Illinois Senate Race Just Got Real Interesting

http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/010104/election-voices6.jpg

No one, h, i guess i misread "resigning"

Jack Ryan is a seriously creepy and vain dude. But it's not like he was going to win anyway.

I don't understand why a member of 'the BDSM community' would want to praise a man who dragged his unwilling wife to a 'sex club'. It's disturbing that people don't get what is really wrong with this. But it's not like we didn't already know that he was a vain, paleo-Catholic ass.

I like this guy, and hope that when I'm there, he's going to be the Senator.

I have an unfavorable opinion of Jeri Ryan now.

How come??

The point, though, is not whether this story is true or not. It is that people are taking this story at face value and saying, 'right on, dude!' If the story is true, it's -not- okay.

Anyway, read it and puke .

Yup. Even before this came out, he was trailing Obama by quite a bit.

obama was probably going to win anyway. he's a great guy, it seems; it'll be nice to have two really good senators from illinois (durbin has turned out to be even better than i had hoped).

-- nabiscothingy (--...) (webmail), June 23rd, 2004 5:18 PM. (later) (link)

that was hilarious.

i love the connotation "avant-garde" is understood to have for tribune readers.... "avant-garde" = leather whips and open orifices, i guess.

Also sex stuff - rightly or wrongly, true or not - brings down campaigns all the time. Gary Hart, Gary Condit, Bill Clinton, etc. Weirdly it seems that sex scandals don't affect Republicans (maybe Bob Packwood is the exception?) - I wonder why that is. Henry Hyde still is in office, unfortunately.

Cf. a female friend of mine who was dragged to a sex club without being told in advance: "any creep who confuses my healthy appetite for sex with an interest in doing it in front of complete strangers is bad enough -- when he doesn't even have the guts or interest to ask me first, he's beneath contempt."

According to Hollywood lore one Nancy Davis spent significant time being the town bike of Beverly Hills before her marriage.

Michael Dukakis' campaign had some serious dirty laundry on the opposition but unlike their Republican counterparts felt that it was perhaps not-of-the-issue to mention the opponent's mistress.

Anyway, he admitted that he had been too controlling over his wife.

Here is an op-ed that's typical of what irritates me.

To understand why, you have to ask whether there is actually an original sin here--whether anything contained in the divorce papers is really so objectionable. And the answer is no. What is scandalous about the fact that three or four times Ryan cajoled his wife into going to racy clubs? They were married; maybe he thought this would inject spark into their sex life. Or maybe he had a fantasy about public sex and wanted to try it with the woman he loved. That is weird, but is it really so terrible? Is it even morally wrong in any serious way?

As the inimitable Dan Savage, author of the sex column "Savage Love," has pointed out time and again, lovers will always have different conceptions of what is sexually exciting and what is sexually strange. An admirable partner is one who, in Savage's words, is "good, giving, and game"--someone who is open-minded, but knows when to give a hard no and respects and recognizes the same from the other. Even if these allegations are true, Ryan was at worst guilty of being a bit of a bully, and that's condemnable. But what American politician isn't a bit of a bully? It's certainly not front-page news.

No, it's certainly not front-page news that a conservative politician treats women like property.

the cool ones do.

You have to give the conservatives credit for trying to push Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, etc. off the front pages from time to time.

I dunno. Seems rather avant-garde.

also suzy what is up with your constant "amazing" gossip about various celebrities past and present? i don't intend any offense, but why should we accept or care about this fourth or fifthhand stuff? or have you planted spies in all the posh hotels?

I'm saying, we can't argue that because there are only allegations regarding his behavior toward his wife.

I just think any complaints about Ryan should be limited to the cover-up aspect, if indeed that's what people think has happened--any judgements based on the content of the files alone seems unjustified to me.

to change the subject slightly, in the tribune today there was a page 1 story about obama's response, or rather, his non-response, to the ryan scandal. some ways down in the article the reporter wrote "obama's tactic seems to be to appear to take the high ground." er, is he not, in fact, taking the high ground?

Allegations that neither he nor anyone else has denied, and that he has tacitly admitted, at least in general terms.

If only they'd been married just a few years later: he could have satisfied all his perversities at home with a remote control and the Borg uniform.

on second thought i understand why they couldn't have said "obama is taking the high ground"--it sounds partisan, like an editorial comment. so they chose "obama wants to be seen as taking the high ground," which is probably true, although it has the unfortunate effect of seeming to imply that obama is acting from cynicism, which i don't think he is. but i understand the way it was phrased, in hindsight.

Nancy Reagan: my late grandparents led an exemplary Jazz Age lifestyle. My grandfather went to Hollywood after high school and while working as an extra, shared a flat with another extra called Marion Morrison. My grandmother was propositioned by Clark Gable. Her cousin married a Mulholland. They were told this by people who had worked with 'Mommy', okay? BTW they were also hardcore '60s Democrat fundraisers.

Bushmistress: daughter of Republican judge from MN was working as intern in the Bush 1 White House. Eyewitness, and close friend and colleague of my best friend from school, who is on sabbatical right now from DC power job and is married to a possible future Democrat President. That may seem hyperbolic, but the details I'm sparing you would probably bear this out - think the next FDR right down to the limp.

Now, I don't have a problem with people who have inside information they've come by quite honestly, and I expect to be accorded that treatment myself. Especially with regard to the second item, the people who told me knew I was working as a journalist and still spoke freely even at the height of DC litigeousness in the mid-'90s. These are stories that have actually passed my bullshit detector.

He's quitting the race.

well, i just wish you would reveal these sources when you tell the stories. it often seems as if you expect us to take them on faith owing to your fabulous life in proximity to the rich and famous. that is probably a mis-impression, so i'm glad you cleared it up.

One of the problems of being me is that sometimes 'connections' in amount and in tone are this simultaneous embarrassment (both meanings) because there's this tiny Machiavellian part of my brain that says I haven't done nearly enough with them. They range from the happenstance and random to family and friend-related. I'm also wary because my grandparents' showbiz-and-politics lifestyle did not really take into account the developmental needs of my dad, who wasn't unloved by any means but became a problem they threw money at. He's a bit of a groupie and got into 'hospitality' (bars etc) because he was that needy, so I've got a 'there but...' thing about him - and he's irresponsible because he was always allowed to be. I never want to be like that, it gives me the voms.

Momus to thread.

http://search.ebay.com/obama-father_W0QQsokeywordredirectZ1QQfromZR8

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0408060052aug06,1,2287995.story?coll=chi-leisuretempo-hed

The buzz around Obama's book

By Charles Leroux
Tribune senior writer
Published August 6, 2004

"I'm 33 now; I work as a lawyer active in the social and political life of Chicago, a town that's accustomed to its racial wounds and prides itself on a certain lack of sentiment. If I've been able to fight off cynicism, I nevertheless like to think of myself as wise to the world, careful not to expect too much." -- From the introduction to "Dreams From My Father, a Story of Race and Inheritance" -- by Barack Obama, published in 1995.

- - -

`I suppose I should be the expert on this, but I don't remember all the details," said Henry Ferris, now an editor at William Morrow publishers but thinking back to when he worked at Times Books more than a decade ago.

"I guess I had a writing sample and an outline of the story," he said. "I do remember signing him and the pleasure of working with him. I remember thinking right away that he was someone who could straddle the white world and the African-American world. And I was floored by his writing."

Ferris had spotted brilliance in a thirtysomething lawyer working then at the Chicago firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. The young man had been the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Nonetheless, Obama was mostly -- and, in literary circles, entirely -- unknown.

After it hit bookstores in 1995, the book did well but was no blockbuster. Two years later, it was out of print. Until now.

Three Rivers Press, a subsidiary of Crown Books, has republished "Dreams" in paperback. It will be on sale Tuesday.

As this is being written, Obama's memoir is No. 14 (based on presales) on the amazon.com top 50 list, four behind "My Life" by Bill Clinton.

It is No. 9 on the barnsandnoble.com biographies list. The book -- and Obama -- come from a two-year love story between a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, who met as students at the University of Hawaii.

"We have all seen too much," he wrote, "to take my parents' brief union . . . at face value. As a result, when some people who don't know me well, black or white, discover my background (and it is usually a discovery, for I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites), I see the split-second adjustments they have to make, the searching of my eyes for some telltale sign."

For 403 pages (in the original hardcover edition), Obama too, doesn't take himself at face value but searches for signs, for clues to what his life as an American of mixed race means. The search ranges from Kansas to Hawaii to Africa. It begins, though, on a morning in New York. Obama, a political science major at Columbia University, was cooking breakfast when he got a call from Nairobi, from Aunt Jane, his father's sister, a woman he had never met. She was calling to say that his long-estranged father was dead.

She said: "He is killed in a car accident . . . Please call your uncle in Boston and tell him . . . I will try to call again."

Obama wrote: "That was all. The line cut off, and I sat down on the couch, smelling eggs burn in the kitchen, staring at cracks in the plaster, trying to measure my loss."

A review in The Washington Post said, "Fluidly, calmly, insightfully, Obama guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class and race."

Writer Scott Turow, in the new edition, found it "Beautifully crafted . . . moving and candid."

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, said, "Perceptive and wise, this book will tell you something about yourself whether you are black or white."

"Dreams From My Father" might never have happened if Jane Dystel, back in 1990, hadn't read about Obama's appointment at the Law Review. The New York literary agent called him immediately with a book proposal.

`A brilliant writer'

"When I met him," Dystel said, "I sensed that he could be a very, very important person in this country. He has such charisma, such straightforwardness and intelligence. And he turned out to be a brilliant writer. What a pleasure!

"I think I embarrassed him, but I said that if, in my lifetime, there was a black president of the United States, it would be him."

There is a scene in the book set in a barber shop called Smitty's on the edge of Hyde Park in which Obama gets a hint about what a black person's success in politics can mean to the black community. The customers are talking warmly about Harold Washington.

Obama wrote: "That's how black people talked about Chicago's mayor, with a familiarity and affection normally reserved for a relative. His picture was everywhere: on the walls of shoe repair shops and beauty parlors; still glued to the lampposts from the last campaign; even in the windows of the Korean dry cleaners and Arab grocery stores, displayed prominently, like some protective totem."

Dystel sold the book to Simon & Schuster, who, later, decided against publishing it. She said she doesn't know why. She then offered it to Times Books, where it came into Ferris' hands.

"I'm very proud to represent him," Dystel said of her client who is now Illinois' Democratic senatorial candidate and a sudden nationwide phenomenon. "I'm so excited for him and for all of us."

"I read the book in March, just after he won the Illinois Democratic primary by such a wide margin, (53 percent in a seven-candidate race)" said Rachel Klayman, senior editor at Crown Books, which inherited the rights to the book.

"As an editor, it struck me that a lot of people who write professionally don't write as well as he does. We decided the primary victory presented a good opportunity to take a wonderful book and find a new readership for it."

Klayman said her company has printed 50,000 copies, and she's certain that they'll be printing more.

After Obama gave the keynote address (which he wrote) to the Democratic National Convention earlier this month, copies of the original hardcover "Dreams" began to pop up for sale on eBay and other Internet sites. As this is written, copies are going for as much as $315.

At a campaign stop, Obama told The Associated Press that the new edition is coming out "not a moment too soon. I don't want people spending that much for my book."

Prices not declining

But the prices for the rare original do not seem to be declining as the publication of a new edition nears.

It seems that the people bidding up the value of "Dreams" see it as something wrought by a man for whom they have the highest of expectations.

Written well before the Bureau of the Census thought to ask people if they wished to identify themselves as multiracial, Obama spoke in his book of the future in which we now live. He did it personally, as a reaction to people looking into his eyes, wondering who, at heart, he was. He did it in a rhetoric that foreshadowed that of his keynote speech.

"Privately they guess at my troubled heart, I suppose -- the mixed blood, the divided soul, the ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds. And if I were to explain that, no, the tragedy is not mine, or at least not mine alone, it is yours, sons and daughters of Plymouth Rock and Ellis Island, it is yours, children of Africa, it is the tragedy of both my wife's six-year-old cousin and his white first grade classmates, so that you need not guess at what troubles me, it's on the nightly news for all to see, and that if we could acknowledge at least that much then the tragic cycle begins to break down . . . "

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

Anyway, I thought this thread was revived because the Republicans finally selected an opponent for Obama:

ALAN KEYES

(i.e., the only African-American politician my racist uncle in Peoria will make an exception for)

Hmm, that's not what Denny Hastert says

anyhow, alternative epithets for henry hyde:

asshole
windbag
blowhard
bigot
crypto-fascist
hypocrite

etc.

ok back to the illinois senate race!

in all honesty, i just meant ponce in a very general "henry hyde is bad" way. i think most of us can agree that henry hyde is not a particular admirable politican.

i feel like i'm walking on eggshells with you, hstencil.

or "chinless wonder"?

http://ilx.p3r.net/searchresults.php?board=1&q=ponce&mode=messages

* = used search function on ILX

The trends at work are complex and numerous. The cult of celebrity allows famous but unqualified candidates to drop into politics in ways that, say, scholars or economists cannot. Loopy campaign-finance rules encourage the super-rich to buy their offices, and weakened political parties are only too happy to serve as closing agents for the sale. Worse, consumer culture has infected civic culture. The push to make voting so convenient you can do it with a remote control exemplifies a growing tendency among voters to regard their "choices" as more important than their obligations. Indeed, for some reason, lots of people think it's imperative that criminals vote. Put your ear to the ground and you'll hear the bulldozer coming for the Electoral College.

Taken to its logical extreme, these trends would produce a nationalized political system in which voters in California, New York, and a few other states would have undue power to select presidents, senators, and congressmen.

Keyes understands all of this and admits that, as a matter of principle, carpetbagging is a bad idea because it violates the small-r republican principle that representatives should be products of the communities they represent. (Hillary Clinton, typically, derided such arguments as "dirty attacks" on her character.) In fact, Keyes wants to repeal the 17th Amendment, which empowers voters rather than state legislatures to elect senators.

Keyes also says in his defense that he was asked to run by the party in the state he hopes to represent — unlike Hillary, who foisted herself upon New Yorkers. Fair enough. But doesn't such institutional desperation illustrate how much worse things have gotten in just four years?

Keyes wants to repeal the 17th Amendment? THERE'S a hot-button issue for you.

http://www.detnews.com/pix/2000/01/26/nati2.jpg

x-post to jaymc : My neighborhood is okay, but that neighborhood STINKS! It's where 'the strip' used to be. Whose idea was this, really?

(Does this make sense to anyone else? Like apart from the "omg omg people who actually live where people live will have electoral power equal to that of people who never even meet other people" part: how exactly does ease-of-voting, or even the tear-up of the electoral college, give a person in California any more congressman-electing power than anyone else?)

(that would have to be like one of those landslides that ends up destorying an entire shantytown)

Keyes: Cheney's Gay Daughter Is a Sinner
1 hour, 9 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Illinois Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes labeled homosexuality "selfish hedonism" and said Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter is a sinner.

The former talk show host who has made two unsuccessful runs for the White House made the comments Monday night in an interview with Sirius OutQ, a satellite radio station that provides programming aimed at gays and lesbians.

After saying homosexuality is "selfish hedonism," Keyes was asked if that made Mary Cheney "a selfish hedonist."

"Of course she is," Keyes replied. "That goes by definition."

Liz Cheney, Mary's sister, refused to comment Wednesday during an interview on CNN.

"I guess I'm surprised, frankly, that you would even repeat the quote, and I'm not going to dignify it with a comment," she told the interviewer.

The Log Cabin Republicans, a gay and lesbian organization, denounced Keyes' remark.

"In a political career defined by failures, this is a new low for Alan Keyes," executive director Patrick Guerriero said in a statement Wednesday. "Attacking politician's children is beyond the pale, even for an extremist like Alan Keyes."

In the days before the Republican National Convention, Dick Cheney spoke at some length about the fact that Mary is a lesbian and his view of gay relationships. His tacit support for states' rights on the issue of same-sex marriage and less-than-ringing endorsement of President Bush's push for a constitutional amendment to ban gay unions drew criticism from several conservative groups.

I'm still worried about the giant reversal of states' rights positions on this issue, as it's a massive hypocrisy on both sides. It makes very little difference now (people know what the issue is, and it has nothing to do with federalism), but I do expect that there will come a point, howevermany decades in the future, when many states do recognize gay marriages, and the push of the left will be to extend that right on the federal level -- and Democrats will be stuck with a long history of slightly cop-outty rhetoric on how this is a state issue.

Obama Says Voters, God Should Judge Him

Wed Sep 8, 6:36 PM ET

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Democrat Barack Obama, responding to Republican Alan Keyes (news - web sites)' claim that Jesus would not vote for Obama in the U.S. Senate race, said Wednesday he will let God judge whether he is a good Christian and Illinois voters judge whether he would make a good senator.

"I don't concern myself too much with Mr. Keyes' judgment on either matter," Obama said.

Keyes has said Obama's support of abortion rights means Jesus could not vote for him. He singled out Obama's opposition to a state Senate bill that supporters said would have protected any fetuses that survived an attempted abortion; critics said the bill was a political stunt that could have restricted access to all abortions...

In it, she writes about working for her father's campaign, and about how she's (like her dad) vehemently opposed to abortion.

She also writes about gay marriage and how much she misses her girlfriend (pictured here and (yowza) here)

Yes, that's right: Alan Keyes' daughter is a lesbian. (And yes, it was Keyes who publicly dissed Mary Cheney recently.)

More info here.

After reading her blog for two minutes, I have to say I kind of hate this woman. Some people's stupidity is just stupidity, but sometimes it's so extreme that it seems dangerous. This woman seems stupid enough to be convinced to engage in almost any of bad, bandwagoning, lemming-like behavior. She's a danger to herself and others, and should be institutionalized.

I'm not sure how well-known this all is at this point. I found it because that NYT Magazine article on blogging reminded me to check out Daily Kos (who I've never actually read before), and he was reporting on it. But I think it only entered the blogosphere last night.

On the other hand, it's not like she's hiding it. She posts on the "Alan Keyes for Senate" Yahoo group, and the link to her blog (along with some choice quotes about homosexuality) are in her sig. She wears rainbow paraphernalia at rallies and parades. You have to wonder if she expected that it would go public eventually.

She's so cute, though!!

The Illinois Senate Race is just the gift that keeps on giving. From Six-of-Nine crying because she doesn't want to fuck in public to this. Keep it coming, Land O' Lincoln.

Wednesday, July 4, 2001

Ahhh it's early! Making me wake up at 6 during summer vacation is evil. I had a conversation this morning with my dad that went something like this:

Dad: If you had to give a speech in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July, what would you say?
Me: I don't know. I don't do speeches.
Dad: This isn't about speeches. This is about ideas. What ideas would you talk about?
Me: I don't know. I don't do ideas either.
Dad: Of course you do! You have a lot of ideas.
Me: Not at 6 in the morning.
Dad: Oh, come on! Sure you do! If you had to give a speech on Independece Day, considering the times we live in, what would you say?
Me: The time we live in is six in the morning. I'd tell people to go back to sleep.

I, for one, think police and firefighters and EMTs are nothing but a nuisance. I think people should be free to shit in the street and kill each other for money.

Oh, give it a rest. Or at least cut down to 3 cups a day.

without repressive heirarchical institutions such as the state and capitalism

OMG it's 1860 and she's an angry exploited immigrant factory worker! Who would have guessed?!

She should probably read a book that was written in the last 100 years.

October 17, 2004

BY CHERYL V. JACKSON Staff Reporter

U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes told a rally Saturday that incest was "inevitable" for children raised by gay couples because the children might not know both biological parents.

"If we do not know who the mother is, who the father is, without knowing all the brothers and sisters, incest becomes inevitable," Keyes told the Marquette Park rally held to oppose same-sex marriages.

"Whether they mean it or not, that is what will happen. If you are masked from your knowing your biological parents, you are in danger of encountering brothers and sisters you have no knowledge of."

Across a road in the park, about 40 gay-rights proponents jeered. One said the frequently controversial Keyes, a Republican running against Democratic state Sen. Barack Obama, was trying to stir up voters.

"He's saying that as an incendiary remark to ignite [and] upset moderates and the mainstream," said Blake Wilkinson, a member of the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network, which staged a counter-demonstration with Equal Marriage NOW! and the black gay group Church of the Open Door. "I was raised to believe you grow up and marry the person you love."

The "United We Stand -- Defending Marriage" rally, staged by the groups Illinois Family Institute and Concerned Women for America, featured a procession of speakers, including religious leaders from various cultures. Among the approximately 150 people present were families huddling to keep warm. The event is part of a 14-city Illinois tour to push for a state constitutional amendment denying recognition and benefits to gay civil unions, moves other states have made or are considering.

About 20 police officers were on hand at the park, which in the 1960s saw opponents of equal housing rights hurl rocks and jeers at Martin Luther King Jr. There was no violence Saturday.

I know, wtf? I wouldn't be surprised if Keyes doesn't alienate some of the few people luny enough to vote for him in the first place with this statement.

Are you kidding me? This is the funniest thing to happen in Illinois politics in a long time. It's humiliating for the right-wing.

Haha I think it's fantastic too! I just don't understand what the Republican party was thinking!

I can only imagine what that's gonna be like.

The whole thing is still a little weird, though - because no one else wanted to run against Obama, none of the other primary nominees even, and Keyes was the only serious suggestion.

Personally, Ditka would have been even more unbearable, because Keyes is such a pathetic clown, whereas I don't think I could deal with months of football fan arrogance and all of the people who would have voted for him just because he's "Da Coach".

It's worth remembering that he's considered a major national political figure in the Republican party. He was the Reagan administration's point man, as ambassador to the UN, arguing against sanctions on South Africa; he was the only other Republican candidate invited to debate alongside Bush and McCain in 2000; in short, this guy is right in the fucking MAINSTREAM of conservative Republican politics. They probably thought he was just the guy for this race.

and...

Illinois Leader is the conservative rag in Illinois - it's pretty interesting stuff.

Maybe if Illinois is subjected to a massive terrorist attack or something...I just can't see the entire population turning into reactionaries.

See what I mean?

Ouch.

I love how these GOPers are, like, wink, wink, wink.

the moderator was quite aggressive, and kind of cornered obama on the one issue where he's been hedging a bit (gay marriage)--i doubt he would have done so if obama stood the remotest chance of losing the election

otherwise this was what you'd expect--keyes is a really unappealing character, obama is quite impressive

Tony Gwynn to thread.

Keyes
190,051
16%

Kohn
15,740
1%

Franzen
13,607
1%

Keyes Blames Media, GOP for Loss in Ill.

37 minutes ago

By NICOLE ZIEGLER DIZON, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO - Alan Keyes (news - web sites) blamed the media and fellow Republicans on Thursday for his lopsided loss to Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate race in Illinois.

Keyes also said he did not congratulate Obama after the race was called, a tradition among politicians, because doing so would have been a "false gesture" because he believes Obama's views on issues like abortion are wicked.

"I'm supposed to make a call that represents the congratulations toward the triumph of that which I believe ultimately stands for and will stand for a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country," Keyes said. "I can't do this, and I will not make a false gesture."

The former diplomat and two-time presidential candidate, who lost to Obama by 43 percentage points Tuesday, gave his first post-election interview Thursday to a Christian talk show host.

Keyes said that despite the loss, he thought he did a good job spreading his message of moral values in the short time he had to campaign. Republicans drafted Keyes in August after primary winner Jack Ryan dropped out amid a scandal over sex club allegations in his divorce files. Keyes is from Maryland and had never lived in Illinois.

He also said he was disappointed in what he called the number of "Republicans in name only" in Illinois. An Associated Press exit poll showed that four in 10 Republicans voted for Obama, a liberal state senator from Chicago.

"I had counted on the fact that Republicans would come back home on Election Day rather than vote a socialist into office who stands against everything they profess to believe as Republicans," Keyes said.

Keyes noted that 1.3 million people voted for him.

But Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs pointed out that 70 percent of the vote went to Obama, more than 3.4 million votes.

"The people of Illinois rendered a very clear decision on Tuesday by handing Alan Keyes the greatest election defeat in Illinois Senate history. Barack Obama's attention is focused on the important work he now must do for all the people of Illinois."

Keyes said a major difficulty in his campaign was overcoming the "stranglehold" the media had on trying to define the issues of importance in political campaigns.

"I refused to accept their authority, and I still do," Keyes said.

Now Maya Keyes -- liberal, lesbian and a little lost -- finds herself out on her own. She says her parents -- conservative commentator and perennial candidate Alan Keyes and his wife, Jocelyn -- threw her out of their house, refused to pay her college tuition and stopped speaking to her.

well, at least he has the, ahem, courage (or asshattery) of his convictions.

Mon Feb 14,11:14 PM ET
By TOM STUCKEY, Associated Press Writer

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The daughter of conservative Republican Alan Keyes referred to herself Monday as a "liberal queer" and urged support for gay and lesbian young people who have been deserted by their families.

Maya Marcel-Keyes, 19, addressed a rally sponsored by the gay-rights group Equality Maryland, saying she was motivated to speak out because of her rocky relationship with her parents and the recent death of a friend who had fallen ill after being thrown out of the house by his family.

Marcel-Keyes told several hundred supporters that her sexuality had created a rift in her relationship with her parents.

"Things just came to a head. Liberal queer plus conservative Republican just doesn't mesh well," she said. "That was making my life a little bit turbulent."

Later, Marcel-Keyes told CNN her parents "were not too pleased" when they learned she was a lesbian, but she said she loves them "very much, and they love me. They can't support my activities."

Her father, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois last year, created a stir in August when he said during an interview that homosexuality was "selfish hedonism" and that Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter was a sinner.

In a statement issued Monday night, Keyes said: "My daughter is an adult, and she is responsible for her own actions. What she chooses to do has nothing to do with my work or political activities."

Marcel-Keyes said she received an outpouring of support when disclosing her sexual orientation, but her friend did not.

"Like me, he grew up queer in a conservative household," she said. But where she got hundreds of e-mails, offers of a place to stay and a college scholarship, "he'd been out there two years and had gotten nothing."

"And the worst part is, he isn't the only one," Marcel-Keyes said.

____

On the Net:

Equality Maryland: http://www.equalitymaryland.org