The Keyes To The Nomination

By vouchey in News on Aug 5, 2004 2:00PM

Clearing up any mystery, yesterday the Illinois GOP officially asked Alan Keyes to be their nominee for U.S. Senate (here too) against Democratic nominee Barack Obama. Keyes, who had scheduling conflicts preventing him to come to Illinois to interview for the position, responded from a press conference in Maryland that he was "deeply honored and deeply challenged" by the offer and that it would require a "deep and serious and committed deliberation."

It would be nothing less than earth-shattering if Keyes didn't take the job. After all the hoo-hah the Illinois GOP went through to pick Keyes (not to mention all the other people who turned the job down), it seems unlikely that the Republicans would publically announce a name they knew wasn't already in the bag.

So now that it's a foregone conclusion, we should expect the Keyes campaign to not be very well-funded, and thus less of a campaign to win, than to "get some issues out there" and to try and demonstrate to minorities that the Republican Party can be a valid choice for them too.

Don't expect a lot of Alan Keyes for Senate TV commercials, or Keyes political mail in your mailbox. But do expect to see him at every possible speaking engagement, and do expect him to start calling for debates right away. What should be interesting is if Obama accepts a debate challenge, and then if he rises to the occasion as well as everyone expects.