Revenge of the Illinois Moderates?

For the life of me, I haven’t been able to figure out why the Illinois Republican party selected Alan Keyes to serve as its standard bearer in the upcoming senate election with Barack Obama. After all, he didn’t live in Illinois until after he was nominated for the Senate seat. He is a twice-failed Senate candidate in Maryland and a twice-failed presidential candidate. He didn’t exactly have what one might call a winning aura. He is very conservative in a state with a moderate political history; indeed, one recent poll showed larger percentages of Illinois Republicans describing themselves as either fairly "conservative" or "moderate" than the "very conservative." And, despite the progress we’ve made as a nation, he’s an African American, which makes difficult winning elections in most of the country. He has no particular expertise or experience in the kind of legislative work that awaits him if he were to shock the world and win the race.

Couldn’t the party find someone to run for the seat who actually lives in the state? Why would the party run the risk of offending so many Illinoisan by going out of state for its nominee? Couldn’t the party find someone who has actually won an election? Isn’t there someone in the state who is more in line with the ideology of Illinois Republicans? Couldn’t they find someone who actually knows what issues are on the minds of Illinoisans? Why would a party nominate someone with so many strikes against him to run for the seat of retiring senator Peter Fitzgerald?

Ruminating over these questions led to one more: By agreeing to give the senate nomination to Keyes, did moderates in the Illinois GOP set up the conservative wing of the party for failure and humiliation in an attempt to wrest total control of the party from the far right? The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the "set up" is just as viable an explanation for Keyes’ bid than anything else.

Part of the reason it makes so much sense is that it seems so far-fetched. Keyes, a rock-ribbed conservative, would never knowingly participate in such chicanery or allow himself to be used for such purposes. But he may just be an unwitting pawn in a state party fight between moderates and conservatives in the Illinois GOP. He didn’t really know any of the players before they approached him about his willingness to accept the nomination and may not have known if there was internecine political warfare at play in Illinois.

There is an increasing tension building in parts of the "red" America. Conservatives have successfully taken over the party from moderates and have been marching the nation to the right ever since. Now, moderates are beginning to think twice about conservative orthodoxy on the budget deficit and some social issues. Perhaps they feel that the GOP has gone too far right and what we may be seeing in Illinois is an effort to bring more moderation to the party.

Keyes is in line for a public humiliation on election day. He trails Barack Obama in the Illinois Senate race by over 50 percentage points and his soon-to-be devastating defeat will be even more painful for the party if the reported 35 percent of Illinois Republicans currently favoring Obama actually cross party lines and vote for the Democratic state senator. That may be a small price for the Illinois GOP to pay if, in the post-mortem, the moderates have a stronger grip on the party.

© Michael K. Fauntroy
September 30, 2004