On Day 1, new foes already get licks in
Keyes scrambles to move into state
By Liam Ford and John Chase, chicagotribune.com online, August 10, 2004
Chicago -- In the first full day of a reconstituted Illinois U.S. Senate race, Democrat Barack Obama and his new Republican opponent, Alan Keyes, tried to paint each other as being outside the mainstream.
Central themes for the two candidates began to emerge, with Keyes emphasizing his differences with Obama on social issues and taxation and Obama implying Keyes, as a new arrival in the state, is out of touch with the concerns of Illinois voters.
As he was attacking Obama's views, Keyes scrambled to set up a campaign apparatus and move his official residence from Maryland to a Calumet City two-flat apartment in order to run for Senate.
In a press conference, Obama made his first response to his new adversary, saying Keyes' intense opposition to abortion rights puts him at odds with most Illinois voters and even with most Republican voters.
In his acceptance speech Sunday, Keyes "did not say a word about jobs, he didn't say a word about health
care -- the two issues that when I travel around the state people seem to be talking about all the time," Obama said.
"It may be that he just hasn't been here long enough."
Obama's criticism of Keyes came in the midst of a media blitz that began at 5:30 a.m. Monday on Fox News Channel.
In several local interviews, Keyes responded to questions about O'Hare expansion by saying he wanted to respect the needs of air travelers and area residents.
Peter Fitzgerald, the Republican Keyes hopes to replace, has been a foe of O'Hare expansion.
When asked about his motivations for seeking the Senate seat, Keyes cited what he said were issues on which Obama is out of step with voters in Illinois and throughout the country, particularly abortion, gay rights and taxation.
Obama's support of abortion rights means he "opposes the great American principles that led to the abolition of slavery," Keyes said in an interview on WMAQ-TV.
Debating abortion
In particular, Keyes points to Obama's Illinois Senate vote in 2002 against legislation that would have made it illegal for doctors to let a fetus die if it were delivered alive during an abortion.
Portraying himself as more moderate on the abortion issue, Obama said his vote was in line with the philosophies of some U.S. Supreme Court justices appointed by President Ronald Reagan, because the bill he voted against provided no exception for the health of the mother.
"This is somebody who would prohibit abortion ... even in cases of rape and incest," Obama said.
Keyes, in his interview on WMAQ-TV, said Obama is "way more extremist than I would ever dream of being."
In an interview on WLS-TV, Keyes said: "In point of fact, the views I take on a range of issues are where the majority of the people in this country stand."
He cited his opposition to same-sex marriage as an example.
Obama said he doesn't support same-sex marriage but endorses civil unions.
In addition to the back-and-forth on social issues, the two campaigns also began sparring over how many debates should be held.
Keyes, who ran unsuccessful presidential primary campaigns in 1996 and 2000 and ran for the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 1988 and 1992, called for Obama to hold six debates, as he had promised to do with primary winner Jack Ryan.
Obama, who joked that the offer for six debates was a "special for in-state residents," said two debates are tentatively scheduled and the time left in the campaign probably will not leave room for six debates.
Time running out
Republican officials also have the short campaign schedule in mind. To be at all effective in the fewer than 90 days left in the election season, Keyes will have to move swiftly to organize his campaign, Republican leaders have said.
Already, GOP organizations have been receiving calls from groups trying to book Keyes for speaking engagements.
So far, Keyes is being helped by a skeleton staff that includes former Ryan campaign staffers, some who have worked for private foundations headed by Keyes, and some who have worked on Keyes' previous campaigns.
Keyes also has yet to rent a full-time campaign office. His press calls are being taken by his longtime friend William Pascoe, the former communications director for Jack Ryan.
The campaign set up a bank account Saturday, the day Keyes flew into town.
At his announcement rally, Keyes' supporters were sporting campaign T-shirts, and a political consultant who worked with Ryan, who is volunteering with Keyes' campaign, said Keyes raised $10,000 "in $25 increments."
But Glenn Hodas, who helped run former Illinois Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan's gubernatorial campaign in 2002, said it normally takes "quite a while" for a basic campaign office to be set up.
Keyes' campaign will have to work in crisis mode for several weeks, he said.
Aside from taking at least temporary staff from the defunct Ryan campaign, Keyes also may end up taking over a West Loop office the Jack Ryan campaign had rented.
Hodas said the more material Keyes can get from Jack Ryan's campaign, the better.
But things such as letterhead, posters and signature stamps cannot be borrowed.
Small details, such as figuring out how to pay bills, "will take time, and that's time they should be doing more important things like fundraising," Hodas said.
John Pearman, who ran Jim Ryan's 1998 attorney general re-election campaign, said although Keyes faces challenges, his experience running presidential campaigns will help him, as will support from an organized group of abortion-rights opponents.
"He does have the advantage that [he is] a conservative candidate [who] was previously the nominee and had assembled a statewide organization, which is probably of use to him," Pearman said.
Keyes' backers face the challenge of overcoming the fundraising lead enjoyed by Obama, who has millions in the bank and a sophisticated campaign organization.
One Keyes supporter who attended his acceptance announcement on Sunday was trying to help out through the use of an Internet auction site.
Unusual fund-raiser
Gerry McGlothlin, 50, who voted for Keyes for president in 1996, said that although he was outside the banquet hall where Keyes made his announcement, Keyes stepped out to meet supporters, and McGlothlin said he wiped the sweat from Keyes' brow with a napkin so he would look better for TV news cameras.
Later Sunday, McGlothlin listed the napkin on eBay, saying he would donate any proceeds from the auction to the Keyes campaign.
By late Monday, 68 people had bid on the napkin, and its price had risen from 8 cents to more than $242.
Also Monday, Rev. Jesse Jackson, who is backing Obama, challenged the national Republican Party to prove Keyes' importance by making him a centerpiece of the Republican National Convention, which starts Aug. 30.
With Keyes at the top of the statewide races in Illinois, "It means prime time for the convention.
It means [President] Bush should campaign for him, as [Sen. John] Kerry did for Barack," Jackson said.
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