September 17, 2007
Alan Keyes Takes GOP Field Up To 11
Meet the newest GOP candidate for president! No, not Fred Thompson (he's old news now, silly). Newt Gingrich, you ask? Not yet -- he's still just thinking about it. No, we're talking about former State Department official and frequent candidate Alan Keyes.
Whether out of dissatisfaction with the field thus far or the hankering for a rematch with Barack Obama, Keyes made his bid official last Friday when he filed an official statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.
"The more I thought about it and prayed over it, the more it seemed to me that the one thing I've always been called to do is just raise the standard -- not to worry about anything else, but to make sure that, clearly articulated, there is the sense of this national standard of our allegiance to God and His authority that has been the foundation stone of our nation's life," Keyes told talk-radio host Janet Parshall in explaining his decision to run.
Keyes' first act as a candidate will be to participate in tonight's "Values Voters" debate in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He'll be joined by six other second- or third-tier GOP candidates -- Sam Brownback, John Cox, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo. Leading candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Thompson and John McCain, meanwhile, have opted out of the event.
Keyes, a 56-year-old Maryland native, worked for the State Department under the Reagan administration and ran for the Republican presidential nomination twice before, in 1996 and 2000. He has also unsuccessfully sought Senate seats in Maryland and Illinois.
Keyes' most recent high-profile appearance on the national stage came last fall, when he was "interviewed" by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen for the film, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
Posted at 3:04 PM
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Alan Keyes, Campaigns, Republicans, WH 2008
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