As reported earlier, the Illinois GOP has badly mishandled the Senate race there. They faced a popular, well-respected contender in Barak Obama. When candidate Jack “Family Values” Ryan left the race due to a sex scandal, they tried to engage a string of celebrities, millionaires and party faithful to take on the campaign, but they all failed; then they turned to the race card, paring the list of hopefuls down to two African-Americans, hoping that would counter the fact that Obama is black. They claimed it was mere coincidence that their finalists were both black, but in a party which is overwhelmingly white, it’s like saying that you just “happened” to deal yourself two straight-flushes in a row and that no, the deck is not stacked, why do you ask? The GOP clearly hopes that by making their conservative candidate black, that African-Americans in Illinois will somehow feel that Keyes is just as appealing as Obama.

Alan Keyes, however, carries the burden of instant hypocrisy: in 2000, he forcefully criticized Hillary Clinton for carpetbagging, or running for a seat in a state she had no relation to, saying that it represented the destruction of his beloved federalism, that she would “go into a state she doesn’t even live in and pretend to represent people there, so I certainly wouldn’t imitate it.” And of course, that is exactly what he is doing now. Is he destroying federalism? Of course not! You see, he felt that he should leave Maryland and go to Illinois in order to “defend the land of my spirit and my conscience and my heart. If indeed that land is the state of Illinois, then I have lived in the Land of Lincoln all my life.”

Ooooohhh, I see! He’s been a spiritual resident of Illinois since birth! What an amazing revelation! I should do that! After all, I can’t vote for California state Senators or Representatives because I live overseas and don’t pay state taxes–so I instead will claim residence in Texas, which has no state taxes. Actual physical residency? Posh! It’s been my spiritual home since birth! Yes, that’s the ticket!

What an outrageous hypocrite.

In addition to the hypocrisy, Keyes also brings with him a record of being the perennial loser. Even in his home state, he lost two Senate races by landslides (in 1988, getting only 38.2% of the votes, and in 1992, getting 29%–they love him there!), and was a Republican presidential contender in 1996 and 2000, again finishing way, way last. So now he’s gearing up for embarrassing loss #5, right on time for his every-four-years failure. And this time, he’s promising not to pay himself a “salary” from campaign contributions (read: stuffing donations into his own pocket) like he did in 1992.

This should be fun.