The Republican Party of Illinois had to go out of state for a replacement candidate for Jack Ryan—they chose someone from Maryland.
'I want to welcome Alan Keyes to the Illinois Senate race. I hope over the next 90 days we can give the voters of Illinois a campaign they can all be proud of. ... I am not running for the U.S. Senate to oppose someone but instead to offer thoughtful solutions to the problems facing our working families,' Democratic candidate Barack Obama said in a statement.
'[This] is a sad day in the chapter of Mr. Lincoln's great Republican Party of Illinois,' said current U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. '12.5 million people in our State and the Illinois Republican Party was unable to come up with one person to run for the United States Senate. Not one.
'And of course their selection process made it very clear that when it comes to the future of the Republican Party, moderates need not apply. ... Today the message of the man who would be the Republican nominee for the Senate in the state of Illinois [is] a message of division. He has taken positions on issues which are inconsistent not only with the moderates in his own party, but with the majority of people in the State of Illinois.
'I'm also concerned about the Republican attitude about this race. This is a serious election; this is not a promo for a radio talk show. At the end of this election, after Nov. 2, the people of Illinois will have chosen their senator, someone I look forward to working with in the U.S. Senate. Not someone with great national ambition, but somebody who is really focused on what Illinois has as a challenge in our future,' Durbin said.
Keyes is conservative in his views on everything from social issues to the economy.
'I don't have an open mind, no,' Keyes said about abortion to Fox TV's O'Reilley Factor in January. 'The only thing I need to know about a candidate ... is where they stand on the issue of abortion. That's the first question I ask when people ask me to come support them, do fundraisers, do anything else. And this, by the way, is including people in the Republican party. I'm a Republican.'
Keyes has also said the 'separation of church and state' doctrine is a misinterpretation of the Constitution.
Renew America reports that in September, Keyes will run a marathon to raise money and awareness for the March for Faith rallies in Washington, D.C., in October. 'As the radical left's attacks on traditional marriage, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, and the Boy Scouts have intensified, Alan's heart has become increasingly convicted that people of faith must act boldly,' Renew America stated.
'We are now seeing an assault on the fundamental institution of all our social and civilized life, the marriage-based family. We are seeing an assault that has as its objective, not, as some would argue to you, the liberation of this or that sexual minority; no, what they have as their objective is in fact the destruction of the institution of marriage. And they mean to achieve that destruction by defining it in such a way that it no longer has any claim to respect,' Keyes said July 5 in Orem, Utah, said Renew America.
Keyes is for the Federal Marriage Amendment, and he supported efforts to recall the Massachusetts judges who backed same-sex marriages.