|
Posted on 04.27.08 by Austin Cassidy @ 3:43 pm
Having just lost his bid to become the Constitution Party’s presidential nominee, Alan Keyes did an interview with Missouri Viewpoints about his political ideas and his future. The interview is conducted in the corner of a hotel meeting room and appears to feature a studio audience of about 2 people. Keyes starts by comparing his defeat to the aborting of an unborn baby. When asked if he plans to continue running for President as an independent, he doesn’t close the door on any possibility… Filed under: Alan Keyes and Third Parties Comments: 2 Comments |
|
Posted on 04.26.08 by Austin Cassidy @ 5:28 pm
Pastor Chuck Baldwin, and former 2004 VP candidate, won the Constitution Party’s nomination for Presidential today. He defeated former Ambassador Alan Keyes by a margin of 384 to 126 delegates. This is not much of a surprise, considering that Howard Phillips, the founder of the Constitution Party, gave a speech to the convention yesterday blasting Keyes as a political opportunist. Keyes seems like the kind of guy who doesn’t take losing very well. It wouldn’t surprise me if we now see him try and form his own party, run as an independent, or go after another nomination - maybe from the nearly-defunct Reform Party. No word yet on who the Constitution Party will nominate for Vice-President. Filed under: Alan Keyes and Campaign 2008 and Third Parties Comments: 4 Comments |
|
Posted on 04.25.08 by Austin Cassidy @ 2:40 am
This week the tiny Constitution Party is holding their national nominating convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Along with the many points of internal party business that will be addressed… the main task for the delegates is to pick a ticket for November that will likely appear on 35-45 state ballots. The current fight for the party’s Presidential nomination seems to be between Former Ambassador Alan Keyes, who left the Republican Party after his unsuccessful run this Spring, and talk radio host Chuck Baldwin. Baldwin is the choice of many long-time party activitists. He served as the Vice-Presidential nominee along with Michael Peroutka in 2004 and the two captured a decent showing with 144,499 votes. That was up from the 98,000 or so votes that Howard Phillips recieved in 2000, but down from the party’s 1996 showing. Of course, Pat Buchanan was the Reform Party’s nominee in 2000, and those tickets were going after many of the same voters. Alan Keyes has turned off many within the party because he supports the current War in Iraq, while Baldwin strongly opposes it - a view shared by most Constitution Party members. Keyes is also seen as arrogant and disconnected by some, but there is definitely the chance he could win hundreds of thousands of disaffected Republican votes in November. A Baldwin candidacy would likely be “more of the same” from the Constitution Party… perhaps drawing a quarter million votes at best. Tomorrow the candidates will have a chance to address the convention and then votes will be taken to pick both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees. With so many unhappy delegates in the room, it wouldn’t be too surprising if a compromise candidate popped up at the last second…. or if the delegates try to nominate Congressman Ron Paul. Filed under: Alan Keyes and Third Parties Comments: 1 Comment |
|
Posted on 03.28.08 by Austin Cassidy @ 2:35 am
Republican Presidential candidate Alan Keyes and Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel never got much traction in their major party campaigns. But it turns out that neither is willing to give up that easily. Despite failing to top even 1% of the vote in any primary or caucus to date, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel has announced he is leaving the Democratic Party and registering with the Libertarians. This strikes some as quite odd, since Gravel’s views on socialized health care and other “big government” projects stand in direct contradiction to much of the Libertarian Party’s platform and ideals. Gravel has said that he will be seeing the party’s nomination for President at the upcoming national convention in Denver. Gravel’s celebrity is a plus, but his path to the nomination is far from clear. Two long-time party activists, Steve Kubby and George Phillies, have been in the running for many months already. Businessman, and self-described millionaire, Wayne Allyn Root launched his campaign last year. Author Mary Ruwart has recently joined the fight, and former Congressman Bob Barr is widely expected to jump in as well. That is a mixture that should make for some entertaining viewing on C-SPAN. On the conservative side, Alan Keyes has decided to keep his campaign going as well. He has said that he will be leaving the Republican Party to join the Constitution Party and seek their nomination. Keyes made his best showing in the Republican primaries this year with 1.5% of the vote in the Kansas caucus. Keyes faces many of the same challenges as Gravel. The Constitution Party is strongly anti-war, while Keyes has been a major advocate of U.S. involvement in Iraq and elsewhere. Keyes was also an ambassador to the UN during the Reagan administration, while the Constitution Party wants to pull America out of the organization. It will be interesting to see how these guys fare. Should they be successful in winning their nomination fights, the Fall ballot seems likely to offer the following choices: John McCain, Republican I think that’s a pretty nice line-up of candidates if you’re John McCain. But we’ll have to wait and see how the Libertarian and Constitution conventions turn out first. Filed under: Alan Keyes and Campaign 2008 and Third Parties Comments: 15 Comments |
|
Posted on 02.07.08 by Austin Cassidy @ 6:33 pm
With Mitt Romney out of the Presidential race, we are now facing several months of scattered Republican primaries and caucuses across the country. It’s likely that Mike Huckabee’s campaign will continue on a bit longer, and he may even score a few upset victories, but the odds are that he will be out of the race by March 1. That leaves two active long-shots fighting to be the protest candidate for upset voters who can’t bring themselves to support Senator McCain. One is Congressman Ron Paul who has shown a regular ability to win about 5-15% of the vote in any Republican contest. He’s already picked up 20 or more delegates to the convention and odds are he’ll at least triple that number by the time all the votes have been counted. Keyes, on the other hand, hasn’t had much success at all this year. He was a significant magnet for protest votes in 2000, particularly for conservatives. After Huckabee exits the race, we might just see Alan Keyes start to win some delegates as well. The end of Mitt Romney’s campaign now marks the real start of these other fringe campaigns to rack up some delegates that they can carry to the convention. We’ll see what happens. Filed under: Alan Keyes Comments: 20 Comments |
|
Posted on 02.03.08 by Austin Cassidy @ 5:13 pm
Long-shot Republican candidate Alan Keyes has launched a blistering attack against Mitt Romney on the issue of gay marriage. “Mitt Romney is single-handedly responsible for instituting same-sex marriage in Massachusetts,” said Keyes. Filed under: Alan Keyes and Campaign 2008 and Mitt Romney Comments: 2 Comments |
|
Posted on 01.27.08 by Stephen Covington @ 1:32 am
For those who may not know, Republican long-shot hopeful Alan Keyes is still campaigning for the party’s nomination. A press release on his website says that he is currently launching a “six-week grassroots tour of Texas”. Keyes, who is originally from the Lone Star State, will be visiting a number of small venues, including a third-period assembly at his former high school and some luncheons at local restaurants. Although Keyes may not be a likely possibility for actually winning, he does seem to regard the primary season as an opportune chance to speak about his message and positions, and is highly regarded among many conservatives. Recently, Republicans in New York have attempted to remove Keyes from state ballots, on the grounds that he has not submitted a list of delegates - along with Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter. Such a change would also move Rudy Giuliani’s name up on the ballot to second place, after Ron Paul. Otherwise, he continues to appear on the ballots in many states, helped out by a small contingent of ardent supporters. Filed under: Alan Keyes and Campaign 2008 Comments: 3 Comments |
|
Posted on 01.23.08 by Austin Cassidy @ 12:15 pm
Alan Keyes hasn’t had much luck in his current run for the Republican Presidential nomination. In 2000, Keyes provided a credible vehicle for some conservative Christians to cast a protest vote against George Bush and John McCain. But this time around the field is much more split and competitive, and he just hasn’t connected with voters or been able to raise very much money. This year he recieved so few votes in Iowa that the state party didn’t even bother to report the count. In New Hampshire he polled a meager 206 votes or 0.1% of the total. He failed to make it on the ballot in South Carolina or Michigan, but will appear in Florida and many of the Super Tuesday states. That’s why the Keyes campaign has now announced that the bulk of their remaining time and resources will be focused on the Texas primary. To be held in early March, Texas isn’t really expected to be a major player in picking the nominee. But Keyes claims that the contest may be so deadlocked that he’ll have some sort of a role in deciding who wins. It’s an extreme long-shot, but then again it’s not like he has anything to lose by trying this. Keyes was the highest ranking African American in the Reagan administration, serving in the State Department and as an Ambassador to the United Nations. In 1988 and 1992 he was a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland, failing to win both races, with 38% and 29% showings respectively. In 2004, Keyes was named the replacement Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Illinois and was beaten 70% to 27% by Democratic candidate Barack Obama. This is his third bid for President, after a minimal showing in 1996 and a somewhat more impressive performance in 2000. In the 2000 primaries, Keyes finished third in Iowa with almost 15% of the vote. That showing secured him increased press coverage and 4 delegates to the national convention. He won only 6% in New Hampshire, and then spent several months campaigning and winning only marginal showings of between 2% and 6% in a long list of primaries. Once John McCain had dropped out of the race and George W. Bush had secured enough delegates to win the nomination, Keyes would pop back up and win some protest votes here and there. His best showing in the entire contest was the Utah primary in which he won 21% of the vote, shortly after John McCain formally suspended his campaign. Four months after the Iowa Caucus, Keyes won 19% of the vote in both the Arkansas and Idaho primaries and was awarded with 9 delegates between them. Because he was on the ballot in every primary and continued to run long after Bush had secured the nomination, Alan Keyes was able to accumulate over 1 million votes and carry about two-dozen delegates to the convention. Filed under: Alan Keyes and Campaign 2008 Comments: 8 Comments |
|
Posted on 01.05.08 by Austin Cassidy @ 5:12 am
Alan Keyes is making his third bid for the White House this year. Back in 2000, Keyes finished third in the Iowa caucuses with a surprising 14% of the vote. But his campaign this time around was practically stillborn… launched late, in debt, and polling at the very bottom of an already crowded field. Some people have suggested that he’s only running to help pay down past campaign bills, and that he will continue his campaign as a third party or independent candidate in order to continue paying down such debts. Keyes expected to see a report showing how many votes he won in yesterday’s Iowa caucus. But that report never came… as apparently his name was left out of the system and votes for him were not tallied or reported to the state headquarters. From a statement released by the campaign…
The Keyes organization claims that they believe their candidate received a significant number of votes yesterday and suggest a conspiracy involving the use of “communist-style” tactics to surpress his support… “I voted for Alan Keyes,” said Siena Hoefling of Calhoun County. “It’s ridiculous they didn’t report my vote. Each precinct could have easily called or emailed the vote tallies to headquarters, so they should have been counted by now.” To completely leave off the name of one active candidate while including the name of another candidate who had already dropped out… at the bare minimum this seems like a monumental screw-up on the part of the Iowa Republican Party. At worst, like election fraud. With voter trust in elections already at an all-time low, this certainly won’t help matters any. Filed under: Alan Keyes and Election Results and Iowa Caucus Comments: 3 Comments |
