwin for the Constitution Party's nomination, Keyes was theatrical, dogmatic and extreme.

"I left the Republican Party," Keyes explained, "because they nominated a guy who apparently doesn't believe in the Republic. Seems to hate it and want to destroy it in fact. And I can't be part of that."

Keyes was referring to Sen. John McCain. Yes, the same John McCain who endured more than a half a decade in a POW camp in Vietnam after he was captured defending the Republic he apparently wants to destroy. At times I question whether Keyes really believes some of the extreme language he uses.

I asked Keyes why it was not worth it to support McCain considering that on two issues that are important to Keyes – appointing conservative judges and foreign policy – McCain is far more likely to govern according to Keyes' predilections than either Sens. Clinton or Obama. He responded by scoffing at the question and saying, "When you choose between evils, you get evil. And if evil is fatal to you in any form, you are still dead."

Speaking about his history of electoral defeats, Keyes said God revealed to him that he is "the subject of the political abortion. I am the aborted child, right? They invite me and then they kill me."

How sad this fall is. I first became fascinated with Keyes when watching him perform brilliantly in the 2000 Republican presidential primary debates. I would later watch with great interest his short-lived TV show on MSNBC and all three of his debates against Barack Obama in the 2004 Illinois Senate race. I even wrote for his website. With his brilliant mind and unmatched oratory skills, there are few people who have as much natural talent as he does.

Yet, even with all that he has going for him, Keyes has let his political career devolve into some sort of comedic punch line. In politics, as in life, talent only gets you so far. Keyes's temperament is better suited to academia than to the necessities of the political world. That he continues in his futile electoral quests can be explained in one word: Ego.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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