Alan Keyes in Illinois

Well, Alan Keyes has agreed to run for the Senate in Illinois against Barack Obama, despite attacking Hillary Clinton for doing much the same thing in 2000. Republicans seem to think that Alan Keyes is a decent choice - but why?

Josh Marshall describes how Keyes and Republicans are dealing with this flip-flop:

The best walk back I heard for this one was the response from a Republican party official in Illinois a few days ago -- as related to me by a TPM reader -- who, when confronted with this seeming change of mind, shot back that ... you guessed it, 9/11 changed everything!

Gee, is there anything that 9/11 doesn’t justify?

As Keyes told his new Illinois supporters today, he was at first dead-set against running for senate in another state. But then he was shown copies of Barack Obama's state legislative voting record and he decided he had no choice -- flip flop or no flip flop -- but to jump into the ring. "I'll tell you by the time I got through the records, I was convinced that somebody had to run against Barack Obama," he said.

And then after this long dark night of the soul Keyes spent with Obama's voting records he decided that "I must leave the land of my forefathers [i.e., Maryland] in order to defend the land of my spirit, of my conscience and my heart -- and I believe that that land is Illinois." Only Keyes could manage to bring a flourish to the rather prosaic work of backing out of backing out of a flat promise or turning a flip-flop into something vaguely reminiscent of St. Paul's decision to abandon the teachings of the Pharisees and launch off on foot around the shores of the Mediterranean preaching Christ crucified.

Some people just can’t bring themselves to say those three little words: “I was wrong.”

That’s all that would be needed, admit that he was wrong and apologize for his intemperate attacks on Hillary Clinton, for him to completely eliminate this flip-flop as an issue. By poorly rationalizing the change, however, he not only ensures that this change remains an issue (of derision, mostly), he creates a new issue: Alan Keyes is not a man of principle.

Marshall also points to an interesting “endorsement” of Keyes:

"I spent five weeks trying to find good people," said Mr. Hastert, who said he approached state legislators and the former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka and Gary Fencik, an Ivy Leaguer who was a hard-hitting safety.

"I got down into last week interviewing a 70-year-old guy who was a great farm broadcaster in Illinois," Mr. Hastert said. "He decided because of his health problems he couldn't do it. You know, we were down — we needed to find somebody to run, somebody who wanted to run. And, you know, Alan Keyes wants to run, and I hope he's a good candidate."

Marshall quotes this to emphasize that the support of Keyes is a bit lackluster — after all, he did come in behind an Illinois farm broadcaster. What I find is also important here is that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was intimately involved in the selection of Keyes. Indeed, based upon the above quote, one could even argue that Hastert was a primary architect of Keyes’ selection. Because he had to know about Keyes’ extremist and ridiculous beliefs, he can be held responsible for agreeing with them — or, at the very least, not considering them much of a problem. In other words, Alan Keyes’ wackiness can be laid at the feet of the current Republican political leadership.

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