Monday, May 12, 2008
It's tough when everybody mistakes you for a presidential contender, that is, until you start getting used to it.
Feb 10, 2000 | I hope that Alan Keyes stays in the Republican Party's presidential race right up to the bitter end. This, I know, may be not helpful to the party leaders as they try to fashion a coherent strategy for winning back the White House, but the man is entertaining, and having him run has added a whole new dimension to my life.
That's because I'm probably the only reporter in the history of the republic to be repeatedly confused with a presidential candidate he's trying to cover, in this case Alan Keyes. All I lack is the goatee. Accordingly, I'm getting kind of used to being addressed as "Ambassador" or "Your Excellency."
Pretty much every day out on the campaign trail, someone will approach me and ask to shake my hand or congratulate me on my eloquence. Others, when they walk past my table, turn to sneak a better look. For me, New Hampshire in the days before the primary was heaven. After all, given the state's tiny African-American population, the odds that a black man sitting in a restaurant here in January is running for president are pretty good.
Of course, initially I had to adjust to the idea that when people stared at me they were seeing a guy crusading against the "howling moral void" in America. Howling? There's something about voids that suggests silence to me, but hey, he's the one with the Ph.D. from Harvard.
The first time I was mistaken for Keyes was actually some time ago back in Washington. I was walking across the Capitol Rotunda when somebody I didn't know walked by and nodded, mumbling: "Ambassador." I paid no attention at the time. But once Keyes started appearing on this winter's television coverage of the debates in Iowa and New Hampshire, the double takes become more common.
Keyes finished a strong third in the Iowa caucuses, jumped into a mosh pit and came out with his tie still straight. Gary Bauer, whose candidacy on behalf of the lipless was on the verge of vaporization, attacked Keyes for this immoral act. Not in keeping with the dignity of the office, etc.
With a straight face Keyes responded to Bauer that his straight tie was an outward sign of his inner dignity, dignity he learned "from my people."
Listening to Alan Keyes talk about race is like watching someone blow their nose at the dinner table. It's not unnatural -- he is black after all -- but it's unnerving just the same. The purity of his argument that America's glory lies in its past, when it was closer to God and to the Founding Fathers, would seem to minimize the importance of racial victimization, which was so much a part of that past. His basic problem, however, is one that all budding zealots must confront: a loss of credibility.
All that aside, if forced to point out a weakness in Keyes as a candidate, I would choose his utter lack of irony, a complete lack of any awareness of how over the top he is. His rage seems aimed at everything that happened after God rested on the seventh day, with the notable exception of the U.S. Constitution. Still, the great lesson of the Keyes candidacy, and this election season generally, is what it tells us about the wave of contentment washing over the electorate.
The longest economic boom in our history seems to have rendered us almost fearless. No one can hurt us now -- not Al Gore or George W. Bush or Bill Bradley or John McCain or Pat Buchanan, not to mention Keyes or the recently departeds, Bauer and Steve Forbes. As a result, we are choosing to view politics much more as entertainment than we could in the past. We are no longer repulsed by what we see and hear, no matter how fabulous or ridiculous it may sound. We are in this for the laughs -- and no one is more entertaining than Keyes.
Given all this, I'm beginning to see the opportunity for some mischief here. I'm thinking of rolling out the Straight Tie Express.
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