CHICAGO, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The Illinois Republican Party has asked conservative radio commentator Alan Keyes of Maryland to run for the U.S. Senate as a replacement candidate for Jack Ryan.
Keyes has never lived in Illinois and would have to move there, establish legal residency and raise millions in a few weeks for a less than 3-month campaign against Barack Obama, a rising Democrat with $10 million in the bank.
Should he bother? Could any "outsider" who has never held elective office win enough hearts and minds to be elected in Illinois? Keyes isn't too sure, and he's taking a few days to think the offer over. He promises a decision Sunday.
"I do not take it for granted that it's a good idea to parachute into a state and go into a Senate race," he told reporters before a 90-minute interview with the 19 state GOP committeemen in a smoke-free room at the Union League Club. "As a matter of principle, I don't think it's a good idea."
Keyes, 53, is on the record opposing so-called carpetbagger candidates.
When Hillary Clinton moved to New York to run for the Senate in 2000, Keyes told Fox News: "I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there. So I certainly wouldn't imitate it."
You can be sure Democrats would turn that bit of tape into a campaign ad if Keyes accepts the Republican nomination.
Keyes was encouraged to consider the Senate offer by Illinois conservatives and has the backing of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
An Alan Keyes for U.S. Senate Web site, KeyesForSenate.com, allows visitors to "click here" to make a campaign donation.
"Although wholly unsolicited and unlooked for by Ambassador Keyes, his candidacy would be without question a boon to Illinois and America," the site says. "Those of us who admire Alan Keyes and his defense of conservative principle believe this is a great opportunity to best represent the good people of Illinois -- and to best empower the Illinois Republican Party for victory."
No one is disputing Keyes' credentials. He twice ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000, has a Ph.D. from Harvard in government affairs, served in the U.S. foreign service and was appointed ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council by President Ronald Reagan.
Keyes also lost two Senate bids in Maryland, where voters know him a lot better than most Illinoisans.
Does the party's choice of Keyes show the desperation of a dysfunctional Illinois GOP, which has taken nearly six weeks trying to find a candidate to replace Ryan, a Harvard-trained lawyer and millionaire former investment banker who won the March 17 Republican primary?
Ryan officially signed a withdrawal of candidacy form last week.
More than half a dozen potential candidates have declined the nomination since Ryan pulled out the race in late June after unsealed custody documents in his divorce from television actress Jeri Ryan alleged he tried to pressure her to perform sex acts in front of strangers at sex clubs in New York, Paris and New Orleans.
Keyes was swarmed by television cameras when he arrived at the Union League Club Wednesday, and Republicans hope his message can fire up their base.
The party desperately needs a strong showing after losing the governorship and winning only one statewide office in 2000.
Obama, 42, says he would welcome Keyes to the race and hoped the campaign would focus on issues like affordable healthcare and education and not shrill partisan vitriol. Political junkies are looking forward to debates on issues and ideas rather than personality.
Both men are seasoned Ivy League debaters, and both are African-American. Obama is casting himself as a populist-centrist; Keyes as a staunch conservative.
Slating Keyes would make history. Illinois would be first state where Senate candidates of both major parties were African-American. That would virtually assure election of the fifth black to the Senate in history. The 100-member chamber currently is composed of 85 white men, 14 women and one American Indian.
The last black senator was Illinois' Carol Moseley Braun, who became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992. Obama says having a Senate with no African-Americans is troubling not just to African-Americans, but to all Americans.
Would a Keyes candidacy eliminate the race card -- or does it play it? Some say Keyes would eliminate race as an issue in the campaign. Others accuse the Republicans of cynical pandering by offering the nomination to a black intellectual from another state who could never have won in a primary.
Is Keyes in touch with the Illinois electorate?
He is about as conservative as you can get: anti-abortion, anti-gay rights and anti-affirmative action. He favors faith-based initiatives and school choice and advocates replacing the national income tax with a tax on consumption. Keyes calls affirmative action a government patronage program.
"Will this man represent you in the U.S. Senate?" asked the headline in Wednesday's Chicago Defender, the nation's only black-owned daily newspaper, after Keyes was named as a finalist with former Bush administration deputy drug czar Dr. Andrea Grubb Barthwell, an African-American surgeon who spent 50 minutes with the committeemen. Barthwell, a moderate who supports abortion rights, lives in suburban River Forest and had support of black Republicans although she spent years away from Illinois.
Keyes may not win, but he could energize voters in a campaign that has so far given Obama a free ride.
"Hillary Clinton proved that when you're a United States senator, you have a little broader base than just your own state," said state Sen. Kirk Dillard. "We're in a situation where we need to think outside of the box."
Many look forward to Obama-Keyes debates.
The historic Lincoln-Douglas debates were about slavery. Obama-Keyes would pit two gifted, articulate, educated black men against each other in a contest of intellect. That might appeal to Keyes, an East Coast conservative who could give his views and his Black America's Political Action Committee national exposure.
"What happens here (in Illinois) has a profound influence on how Americans understand themselves and their politics. And it has since the earliest days of our republic," Keyes said.
Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the conservative Eagle Forum who successfully opposed the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, looks forward to debates.
"Alan Keyes can even out-talk Alan Dershowitz. I'm sure he can out-talk Obama," she said. "Illinois has a tradition of Lincoln-Douglas debates. I can hardly wait for the Keyes-Obama debate."
Rhetorical skills don't always translate to votes. Al Sharpton is a great speaker, but the New York City activist was never more than a blip on the political radar screen during his presidential campaign.
Keyes has presence. He is the only black member of the Reagan administration anyone remembers. Reagan once met former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Samuel Pierce, a black member of his Cabinet, at a Washington function and thought he was a mayor.
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