Jesse to Junior: Support Alan Keyes at your convention!
Jackson tells Bush to support Alan Keyes
Friday, August 13, 2004
By Mike Robinson
The Associated Press
Jesse Jackson, responding to a suggestion from President Bush that Democrats take black voters for granted, said Thursday that Republicans should prove they don't do the same thing by giving full support to GOP Senate hopeful Alan Keyes.
The civil rights leader, a staunch supporter of Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama, recalled a July speech in which Bush suggested to the National Urban League convention in Detroit that Democrats are complacent about the black vote.
"Obama was allowed to be a prime-time speaker for the Democrats" at their national convention in Boston last month, "so this should mean Alan Keyes should be a prime-time speaker for Republicans," Jackson said.
He said Bush and Cheney should campaign for Keyes, who moved into his Calumet City home Thursday night to establish residency in Illinois.
And Jackson said the national Republican Party and Illinois Republicans should raise as much money for Keyes as they did for former Gov. James Thompson and former Sen. Charles H. Percy.
In Bush's July 23 speech to the Urban League in Detroit, he said: "I know plenty of politicians assume they have your vote. But do they earn it and do they deserve it?"
Later in the speech, Bush said he knew that among black voters "the Republican Party has a lot of work to do, I understand that."
The remark prompted laughter and a vigorous nod of the head from Jackson who was sitting in the audience.
"You didn't need to nod your head that hard, Jesse," Bush said to more laughter.
A call to the Bush-Cheney campaign was not immediately returned Thursday evening.
Jackson was asked about a repeated claim by Keyes that Obama's stand in favor of freedom of choice on abortion was "the slaveholder's position."
"That kind of language is an attention-getter," Jackson said. But he said "a woman's right to control her own body is not to be compared with 346 years of legal racial supremacy where we were bought and sold like commodities on the stock exchange."
Obama on Thursday brushed aside the "slaveholder" remaking, saying voters are "weary of this kind of scorched-earth, slash-and-burn politics."
"What people want to see are politicians who attack problems rather than each other," Obama told National Public Radio's Fresh Air, which aired back-to-back interviews with the two U.S. Senate rivals Thursday.
Obama said he would debate Keyes on issues of private morality, such as abortion and gay marriage, as long as they also debated issues of public morality, like Enron and companies shifting jobs overseas.
Both candidates were asked about the "slaveholder" comment Keyes made Monday, his first full day of campaigning for the office of retiring GOP Sen. Peter Fitzgerald. Keyes and Obama are both black.
"I think people are just weary of this kind of scorched-earth, slash-and-burn politics that demonizes whoever doesn't agree with you," Obama said. He said "ruthless, cynical" political workers like such language but rank-and-file voters are turned off.
The tone of the remark raised eyebrows across this state where dramatic verbal fireworks are not all that common among candidates for high-profile offices.
Keyes has made fiery attacks on abortion and gay marriage a hallmark of his two campaigns for president and two failed bids for the U.S. Senate from Maryland, where he lived until accepting the Illinois GOP's invitation that he replace Jack Ryan as its Senate candidate.
The in-depth interview Thursday gave Keyes a chance to explain his remark.
Keyes said Democrat Stephen Douglas, who engaged in celebrated debates with Abraham Lincoln and defeated him for the Senate in 1858, "was a pro-choice candidate" on the issue of slavery.
"He said he didn't care whether it was voted up or down so long as it was done by popular sovereignty, which meant the people's choice," Keyes said. "And Abraham Lincoln came along and excoriated him because of the stance of indifference to our fundamental moral principles, and Lincoln referred to the Declaration of Independence."
At another point, Keyes said: "So we have people like Obama today, saying we should disregard the God-given worth of that baby in the womb because of our choice, and in doing so they reject the fundamental principle ... that we must respect the conscience shaped by the fundamental principle on which this country was founded."
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