Off Keyes

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DAILY EXPRESSOff Keyes by Tom Frank


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Only at TNR Online Post date 10.22.04

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n the Illinois Senate race, Barack Obama leads Alan Keyes by a margin so wide (over 50 points, according to one poll) that a debate between the candidates must--almost as a matter of science--help narrow the campaign. But that would be to underestimate Alan Keyes. As people know, Keyes is candid, eloquent, and intellectually consistent. He argues rather than spins, allowing his logic to take him where it will. He panders to no (earthly) constituency. And he may well have pulled off the impossible last night: lowering his poll numbers even more. Obama is an unconventionally gifted politician, but even an incompetent one--let's go farther, actually: even a dolphin or trained seal--could have done better last night than Alan Keyes. All Obama had to do yesterday was play the Earthling card; Keyes took care of the rest.
It helps that Keyes holds a few controversial beliefs: Abortion should be outlawed in almost all instances; homosexuality is an "abomination"; the Seventeenth Amendment (which allows citizens rather than state legislatures to elect U.S. senators) should be repealed; and the Constitution recognizes no separation of church and state below the federal level. But to his credit, Keyes is performing an important service in this race: He is reminding us just how frightening--okay, also funny--ideological clarity and consistency can be.
Here is Keyes last night on abortion, explaining how it differs from capital punishment: "Abortion is intrinsically, objectively wrong and sinful, whereas capital punishment is a matter of prudential judgment, which is not in and of itself a violation of moral right." Not terribly conciliatory, but Keyes was just getting started. When Obama lamented his opponent's "rhetoric"--citing Keyes's equation of abortion rights with the "slaveholder position"--Keyes objected:
In point of fact, I don't call people names. I make arguments, and in point of fact it is the slaveholder's position. The slaveholder took the view that black people were not developed enough to be treated as human beings and therefore could be bought and sold like animals. People looking at the babe in the womb take the view that that child is not developed enough to be treated as a human being and therefore can be killed at will.

Soon to appear in a book with a title like Things It's Probably Better Not To Say. Having been handed a gift like this, Obama had only to repeat the word "slaveholder": "Essentially, what Mr. Keyes does is equate a woman who's exercising her right to choose--in extraordinarily painful circumstances--with a slaveholder." The see-what-I-mean defense was enough. And Keyes kept making it possible.
Asked how, given his characterization of homosexuality as an "abomination," he would react to being told by one of his children that he or she was gay, Keyes took offense at being accused of "statements that I didn't make." "I do not say that homosexual relations are an abomination," he clarified. "The Bible says so." He then offered a lengthy indictment of unions "where procreation is in principle impossible," calling them "irrelevant," and said that any legislation regarding "private friendships" is a "fundamental degrading of those private friendships." Keyes looked satisfied after this, as if he'd taken everyone on a thrilling ride to Jupiter. Obama, for his part, calmly came back with, "To answer your question ... I would love that child and seek to understand them and support them in any way I could." It is hard to imagine a parent--even a parent who deplores homosexuality--balking at Obama's return to the home planet.
The more impassioned Keyes got, the easier things became for his opponent. Discussing the role of Christianity in his life, Keyes made an impassioned speech about his "faith-shaped conscience." "Without faith," Keyes declared (well, yelled, really), "there is just a faith-shaped void where the conscience ought to be!" In case anyone was still in doubt as to where his campaign fit into this equation, Keyes addressed the congregation of Illinois: "I challenge all the voters who profess to believe in Christ: How can you vote from such a faith-based void?" To which Obama replied, with a well-executed weariness: "Yeah, I don't need Mr. Keyes lecturing me about Christianity. That's why I have a pastor, that's why I have my Bible, that's why I have my own prayer. ... I'm not running to be the minister of Illinois. I'm running to be its United States senator." Keyes looked momentarily non-plussed by the reasonableness of this reply.
When Obama asked Keyes to defend his call to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, Keyes began his response with a happy lack of politesse: "I think that the question actually illustrates the ignorance that I've noticed of your understanding of the American Constitution and its background," he explained, before going on for a while about "more and more important issues ... being more and more decided by distant bureaucrats." This allowed Obama to note that, actually, he teaches a class in Constitutional law.
Before the debate was over, viewers had heard the following snippets and phrases from one of the two candidates: "the persecution of our Christian citizens," "social self-destruction," "the use of the body in this way is ... an abomination," "no one has the information necessary to avoid incest," and "gun-control mentality is ruth-less-ly absurd." Guess which one.
This is, of course, why Keyes loses votes every time he speaks. It's obvious. But Keyes is also a vital contributor to social cohesion in America, because, somehow, he makes us realize we are all--regardless of our political beliefs--Obama. It's not because we disagree with Keyes, or even because we find stridency inherently suspect. Most of us have used our reasoning to reach unexpected conclusions once in a while. Sometimes the results are weird--"It follows, therefore, that we should abolish bricks and live in trees!"--and we reexamine our premises or toss the thoughts altogether. Other times they may be logically valid--"Stubbing my toe hurts, and being burned at the stake hurts, so, actually, both Joan of Arc and I have experienced pain"--but so likely to give offense that we keep them to ourselves. In other words, we recognize that life among other people often requires applying the brakes. Alan Keyes, to his credit, does not. This makes him more courageous, more consistent, and more interesting than most of us. Fortunately, it also makes him unelectable.
Tom Frank is a reporter-researcher at TNR.