The Keyes to GOP Victory

I recently wrote about the farsical notion of "Big Tent Republicans" with regard to their choice of speakers at their national convention. My post was in response to continued -- incorrect -- suggestions that Democrats do not let pro-life speakers address their conventions.

In that post I suggested that the RNC could demonstrate their Big Tent bona fides by inviting United States Senate candidate Tom Coburn to speak. Obviously this was a sly bit of insincerity on my part. Everyone knows there's no chance that Ed Gillespie is going to let Coburn speak to a national audience. Not because of his belief that doctors who perform abortions should be executed, mind you. No, of course not. Clearly Coburn won't be allowed to speak because nobody has every heard of the un-elected Senate candidate from Oklahoma. It wouldn't do to disturb the choreographed corronation with an errant Okie nobody.

So in the interests of earnest helpfulness I offer two words that may not have ocurred to the RNC spinmeisters who are more concerned with merely looking good than actually calling attention to their agenda: Alan Keyes.

Think about the perfection, the symmetry of this idea.

The Democrats had their Illinois Senate candidate, Barak Obama speak at the DNC. The GOP can demonstrate their heartland values by letting their Illinois Senate candidate speak at the Republican convention. The Republicans won't let Tom Coburn speak because nobody's ever heard of him. But Alan Keyes doesn't have that problem. In fact, with two Senate races and two presidential campaigns under his belt Keyes has got virtually national appeal. Given the difficulty that Bush has with diplomacy having "Ambassador" Keyes on the dais could go a long way to comforting Americans worried about Bush's diplomatic gaffes and unstinting unilateralism. Plus, given how assiduously Bush has courted the the Urban League the NAACP, Republicans can truly broaden their appeal by inviting a prominent black American to give a prime time address.

Perhaps most importantly, Keyes has the benefit of not only being eloquent and telegenic; but he actually buys into the Republican platform. Unlike the other principal speakers -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani, former Democrat Michael Bloomberg, current Democrat Zell Miller, George Pataki -- Keyes endorses the actual vision of the party. In Keyes absence the Republican message might suffer from not actually being enunciated. I think the Republicans should have at least one speaker who will eloquently and intelligently espouse their agenda, don't you?

If I might make an additional modest proposal. Schedule Alan Keyes either before or after Rod Paige. The juxtaposition of two black Republican luminaries would highlight the openness and inclusive values of the modern GOP. Also, as two of the foremost opponents of often unrecognized terrorist groups, Paige and Keyes have much to teach us about how to combat domestic terrorism.

I bet if Gillespie calls, Keyes can be up on stage with short notice. From what I can tell, he's already got a good bit of his speech already written:

What distinguishes the terrorist from the ordinary warrior, is that the terrorist will consciously target innocent human life. What is done in the course of an abortion? . . . Someone consciously targets innocent human life.

As I often point out to folks, the evil is the same. And that means, quite frankly, in fighting the war against terror, as I have often put it to audiences, the evil that we fight is but the shadow of the evil that we do.

He's got a lot more like that, trust me. There are votes there, I'm telling you.