• Why Alan is running for president
  
  
• Interesting facts about Alan
  
  
• Alan's 2004 Senate race
  
  
• Alan's comments about Mary Cheney
  
  
• Alan's thoughts on reparations
  
  

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Q&A: Why Alan is running for president

Why is Alan Keyes running for president, and what is his campaign about?


On Oct. 11, 2007, Alan participated in the Ohio Christian Alliance Presidential Candidate Forum, and on that occasion he was asked "why he was running for the presidency of the United States." Here's his response in his own words:

I'm running for president because I think this republic is collapsing. I think our system of self-government is being replaced by a system in which we will be dominated by foreign powers, by globalist institutions, by self-seeking corporations, instead of having a government of, by, and for the people.

This collapse of our national sovereignty and the sovereignty of our people is taking place because we have abandoned the basic moral principle on which this country was founded: that our rights come from God, and that therefore we must exercise them and apply them with respect for the authority of God.

In every area, we are finding that this retreat from principle is leading to the destruction of innocent life in the womb, the collapse of the family structure, the loss of our self-confidence in the defense of our borders, and finally, a misunderstanding of what the war on terror is about, since our aim must be to defeat the forces that disregard the claims of innocent life, in violation of the fundamental principle on which our country was founded.

And I don't hear anybody else articulating this vision which makes it clear that we are urgently involved in an effort to save our republic, to save our system of self-government, and that effort especially depends on reasserting our allegiance for the basic founding vision and principles that our Founders put in place for this country.

I'm just sick of all the people dancing around it and acting as if we're dealing with this issue and that issue and the other issue. There is one issue, and all these other issues are like the fissures and cracks in the wall that bespeak the collapse of the foundations.

It's time we dealt with the real problem, articulated it with vision, and faced it with moral courage. And that is what my effort is about: to call people together on the common ground of our faith in God and our acceptance of the Declaration's principles, so that we can once again become a government of, by, and for a people who have reclaimed their active citizenship and reestablished real liberty in this country.

In the same Presidential Candidate Forum, Alan was also asked, "What specifically would you do to advance a conservative social agenda?" He gave an answer that summed up the approach of his campaign — which he has called "the first real national grassroots campaign in the history of our country":

Well, the first thing that needs to be done is we need to break the stranglehold of the godless media — the ungodly media — and the ungodly money on politicians in this country, on both sides of the aisle. We have a lot of Republicans who get the bulk of their money from fundraisers who are abortion-minded and who don't care about the moral issues. That's why all of them lose their courage, because they are taking money from these sources.

You can't deal with it after you get elected. You have to deal with it in the way you get elected. That means that you've got to put together a truly grassroots community of faith that will stand firm in defense of these moral principles, and that's what we're doing on the Keyes campaign.

If folks go to americasrevival.com, they will find there something we call the "Pledge for America's Revival," pledging support for our return to the godly principles of the Declaration and the application of those principles in every area of policy where we confront crisis.

People who believe in that need to stand up and start working, not just on election day, but right now. And we ask that they commit to find five others, at least, who will do the same thing until we have built up an army — a new community that is based on commitment and allegiance to the first principle that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the authority of God.

The grassroots people of this country must again get active — stop acting like politics is a spectator sport, something you watch on T.V. — and get involved again. They must realize that candidates shouldn't run for office, the people should run them for office.

That means that the people have to be the active component of every campaign for political office, spreading the word in their families, their workplace, their community.

We need government of the people, by the people, for the people, but that means that people have to be active in putting together the coalition, so that then you won't have ungodly money undoing the election result — you won't have the ungodly media lying and undoing the election result — because we, the people, will have made the choice and determined the choices, rather than letting these people be the gatekeepers of our choices so that all we get are evil choices, and then they tell us we have no choice but to vote for the lesser of evils, which our Lord forbade us to do.

So, I think that we need to get busy, and that's what the Alan Keyes campaign is about. I think we have to build the community that is going to advance these kinds of policies and get them moving, but you have to do it while you are doing your campaign. You have to organize people around the country to be active so that they will control the result once the election is over.

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Q&A: Interesting facts about Alan

What are some interesting facts about Alan Keyes, in addition to his "core" political background and positions?

• Alan Keyes was born in Long Island, New York, on August 7, 1950. The youngest of five children of Allison Keyes, a U.S. Army sergeant, and Gerthina Keyes, a teacher, Alan grew up as an "army brat" and lived in New Jersey, Georgia, Italy, Maryland, Virginia, and Texas. He graduated from Robert Cole High School in San Antonio, Texas, where he excelled in debate and speech, winning a national speech contest during his junior year. At age 16, he became the national president of the American Legion Boys Nation, the first African American to do so. In this role, he was photographed next to President Lyndon Johnson at the White House in 1967.
  
  
• Alan is part Cherokee.
  
  
• His ancestors were slaves in Montgomery County, Maryland, not far from where Alan and his family now live. According to the Keyes family's oral history, Alan's ancestors were owned by the composer of the National Anthem, Francis Scott Key, and lived on the Key Plantation. After they were freed, someone in Alan's lineage changed the family name to Keyes.
  
  
• Alan's wife Jocelyn is from Calcutta, India. Alan met her when he was a desk officer in Bombay early in his career with the U.S. Foreign Service.
  
  
• Although Alan served as an ambassador to the United Nations in the Reagan Administration, he is no particular "fan" of the United Nations. He assisted the U.S. policy of withholding full payment of its UN dues in an effort to pressure much-needed UN reforms. He told an audience on December 2, 2006 — when asked if he supports the United Nations — that "I never supported the United Nations. I represented the interests of the United States at the United Nations, which is a very different thing." He added, "I don't believe that we should ever allow the UN any prerogatives that undermine or conflict with the sovereignty of the United States. Rather than do so, we should leave the organization."
  
  
• He attended Cornell University in the late 1960's. After receiving death threats during his first year for criticizing a black student campus demonstration, he transferred to Harvard. Before doing so, however, he spent a year in Paris, in connection with Cornell's study abroad program (and under the guidance of political philosopher Allan Bloom).
  
  
• Alan speaks French and has studied Spanish, Russian, and ancient Greek.
  
  
• He enjoys singing and playing the guitar, and during an appearance on the Jay Leno Show in 2000, surprised viewers by impressively singing a song he had composed, accompanied by Kevin Eubanks and the Tonight Show Band.
  
  
• He received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1979 in political affairs, after writing his dissertation on American constitutional theory, with emphasis on the thinking of Alexander Hamilton and the writers of the Federalist Papers.
  
  
• Due to his eloquent and thoughtful defense of America's sovereign interests, Alan rose to become Assistant Secretary of State for Internal Organizations under Ronald Reagan, and in so doing became the highest ranking African American in the Reagan administration.
  
  
• After leaving the State Department at the end of the Reagan years, Alan accepted the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 1988. In one of the most heavily Democratic states in the nation, Alan drew 38% in the general election against popular liberal incumbent Paul Sarbanes — thanks in part to the campaign efforts of President Ronald Reagan on Alan's behalf.
  
  
• In 1992, Alan won the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in Maryland, coming first in a field of 13 candidates in the Republican primary. In the general election, he faced another entrenched liberal Democrat, Barbara Mikulski — a four-term congresswoman who had won her first term in the House with 76% of the vote (and was returned to the House with even higher totals in succeeding elections). Against Democrat Mikulski, Alan gained 29% in the general election.
  
  
• Between these Senate nominations, Alan served as President of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) from 1989 to 1991, and founded CAGW's National Taxpayers' Action Day. In 1991, he served as Interim President of Alabama A&M University, in Huntsville, Alabama.
  
  
• From 1994 until 2000, Alan hosted a live daily national radio talk show (later simulcast on cable TV) titled "America's Wake-Up Call."
  
  
• He interrupted his radio show in 1996 and 2000 to run for president, with a strong pro-life platform that focused on the need to end abortion, abolish the income tax, give parents control over their children's education, and preserve American sovereignty.
  
  
• In 2002, Alan was host of "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense," a live prime-time daily commentary show on MSNBC. During its run, many considered the program the best show of its kind on television.
  
  
• As a result of his staunch support of Israel on his MSNBC-TV show, Alan was invited to Israel in July 2002 and awarded a first-ever honor for his integrity in broadcast journalism. He met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and was given a four-day tour of Israeli military installations.
  
  
• Alan is the Chairman of RenewAmerica, a conservative grassroots organization whose URL is www.renewamerica.us. In 2006, RenewAmerica — which features over a hundred writers and focuses on moral conservative advocacy — was profiled as one of America's top 20 Christian political organizations.
  
  
• Alan is also the Honorary Chairman of the Declaration Foundation and the Declaration Alliance, nonprofit organizations he founded.
  
  
• In 2003 and 2004, Alan focused his time and attention on helping with dozens of "Ten Commandments Rallies" around the United States with his friend and colleague Dr. Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America. The rallies educated citizens about the constitutionally-guaranteed right of public religious expression, in the wake of the controversial removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court Building in August 2003.
  
  
• For 86 days in the fall of 2004, Alan ran for the U.S. Senate from Illinois against Barack Obama — after being recruited at the last minute by the Illinois Republican Party to replace Jack Ryan, who dropped out over a sex scandal. Because the state's major media had already officially endorsed Obama by the time Alan entered the race, Alan's main opponent during the next three months turned out to be an overtly hostile press, which repeatedly sought to discredit him by intentionally misrepresenting his positions, statements, and activities. Alan occasionally chided the Illinois media for their blatant misreporting of his views and efforts — as they continued to insulate Obama from criticism in one of the most politically-corrupt states in the nation. On election day, Alan gathered 27% — which amounts to 1.3 million votes. (For more information on the campaign, see "Q&A: Alan's 2004 Senate race.")
  
  
• In May 2006, Alan keynoted the launch of the Minutemen's border fence near Tombstone, Arizona, along with Rep. Steve King of Iowa, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Don Goldwater, and Arizona congressional candidate Randy Graf. Alan is a strong supporter of securing our borders as the first tactical step in the war against terror. He has therefore developed a close affliation with the Minutemen.
  
  
• In recent years, Alan has been writing a book titled The Theology of Freedom, due to be published in upcoming months. The book lays out, in logical fashion, the moral and religious premises of Alan's political thought and applies them to vital national issues.
  
  
• Throughout the last decade, Alan has devoted innumerable hours to speaking about pro-life and other moral conservative issues to large and small audiences alike — mainly Christian conservative groups, but also high-profile conservative organizations. This tireless activism has built, as a natural byproduct, broad and deep support for Alan's leadership in the political arena. As a result, Alan is considered by many the de facto political leader of the moral conservative movement.
  
  

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Q&A: Alan's 2004 Senate race

Media reports of Alan's 2004 Senate race against Barack Obama portrayed Obama as an invincible Goliath and Alan Keyes as a would-be David who was missing some of his smooth stones. What really happened in Illinois?


Many people are unaware of several factors that gave Barack Obama an insurmountable advantage from the outset of this historic race — not the least of which was the longstanding corruption of the "Chicago Democratic machine" and the state's unusually-corrupt liberal media.

Here are verifiable facts that many outsiders know little about — thanks to disinformation and distortion spread by those who control Illinois politics. (For an in-depth analysis of the race, see "Alan Keyes' impact on Illinois.")

• When Alan entered the race, there were only 86 days left before the general election — a fact conspicuously absent in media accounts of the outcome. At the time Alan announced, Obama already had the race sewn up for all intents and purposes — in large measure because he'd already gained endorsements from all of the state's major media.
  
  To illustrate the significance of these media endorsements, consider that immediately after Alan's announcement, the biggest of the endorsing newspapers released a poll that claimed over 70 percent of voters favored Obama — yet the paper refused to publish the basis for its self-fulfilling poll. This poll was then cited as authoritative by the state's media throughout the campaign.
  
  
• Alan did not personally seek the nomination. Instead, he was drafted by the Illinois Republican Party to fill a vacancy created July 29, 2004, when the GOP's original nominee — Jack Ryan — formally withdrew, due to a sex scandal involving sealed documents from Ryan's 1999 divorce. (It was reported that the Obama campaign pressed to have these damaging confidential documents made public to embarrass Ryan.)
  
  
• Alan's overriding motivation for challenging Obama in what was clearly an uphill race was to expose Obama's unconscionable rejection of the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act — a measure Obama blocked as a state senator (even though a similar measure was passed by the U.S. Senate with support from Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy).
  
  Alan felt that no person willing to run interference for the evil practice of infanticide would serve the nation's principles in the U.S. Senate.
  
  
• When Alan launched his candidacy on August 8, 2004, Obama had just been pronounced by the national media the "star" of the Democratic National Convention. Note that prior to his convention speech, Obama was virtually unknown outside the state of Illinois. This much-heralded "star" status continues to give Obama a virtually free ride by the media in his quest for political influence. He certainly had a free ride throughout his Senate race against Alan — rarely being asked challenging questions or pressed to account for his contradictory votes or positions.
  
  
• When Obama was facing Alan's predecessor, Jack Ryan, Obama promised Ryan six well-publicized debates, so voters could see the difference between the two candidates. When formidable orator and debater Keyes became his opponent, however, Obama reneged on his promise of six debates and reluctantly agreed to just three — all of which Alan clearly won, and none of which received wide media attention. (In fact, the first debate — in which Alan obviously outshone Obama — was televised by delay on C-SPAN, not live on statewide mainstream television.) The debates were also timed near the end of the election season, to prevent Alan from building any possible momentum.
  
  
• Not long into the campaign, Alan was publicly abandoned by the state's Republican Party for his pro-life and pro-family positions. His viewpoint was labeled "idiotic" by the chairwoman of the state GOP because he defined the gay lifestyle as self-centered "hedonism." Soon afterward, this chairwoman (who also strongly advocated so-called "abortion rights") was prominently featured in Chicago's annual gay pride parade.
  
  
• Obama had close ties with billionaire socialist George Soros throughout the election — which included Soros's help in mobilizing considerable financial backing.
  
  
• Unlike the rest of the Midwest in 2004, Illinois — due to its domination by corrupt politicians and media in Chicago's Cook County — stood out as a "blue" state that year, even inordinately so. To appreciate the extreme character of liberal politics in Illinois that season, see a three-dimensional graphic published right after the 2004 election depicting the extent of Cook County's liberal mindset — the most liberal major county in the entire nation that year.
  
  

These kinds of factors place Alan's much-publicized loss in perspective. In the end, Alan still gathered 27% — which amounted to 1.3 million votes from independent-minded moral conservatives who refused to be misled, mostly outside the Chicago area.

Not a bad three months' worth of work, actually. Some observers suggest that if Alan had been able to campaign against Obama throughout a full election cycle, he might possibly have been able to overcome the inherent disadvantages he faced, penetrate the media-sustained shielding of Obama, and pull off an upset win against the powerful "Daley machine" that runs the state's politics.

If anyone could under the circumstances, it would be Alan — with his clear voice of reason and moral principle — provided he had enough time and resources to organize a widespread grassroots effort. Obama later admitted that Alan had profoundly unsettled him, due to Alan's unflinching appeal to Christian ethics.

See:

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Q&A: Alan's comments about Mary Cheney

It has been widely reported that Alan Keyes verbally "attacked" Mary Cheney for her gay lifestyle during an interview at the 2004 Republican National Convention. What's the story?


During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, Alan Keyes was reported to have disparaged Mary Cheney over her professed homosexuality.

Literally thousands of U.S. newspapers and internet news sites ran headlines claiming that Alan had "trashed," "lashed out at," "disparaged," "attacked," or otherwise verbally abused the gay daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Of course, the text inside these articles contained no words from Alan to back up the intentionally inflammatory, even slanderous headlines. The reason? There were no such comments by Alan. The headlines were dishonest distortions of what Alan said to an interviewer at the convention, and Alan's words did not square with the distortions.

According to an audio recording of the interview, Alan was asked if he supported the Bush-Cheney ticket, to which he answered he did. He was then reminded that the vice president opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment and that the vice president's daughter was gay.

Keyes responded by commenting on the importance of traditional marriage — one of the central themes of his campaign for the Senate from Illinois. This led him first to define marriage, and then its controversial modern alternative, the gay lifestyle, which he characterized, in contrast with the procreational family, as the self-centered pursuit of pleasure, literally "selfish hedonism."

The interviewer — himself gay — then asked Alan if his definition would apply to Mary Cheney, who is an avowed lesbian. Alan answered, "Of course, by definition."

Thus, after defining philosophically and morally what homosexuality ultimately consisted of in principle — to distinguish it from traditional marriage — Alan was asked if his definition applied equally to all professing homosexuals, including famous ones. Without turning from his principles, he said what any honest person would have said.

"Of course, by definition."

Note that he didn't even mention Mary Cheney by name. Nor did he single her out for condemnation of any kind. He simply defined homosexuality according to a valid set of criteria and then responded reasonably to a follow-up question. Yet the media reported dishonestly that he took Mary Cheney personally to task and sought to make an example of her.

The widely-publicized "attack on Mary Cheney" by Alan therefore never happened except in the malicious minds of members of the media who were intent on discrediting him.

As any other principled, honest person would, Alan simply applied his consistent logic to defining an important moral and social problem and responded with integrity when a specific example was suggested by an interviewer.

Alan chose to stick to his convictions — in a polite way that could hardly be labeled insensitive toward the gay daughter of a national leader. It was the nation's liberal media who turned Alan's words into an occasion to disparage and discredit him.

For a full description of what happened, along with a transcript, see "Alan Keyes teaches sex education lesson to homosexual interviewer, by Mary Mostert."

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Q&A: Alan's thoughts on 'reparations'

What is the truth about Alan's reported position on so-called "reparations"? Is it true that Alan supports reparations for descendants of slaves?


This question reflects a misunderstanding.

Alan does not support "reparations" — which he calls "an effort to extort monetary damages from the American people."

The confusion arises from an occasion when Alan was asked by a reporter what he thought of controversial statements about reparations that other black leaders were making when Alan was running for the Senate from Illinois in 2004.

At the time, Alan had no formal "position" on reparations, never had one, and has none today — other than to say that he has long opposed monetary awards for descendants of slaves, a disastrous policy promoted by various black leaders.

Without altering his opposition to monetary reparations, he instead offered the questioner a hypothetical solution to the potential need to help disadvantaged descendants of slaves have a more level playing field upon which to better themselves economically. He offered this proposition as a descendant of slaves, himself, one who believes that blacks as a group have been undeniably discriminated against in overt and subtle ways since the days of slavery and Reconstruction — despite modern strides to improve the situation.

The hypothetical solution Alan offered his questioner was this:

To right a historical injustice or imbalance in the marketplace that tends to give blacks certain disadvantages, Alan suggested allowing descendants of slaves an income tax break for a limited period of time — by which they might have the means to invest capital, create new businesses, and otherwise escape the destructive dependency on government welfare that Lyndon Johnson's Great Society had created within black culture during the 1960's, and which continues undiminished today.

Although Alan's remarks were widely interpreted as an endorsement of monetary reparations, they clearly were not, nor were they a departure from sound conservative principles. One of the most common conservative solutions to verifiable inequities or desirable societal ends is positive incentives that avoid the "heavy hand of government," any kind of handout, or an increase in regulations. Conservatives therefore typically favor tax breaks over monetary redistribution or government intrusion.

That's all Alan was proposing — to deal with a real legacy of injustice. His answer to the reporter's question was a thoughtful application of conservative principles to correct the consequences of historic injustice.

He does feel, however, that if his hypothetical solution were ever implemented (something he does not anticipate), it would bring about a swift and decisive end to the federal income tax for all Americans, since once the American people saw the economic energy that suspension of the income tax unleashed for Black Americans, they would clamor for abolition of the federal income tax and implementation of the Fair Tax proposal Alan has long advocated to replace it. This would free Americans from the liberty-destroying shackles that make us all wage-slaves of the federal government.