Apparently, It’s Keyes. Pascoe has found another gravy train, I’m sure Proft will be along for the ride too.
UPDATE: Even better. In comments, he hasn’t accepted yet–he is thinking about it. LOL. So, what happens if he says no? I think he will run because he is that much of an egomaniac, but either way this could be delicious.
WGN is reporting that Keyes has not said yes yet and will give them an answer by Sunday…so things don’t seem to be finished yet. He’s evidently got some contractual obligations as well.
Just heard him give his speech on WBBM. He hasn’t said for sure that he’ll do it, he’s only commited to thinking about it seriously for a few days. Just when you think this can’t get any sillier, it does. What happens if and when HE says no? Then do they go with Barthwell?
Stop the madness. Please, someone, stop the madness.
You mean he didn’t jump into the GOP mosh pit right immediately?
Quote:
In 2000, Michael Moore’s The Awful Truth television show took a portable mosh pit across the country and challenged presidential candidates to dive in. The premise was that the show would endorse any Presidential hopeful crazy enough to do it. At one debate the mosh pit was called “the defining moment of the 2000 election.”
At a town hall event being staged by Ronald Reagan’s former ambassador to the United Nations Social and Economic Council, Alan Keyes, aides went outside to see what all the commotion was about. When informed that Keyes could get the endorsement of “The Awful Truth with Michael Moore,” Keyes’ national field director dove into the pit, hoping that would suffice for the endorsement. He then brought out “Uncle Sam,” a Keyes supporter who also jumped in.
Alan Keyes, after being convinced for several minutes by his daughter to dive in also, did exactly that. He dove backwards into the screaming crowd of youths to the sound of Rage Against The Machine and surfed the crowd. After a couple of body slams with a spiked-hair youth from Ames high school, he left the pit with the official endorsement of the show.
Michael Moore said of the incident: “We knew Alan Keyes was insane. We just didn’t know how insane until that moment.”
End quote
http://www.fact-index.com/m/mo/mosh_pit.html
Here’s another neat Keyes link.
http://www.realchange.org/keyes.htm
Suppose he’ll do a Ditka and realize he’s going to lose a whole bunch of money doing this?
I would wager part of the debate (and part of the delay in making the announcement) had to do with establishing residence in Illinois. See, while the Constitution says you have to be a resident of the state by the election to take office, Illinois sets its own requirements for appearing on the ballot. One of those is filing a statement of candidacy under oath.
Little detail: the statement of candidacy is required to include a statement that the person is a registered voter (i.e., resident) of the State of Illinois. Keyes can’t say that under oath. And, truth be told, I’m not sure he can ever state it unless he plans on moving to Illinois regardless of whether he wins (tee-hee; it’s funny to even say) or loses.
Anyway, I’m betting that the lawyers for the GOP will put in their two cents over the next couple of days regarding what Keyes has to do to be eligible to appear on the ballot. [Again, requirements for appearing on the ballot are different than requirements for holding office.]
V
I’m guessing that Keyes could clear the residency hurdle pretty easily — if not, who knows, maybe the state legislature will make a one-time exception to the requirement, just for him. I sense by his rather delicate tone and murky phrasing in the press conference following the announcement that Keyes is leaning against it — being asked to run, of course, means he has to consider it seriously, but I’d question whether he was willing to jeopardize his career and risk losing again. I mean, he’s lost quite a few races already. He’s this close to being completely politically marginalized.
But then, he’s also at a disadvantage when it comes to seeing the race for what it is. As an out of stater, he may not realize that Topinka and the GOP are not in it to win it, so they’re willing to throw in anybody at this point to end this fiasco so they can turn their cares to 2006, which is all any self-respecting ILGOP potential candidate is focused on anyhow. But then, perhaps Keyes will see that the reason he, Ditka & Barthwell have been strung along so carefully, while others like Rauschenberger, Dillard, Gidwitz and Gorman were scared off, is that it’s important to Topinka to choose an 04 candidate who won’t eventually be propelled into the 2006 governor’s race.
Apparently, for a senate race you go by federal rules, which only means “inhabitant” at the time of election. So no waiting periods, no legal residence stuff — the guy doesn’t even have to be a registered voter here. (I looked it up at IL Board of elections.)
Unless I read it all wrong. Other offices have different rules. Quite interesting, actually. Interesting history too, if you go to us senate web site.
Of course Keyes knows zilch about any IL issues, and with his huge ego will step on every single toe in the party. It should be hilarious to watch this unfold.
All the guys with congress seats, state seats up for reelection have to be heading toward Springfield with pitchforks and clubs right about now.
Cynical: you’re correct that the candidate’s guide refers to the constitutional requirement (citizen for 9 years and inhabitant of the state), and you’re also right that a state cannot impose any additional qualification for the office.
But states are free to regulate ballot access (i.e., whose name gets to appear on the ballot). So, for example, there’s nothing in the Constitution that imposes a signature requirement to appear on the ballot; that’s a state function. (Some states only require a filing fee, for example.)
The problem Keyes faces is that one of the documents he has to file requires him to state, under oath, that he is a resident and “elector” of the Illinois Republican Party. He can’t do that.
There’s a difference between being qualified to hold the office (no doubt about that, as long as Keyes moves to Illinois by Nov. 2) and being allowed to appear on the ballot (a lot more questionable if Keyes is not registered to vote and does not establish residency in Illinois immediately).
Hope that helps,
V
I really hope at this point this is all part of some secret clever plan….
Ballot access — (hitting forehead) of course. And they’re going to start getting into deadline issues if they extend this thing out too much longer — unless that’s part of the plan.
We just sent one of “Skip’s Guys” out to Rockford…………
This is gonna get ugly…..
So, over at the Leader, they’re trying to figure out whether Keyes’ candidacy will help Melissa Bean. Their main defense of Crane appears to be that Bean lives just outside the 8th, and thus is a carpetbagger–and now the IL-GOP can’t make that claim.
Is this a silver lining, or was noone paying attention to these attacks on Bean outside the leader?
Hilarious:
“. . . and calls affirmative action a ‘government patronage program.'”
I’m sure the fact that he is black has NOTHING to do with the fact that he has been consulted.
Maybe he’s not against ILGOP Patronage programs?
Actually, Keyes can turn this quote around now. In Illinois GOP politics, a ‘government patronage program’ is at worst a neutral term.
In any case, isn’t the greatest humiliation of all to be told by Alan Keyes that he’ll think about it? Imagine Ralph Nader playing hard to get.
I have a feeling he’ll decline based on his comments. I’m not sure if the situation will get more or less ridiculous if he does.
More oppo research:
These are from http://www.e-z.net/wtv/Alan_Keyes.htm
First, from the Alan Keyes Show, October 30th, 1997, re Clinton:
“I mean, this guy is making critical security decisions, about the Chinese, when it is possible that he’s a paid agent of the Chinese Communist despots. Think about that! We need the truth about that; we need it desperately, given the kind of judgments he is making.”
Second, from 7 November, 1997 speech to the Marysville Crisis Pregnancy Center, where he compares pro-choice advocates to Nazis:
“And my friends, the evidence has mounted in practice that we were absolutely right. The rising crime and violence in the streets; the children killing children; the mothers destroying their babies. But now something, I believe, even worse in fact than the acts themselves. For the acts themselves are terrible — they are tragedies; they are things that can be motivated by impulse or passion — this is the cold-blooded preparation of the American conscience for the mass murder of human beings. Not only in the womb, as we have been murdering them for twenty and twenty-five years; but in every walk of life, and every stage of life, this prepares us for life’s destruction. And if you can see in this some difference between what this person contemplates, and what the Nazis did, then you have better eyes than I.
We stand on the verge, you know, of seeing an America in only a slightly different guise, from what the Germans of the twenties stood on the verge of seeing in their country. I say it in all seriousness. We must realize that what will occur in this land, once we have so destroyed our conscience with this lie, what will occur here will make Nazi Germany look like a dress rehearsal.
I do not say this rhetorically. I do not say this as part of a speech. This is going to happen to us. This will be the fate of your children: to live in a nation of which we can no longer be proud, to live in a country we can no longer love, to live in a time when they will have to decide whether or not they shall continue peacefully to acquiesce in the destruction of all rights, or do what some Germans ought to have done — resist, once and for all. We stand on the verge of an awesome time of trial for this land.
And this is the sign.”
From December 6, 1997 Address to the Gun Owners of New Hampshire: Eternal Vigilance Rally, comparing the income tax to slavery:
“We have surrendered control of our money. That’s where it first started. We surrendered control of our money, first and foremost, I believe, at the beginning of this century. We surrendered control of our money when we did something that Engels would have applauded and our Founders would have condemned. We surrendered control of our money, when we allowed them to impose upon us a tax that — whatever its terms, whatever its structure, whatever its amount — can NEVER be compatible with the life of a free people. The income tax is a SLAVE tax, and it must be ABOLISHED!
You’ll have some folks come before you, whose initials are Steve Forbes, and they will tell you . . . (pauses for laughter). You’ll have some folks come before you, very nice folks, and they are making a suggestion that, from the point of view of our present oppression, might even look like an improvement. After all, if your oppressors have been accustomed to taking from you whatever they pleased, and have gone so far as to take from you twenty, and thirty, and forty, and fifty, and seventy, and eighty percent of what you earn, under certain circumstances; and someone comes along and says “Okay, we understand this is terrible; we’ll promise not to take any more than fifteen.” — I guess at that point you would say “That’s a relief! Thank you!”
There’s only one problem with all of this, my friends. There’s only one problem with being grateful when somebody comes and tells you that they are only going to take away fifteen percent of your money with the income tax. And that is that, as long as you have an income tax, they still have the right to take it all away. As long as you have an income tax, you are still living at the mercy of those to whom you have ceded this exorbitant and excessive power. You are still living in a country where the assumption is that you go out and earn a dollar, and they have a claim to fifteen cents of it before you have any say in it at all. This has GOT to END. And unless we end it, we will not return to the status of a free people.
So I’ll say unequivocally: the first step in our agenda of reclaiming our liberty — reclaim control of our money; abolish the income tax; return to the original Constitution of this country, under the terms of which the income tax was FORBIDDEN as a DANGER to our freedom!”
Sorry for the long post… also, apparently Keyes accepted contributions to his 2000 campaign well into 2002.
http://www.rubyan.com/politics-old/archive/2002_01_06_archive.html
Bean LIVES ACROSS THE STREET from the 8th… so technically, yeah, she’s “just outside” the district but that’s hardly Maryland vs Illinois (Mid-Atlantic vs Midwest) — folks in Barrington may at least look at it that way, who knows what McHenryites will do with that info when it gets out. (Not that I’m completely defending Melissa here — she’s had well over two years to pack up and move across the street).
The Leader now has a Biver article up about how even George Washington looked “outside” for help in the War for Independence — by working with Casmir Pulaski. Sheesh.
Vasyl,
Kudos for catching on to the residency hiccup. If you haven’t already, take a look at Mark Brown’s column in today’s Sun-Times. He writes at one point, “I invite you here and now to start submitting questions for the Alan Keyes Welcome to Illinois Quiz.” I happen to think your point about the ballot residency requirement would make a perfect question for The Quiz.
(I was going to submit it myself, but I didn’t want to take credit for your idea.)
http://www.suntimes.com/output/brown/cst-nws-brown05.html
Brown’s e-mail: markbrown@suntimes.com
Under no circumstances should we allow a Democratic General Assembly and a Democratic Governor to bend the ballot rules AGAIN for a Republican (like they did with Bush).
On behalf of all of us interested in Colorado politics and CU Football, I’d like to thank the Illinois GOP for taking the monkey off our backs.
Hey Cynical:
I give you a 100% iron clad garauntee he won’t lose money running for Senate.
This guy knows how to make money by paying himself to be a candidate. That’s why his campaign still owes money from 1992 and 2000.
I’m not sure why no one has pointed out that this is, in effect, bribery, but if he runs I sure as hell will. Alan Keyes accepts bribes to run for federal office.
Ralph, yeah, I posted the link about it earlier, and I think on my blog too. What a sleaze. The problem is that you have to actually *have* campaign money first in order to steal it. Ryan was self-funding, and took it all with him, right?
And I’m sure the ILL GOP thinks they’ll get *Keyes* to self-fund for the honor of losing his 3rd run for senate. This is all such good fun. I wonder what the polling they’re most likely doing is telling them, or if they’re getting too many hangups from people laughing and laughing and laughing…..
Check out the last paragraph in the Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43801-2004Aug5.html
V
PS — For the OCD among you, I know I posted this link as a comment to another post. I’m just gleeful, I guess.
Sorry for the triple post, but I just realized that, to be considerate, I should just copy the paragraph:
The past might resurface in other ways. More than two years ago, the State of Maryland issued a lien against Keyes and his wife for delinquent and unpaid state income taxes for 1997. A copy of the civil filing in Montgomery County Circuit Court shows the couple still owes $7,481.99 in taxes, interest and penalties.
Could this get any wierder? And I thought Ty Fahner did a quickie background check on Keyes?
So that’s why he needs this new campaign — so he can pay his back taxes. It all becomes clear now….
Just because you HAVE one doesn’t mean you have to BE one.
Crain’s is saying that Keyes is going to accept and there’ll some kind of kickoff in Schaumburg on Sunday
Are you ready for the Main Event? It’s all but official…
from the Knight Ridder/Tribune Wire, Friday the 6th [via TPM]:
Keyes agrees to run as Illinois GOP candidate, sources say
“Maryland conservative Alan Keyes, a former Republican presidential contender and talk-show host, has agreed to accept the nomination as the Illinois GOP nominee for Senate and plans a public rollout for his campaign on Sunday, several Republican sources said Thursday.
“‘He (Keyes) indicated he wanted to come back on his own terms, bring some of his supporters with him and didn’t want to have to walk out the door (Wednesday night) bombarded with questions about everything,’ said one member of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee. ‘He just wanted a few days to organize things.'”
But Pascoe tells AP now he can’t confirm it. What, he can’t make a phone call?
Of course he owes back taxes! This is a man who believes the income tax is slavery, so he is merely being moral…. right?
Can anyone figure out what the heck the “Declarationist” movement is actually all about, other than raising money and attention for Keyes?
“First Utah, then America!” Eek.
http://www.renewamerica.us/plan/fullplan.htm#goals