His run looks like an attempt at self-promotion, similar to Al Sharpton's run on the Democratic side in 2004. Keyes ran before in 1992 and 1996. In '96 he was pressed into running by his college roommate Bill Kristol, who wanted to split the social conservative Republican primary vote and harm the chances of Pat Buchanan, whose foreign policy positions are anathema to Kristol and Keyes.
Keyes will be in a debate Monday with all the second-tier Republican candidates. I remember the publicity Keyes got in 1996 when he was hauled away from a debate in Atlanta in handcuffs on camera. I remember the reaction of a friend, who was turned off by Keyes' shouting on the footage--it's symbolic of the way he turns people off by being too shrill.
Here's part of the New York Times article on Keyes' arrest in 1996:
Mayor Bill Campbell, summoning Olympian powers of spin control, characterized it as "a whimsical night" in Atlanta.
But Alan Keyes, a Republican Presidential candidate who was hauled off in handcuffs by the Atlanta police on Sunday after trying to crash a candidate debate, saw his night on the town somewhat differently. "Is this America or the Soviet Union?" he asked today, just warming up. "This is a disgrace to American democracy."
If it was a public relations blunder for image-sensitive Atlanta, it was a bonanza for Mr. Keyes, a candidate who would have garnered far less attention by participating in the debate than he did by being forcibly removed from it.
The incident began when Mr. Keyes, already on a four-day hunger strike to protest his exclusion from a debate in South Carolina, mounted two unsuccessful charges at the white-columned portico of WSB-TV, an ABC affiliate whose call letters stand for "Welcome South, Brother." It ended with Mayor Campbell, dressed in sweat pants, picking up Mr. Keyes from a Pizza Hut parking lot in a seedy part of town and delivering him safely to his downtown hotel.
"We wanted him to have a great time in our Olympic city," Mr. Campbell said at a news conference today, "and we did not think that he was enjoying our city at that time."
As an advertisement for Southern hospitality, barely four months before the opening of the Centennial Olympic Games, the television images of police officers detaining the only black Presidential candidate left something to be desired. And while no one, including Mr. Keyes, charged either the city or the television station with racism, many said the imagery was damaging.
"It's embarrassing," said Russell K. Paul, the state Republican chairman. "I grew up in Birmingham, Ala., in the 1960's and, unfortunately, that's what that took me back to."
Mr. Keyes, a former State Department official whose best showing this year was his 7 percent vote in the Iowa caucuses, said today that he did not hold the city responsible for his treatment. But he said he was considering suing WSB-TV for violations of Federal communications law.
Lee Armstrong, a station spokeswoman, denied any wrongdoing, saying WSB-TV chose to limit the debate to "the people who have gotten the most interest in the primaries" in order to make best use of its hourlong format.
Even before Sunday night's debate, a dozen or so of Mr. Keyes's supporters had pitched tents on the television station's lawn in a show of solidarity with their candidate. But WSB-TV management did not waver from its decision to limit participation to the four leading Republican candidates going into Tuesday's Georgia primary -- former Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Patrick J. Buchanan, Senator Bob Dole, and Steve Forbes. Mr. Dole chose not to attend the debate.
When Mr. Keyes first tried to enter the station on Sunday night, surrounded by cameras, he was escorted to the end of the driveway by the police, who said they were acting at the request of the station.
After Mr. Keyes tried a second time, the police cuffed his hands and placed him in a patrol car.
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