By Stephen Stone

ccun.org, October 29, 2007




Several months ago, you graciously responded to a few e-mails I sent you regarding the pending presidential candidacy of Alan Keyes. In one notable response, you said, in essence, that "Alan's candidacy is going nowhere."

I thought at the time--and still feel--that the only way such a prediction could come true would be if the media, the Republican establishment, and the conservative leadership ensured that Alan has no chance by excluding him from the political process and thus depriving voters of the opportunity to decide about him for themselves.
       
On his own merits, Alan is the most brilliant voice among the candidates of either party, has invaluable foreign policy experience none of the others can claim, and has the most credibility in espousing the moral values and priorities most Americans share.

For these kinds of reasons, Alan discernibly generates more passionate and committed support from voters than any other presidential candidate--once people have a chance to see and hear him for themselves, firsthand, undiluted by naysayers in the media, party establishment, and conservative leadership.

A few facts

With that perspective, consider the following:

From the moment Alan announced on Sept. 14, the media have largely ignored Alan's candidacy, as though he weren't even running. Shockingly, even WorldNetDaily omitted mention of Alan's remarkable third-place finish in the straw poll held in conjunction with the Sept. 17 Ft. Lauderdale Values Voter Debate--publishing the following obvious slight: "Huckabee had 219 votes while Paul finished a distant second with 44. Brownback had 18 and Thompson 15." The report skipped third-place Keyes altogether, jumping from second-place Paul to Brownback and Thompson, who came in fourth and fifth. By all indications, the omission was intentional (especially since WND ignored our request for a correction).

 Considering the strength of Alan's performance in the debate--as the video of the event reveals--this attempt to make him appear a nonfactor was just media manipulation, and from an unexpected source, at that.

In countless media articles since Alan's launch, he has repeatedly been left off the roster of candidates. This creates the perception that Alan is indeed "going nowhere," by virtue of media indifference. (Bear in mind that Alan's greatest obstacle in running is obviously the media, who view him as irrelevant, because of his unapologetically God-centered moral perspective. Of course, we in his campaign knew this going in, as did Alan.)

When the media are not ignoring him, they're intentionally caricaturing him. An early example was a media report of the Tavis Smiley PBS presidential debate that Alan participated in on Sept. 27. In his first words, Alan made an ironic comment about how the top tier GOP candidates were afraid to debate him (an observation that appears to be true), and he began by a tongue-in-cheek challenge of other candidates' remarks about the evident motivation behind the top-tier hopefuls' boycott of the event, held at traditionally-black Morgan State University in Baltimore. Afterward, a media report completely distorted Alan's intent by citing only his tongue-in-cheek premise and making him appear, as a result, insensitive to black issues.

And so on--the sort of media distortions that occurred continually in the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race, when virtually everything Alan was reported to have said was a deliberate distortion by the Obama-supportive media. I have ample evidence to support that assessment, since my family and I ran his website, and thus had access to original recordings of Alan's speeches and interviews, and also maintained a thorough file of media stories about Alan. (See Alan Keyes' impact on Illinois.)

Because the media now largely control the political process in America, Alan was thereafter excluded from the Oct. 9 Michigan MSNBC Republican Debate at the discretion of NBC, according to an e-mail from Michigan GOP spokesman Bill Nowling--specifically because, in NBC's judgment, Alan had filed "too late" to qualify for the debate.

As you can well imagine, had Alan been allowed to participate in that crucial debate, his candidacy would be taking off, not seemingly fading into oblivion. Afterward, we received messages from supporters who assumed Alan had dropped out of the race. I should point out that in the earlier Ft. Lauderdale and PBS debates, Alan arguably outshone all the other participants--at least he proved he belonged on stage with the others--and no one could argue credibly that he deserves to be excluded from other debates by virtue of his supposed late filing (just days after Fred Thompson filed).

Besides such media interference with the political process, the GOP establishment itself has intentionally tried to squelch Alan's candidacy. Not only did the chairman of the Michigan GOP leave Alan's name off the list of "possible presidential candidates" submitted for the ballot (it turns out that he did so in utter disregard for Alan's long-operating test-the-waters committee), but the Florida GOP excluded Alan from the Oct. 21 Fox News Republican debate, claiming Alan had not yet garnered 1% in media polls to that point--ignoring the fact that this was due to his exclusion from any of the polls cited.

(As an aside, note that both of the above state parties are among a handful that are being considered by the Republican National Committee for censure for artificially pushing the electoral process ahead of schedule this election cycle.)

As with the Michigan debate, Alan's absence from the Florida debate can't be attributed to his lack of voter appeal, intelligence, credentials, or credibility--but rather to unfair exclusion from the political process by the media and the party leadership. It can be persuasively argued that the real loser in such a situation is not Alan Keyes, of course, but the voting public, who are being deprived of the opportunity to make an informed choice this critical election.

Your column

This brings me to your Oct. 25 column, which we recently published at RenewAmerica.

In your column, you share with readers your latest thoughts on the 2008 presidential election. It's an informative, insightful piece. I read it with the same interest with which I always approach your commentary.

Then I realized that you had intentionally omitted Alan Keyes from your list. You could argue, I suppose, that Alan is a non-serious candidate on the order of John Cox or Hugh Cort, but that would be unfair and inaccurate. Alan is an established leader in the moral conservative movement, unlike these men, and he has considerable influence. His candidacy is legitimate and deeply serious, and he is running because he believes no other candidate is articulating the most important principles and issues that should be center stage if our country is to survive. (Read, for example, his recent comments in the Ohio Christian Alliance Presidential Forum.)

I was greatly disappointed in your exclusion of Alan from your article, and by implication, from the political process. Alan is a great man, and America's voters deserve to know he exists and is running for president on a uniquely grassroots platform and vision.

I ask you to correct this unfair treatment of Alan. He deserves at least to be mentioned as a candidate. What is to be gained by emulating liberal media sources and treating this respected conservative as a nonperson?

A final word about "appearance"

 Let me suggest in closing that our country's problems are so severe that they require exceptional intelligence, boldness, and vision to solve, of the sort that is proven by personal sacrifice and courageous advocacy of truth. Among the field of presidential hopefuls, only Alan Keyes exemplifies such qualities.

The notion that our nation's pressing challenges can be set aside while we promote--as your article does--such unqualified pretenders as Mitt Romney because they "look" and "sound" presidential is obvious folly.

Far too much is at stake.

Stephen Stone
Editor, RenewAmerica