Alan Keyes
January 20, 2000

You are familiar with my basic thinking, and therefore I will simply remind you of the major premise of that thought, which is that this nation is in the midst of the greatest moral crisis it has ever faced, and if we don't deal with it, we will lose our institutions of self-government. I believe that we are losing those institutions of self-government, that the surrender of our rights over our money, over our schools, over our business enterprises, continues apace. I think that that is, in fact, the critical issue that confronts us in this time, and for those who think that because of some of the successes we have enjoyed as conservatives in the last little while, the last 20 years or so, the battle is over, I would invite your attention to a speech just given by Senator Kennedy, in which he has outlined how the government will now step in to continue taking over America's life.

Liberals, socialists--call them what you please--are on the offensive. And I think that the only way in which the conservative movement not only can hope to triumph, but can hope to survive, is if we understand that we must be on the offensive. We are not the defenders of this and that. We must be, in a bold fashion, those who will stand forward in order to renew America's allegiance to its moral principles, re-establish our firm self-confidence as a free people, so that we can confidently reclaim our control over our money, over our schools, over the future of our country. That is what I think the times require.

It also, by the way, happens to be what is required by expediency for the Republican Party. And I know that this won't sit well with some folks here; it certainly doesn't sit well when I say it to other Republican audiences, some of whom are determined like lemmings to continue down the road to disaster. But let's be frank about the logic of our present situation. We are in the midst of booming economic good times. How many of you think that booming economic good times are a bad thing for the incumbent party in the White House? Raise your hands.

We are also in the midst of a time when whatever may be our opinion of the consequences of the deep betrayals we have suffered from the Clinton administration, from the point of view of the ordinary person, the world is at peace, America is sitting on top of it, there have been no major security disasters or embarrassments that can be held against the incumbent party in the White House. The chickens won't come home to roost from Mr. Clinton's betrayal for several years. They will not come home to roost before November. And therefore it is not going to be an issue salient for the voters in terms of their decision.

So, all other things being equal, if we have got on the one hand good economic times, on the other national security without any real issues that are moving the voters if they decide on the basis of either one of those things, what's going to happen to the Republicans? I think that it is pretty clear that we are going to lose. We are fighting an uphill battle here. And all the lying polls to the contrary notwithstanding, that is the case.

We can drop the ball very easily if we forget the one salient issue, the one area where the Democrat Party has not only dropped the ball, but been the major contributor to the destruction of this nation's life, and that is their shameless disregard for the moral principles and foundations on which this republic rests. That moral crisis, that moral challenge, that moral betrayal, is the key issue of this election year, the one on which fate of this republic hangs. And Republicans will put forward a standard-bearer who can articulate that issue in such a way as to draw the American people to understand its importance, and decide the election on the basis of that challenge, or they will lose.

And I think that there are many respects in which my colleague in this race are good and decent people, many respects in which I would admire them. But in terms of their ability to articulate the relevance of America's moral principles to the challenge we face today, I would have to tell you that if I were satisfied with what they do, I wouldn't be involved in the race. And in some cases I think we have an unwillingness coupled with an incapacity that will spell disaster in the general election.

And I think that is particularly true, and I say it frankly here because I have said it frankly everywhere of G. W. Bush. He is a likable fellow; I have nothing against him. He can't get this job done, because he does not have the capacity to do it. And therefore, nominate him and the party will go down to a bitter defeat. And that defeat will be compounded by losses in Congress that will have us gasping for breath and survival. Mark my words. I predict it with confidence.

Anyway, I wanted to make that point. Because this is one of those times when we are either going to step up to the plate, and without regard to whatever pundits may be trying to whisper in our ear, we will simply take on the challenge that faces America's life, do it with courage, do it with confidence, do it with sincerity, do it in a way that plays no games with the voters, but instead offers them a real choice, and I think that they will reward us for that integrity, because they are hungry for it. (But if we) back away, and try to calculate our way to some sort of little victory, what we will get is a big defeat. I think that is the reality.

And on the basis of that reality, and my performance recently, in which . . . I don't believe in just talking about stuff, as you have probably noticed. I haven't stood before anybody and said "I'm better at this, and better at that." All I did was stand up and demonstrate it. If one wishes to disregard that demonstration, I would invite you to do so. I'll be quite happy and content playing with my children at home. But so will the Republican nominee. Think about that. Because this is one of those times when you either accept what God has put in front of you, or you lose.

And it is up to all of the people in the Republican Party, because, if we don't approach this with real integrity, we are not just playing games with our own electoral victory. I think we are playing games with the survival of liberty in this country. And those are games for which we shall not be forgiven by future generations.

God bless you, thank you.

* * *
Question and Answer Session
Question: Regardless of your attitude towards G. W. Bush, which I hope is not too proficient, should he win, would you accept the vice presidency under him? I'd love to see that.

Keyes: We must stop trying to get off the hook, and stop trying to cop out. This is not the general election. I don't need to consider for a single moment what I will do and not do with G. W. Bush, except I will continue to do what I have been trying to do: soundly display to the American people that he is not the outstanding choice. And that, if the Republican Party wants to stand before America and say, "We had a better choice, but we didn't make it. Here's second best"--you see what the American people will tell you in response. That's all I'll tell you.

Question: Ambassador Keyes, you talk about nobility and integrity. And I was wondering about a nation who allows things such as music television to put on shows like "Undressed," which is basically a soap opera for teens, and for college-age kids, dealing with sex and sexual issues. You have video games like Doom and Evil Resident III, things like that, where you have human forms being blown up into pieces. You have films like Saving Private Ryan, that show heads being blown off, and body parts laying, and people crawling with half their bodies blown off. How can we be a country that is strong when things like this are allowed to be shown to us? I don't understand.

Keyes: Let me separate things into distinct categories, though. Because I think we have to be careful sometimes--the liberals lump all these things together, and I don't. On the one hand, it does deeply disturb and concern me about the country's future that we are so careless with the issues that have to do with the discipline of human passions. And it is not just sexual passion; it is any passion. Anger, greed, jealousy. What goes into the making of civilized life, but especially what makes it possible for people to be free and yet have a decent and orderly society, is the moral capacity to discipline and restrain our passion.

When we, through our educational culture, through the media, through the entertainment culture, give our children the impression that human beings cannot control their passions, we are telling them, in effect, that human beings cannot be trusted with freedom. That means that a free way of life is impossible, that totalitarian government which seeks to structure us in such a way that we don't harm ourselves and others, is inevitable.

That is the key problem I have, for instance, with the homosexual agenda. It is not just behavior and all of this on the part of individuals. No, it is the premise--the premise being that a form of sexual behavior is beyond the control of moral will. And if our passions are beyond the control of our moral will, then freedom is a sham, and a government based upon the idea of freedom is impossible. That is the significance of these moral issues that I think affect the sense of self-control and self-discipline. And I think that we ought to be reacting against all of these things, with our dollar votes and in other ways, withdrawing our patronage and support from that element in the entertainment industry that contributes to this corrupt understanding of ourselves, and in doing so undermines our freedom.

But the second point that I would make is that, regarding violence, I don't put them in the same category. Violence, and looking at violence, on the one hand can be an awful terrible thing, if it inspires you to cruelty and savagery. On the other hand, do we really think that we are moving into a world now that is so safe from war and conflict that we can afford to raise a population of citizens that can't stomach the horrid spectacle of war? Are we going to be able to avoid that horrid spectacle from now on? By what grace did this happen, while I wasn't looking? The world seems to me to be still a dangerous and terrible place. And self-government still seems to me to depend on our being a people capable of taking up arms in defense of our own homes, our own families, and our own liberties. Lose that character, and we will lose the liberty.

So I think that the important thing, when we are talking about spectacles of war and conflict, and fighting and violence, is the context. Put it in a moral context where we understand the incredible and tragic and important implications of the inevitable choices human beings face--understand that the virtues involved are virtues of courage, and decency, and justice that must be inculcated in our educational system and reflected in the way in which we entertain ourselves--and then I think we will get back on the right track.

It is the difference between Dog Day Afternoon and High Noon. And we have a difference, therefore, in the way in which we approach this question of violence. I think that we have to raise up a population in new generations that have the sense of courage to face the sometimes hard requirements of war. And that means that we will never be able to cleanse our so-called entertainment of all violence. And therefore, I don't think it is necessarily bad to have a "Saving Private Ryan," and other war movies, that in a way that is serious and takes seriously the moral dimension of war, presents that spectacle to our people, and I think helps our young folks to understand, "Yes, this is reality. And you can also take it, as have previous generations of Americans, if you are prepared spiritually and morally for the battles that sometimes we must face."

Question: Two questions. First, addressing the alienated voter, the non-participating voter, what plans do you have to include more of the American people in the process? I see all the time the young people saying to me, "Well, everybody is the same. I can't vote for anybody. Everything is cynical. Politicians aren't interested in my concerns." This particularly from the 18 to 24 year olds.

How would you lead these disaffected people, who don't vote, into the Republican Party? How do you plan to educate these people so that they get involved in the process, and support your candidacy?

Keyes: Well, there is no way to answer that with words. I would invite you to come to a Keyes rally someday in Iowa or New Hampshire, and you will find your answer. Because when we go through our audiences, right now . . . it is one of the reasons that I kind of smile to myself every time people talk about these phony polls and what they reflect. I don't know for sure; it's in God's hands. But since they tend to concentrate on voters who have been there before, and done that before, and been around before, and been awakened before, and been involved in the process before, I know that somewhere in the midst of all of this the Keyes effort has a little bit of strength they are not looking at. Because at our rallies and meetings, we get a lot of independents, a lot of even Democrats. But we especially get a lot of folks who have just never been involved in the political process before, and who will come up afterwards and tell me, "You know, I've never done this before. I haven't taken much interest. But you have really gotten me awake."

And I think that the key to that is very simple talk about what really matters. Stop playing games with people. Stop standing up there and saying, "I'm going to give your family $1,800 if you will just vote for me, because I am going to have a tax cut." We should cringe at this junk. Yes, I say it, openly. Republicans especially should understand that when we play that game telling our people that we are going to bribe them with their own money, bribe them with their own hard-earned dollars, take credit for giving back to them what they earned in the first place--I'll be frank with you, judging by what I see, and meaning no offense to Mr. Bush, that is the best G. W. can do, and it is not good enough.

I think we ought to promise the American people that we will give them back control over their own money, so that no politician has to be begged as to what to do with it before they have decided what to do with it. Abolish the income tax; return to the original Constitution of this country.

Those kinds of approaches will appeal to people, because you are not playing games with them anymore. Also this business of burying our heads in the sand, and putting on a happy face. I've been criticized by some people, who don't watch apparently, because they claim I don't smile. I smile, and joke around all the time. As a matter of fact, we have had--I shall leave him nameless--a fellow who has been following the campaign, and been traveling around with my campaign. And then he went, and for a while he was reassigned for a few days to another campaign effort. And he was on the phone quickly to his superiors begging them to please put him back with us because we have so much more fun.

And we do. But do you know what I don't do? I don't go around trying to put a happy face on the reality that this country is careening toward disaster. I don't go around trying to put a happy face on the reality that when you have a shameless, lying, conscienceless President sitting in the White House, you shouldn't just ask about what he's doing there, you should ask about the American people who put him there, and what is required to reform our choice.

I think that kind of straight talk, and a willingness to throw the polls away, throw the consultants away, think through the best you can what you really think is required for this country's future, and present it to people with honesty and integrity--I think that is going to draw a lot more people back into the process than the shameless, ugly manipulation that now passes for politics in just about every circle in this nation's life. I'm sick of it; I know a lot of Americans are sick of it. I won't practice it. I would rather lose 50 times over than become part of that which is corrupting this nation's integrity.

But frankly, judging by what I've been seeing lately, I don't think I'm in danger of losing, but we'll see.

Question: Mr. Ambassador, you have certainly an extremely powerful message. My question is, if you are not the nominee of the Republican Party, and George W. Bush is, will you work to defeat him?

Keyes: See, that's a version of the same question. Let us be clear--I said this already. I think all such questions are cop-outs. I'll be frank with you. Can't get away from the fact that you face a choice right now. And your choice right now is to go forward with somebody who does not meet, and will not properly and effectively address, the real challenge that faces the country, or to go with somebody who can and does. That's it.

And thinking about the aftermath as a way of pretending that we can still get there--I'll be quite honest, just as an objective fact. It's not Alan Keyes wishing for this. I think what follows when you violate the logical premises of your situation is, like a storm, you will not be able to stop it. And the storm will hit the Republican Party if we play games with this reality.

We will not win this election on an economic basis. We will not win this election on the basis of national security issues. Don't fool yourself. Candidates who have nothing but that to offer are going to lose for us. And now the polls are playing them up. I noticed the other day in USA Today--though they have been playing up all the time how G. W. Bush has this big lead over the Democrats, right? Then they had the other day an article in which they announced that they were changing the basis of their polling. They were moving from whatever they were doing to "likely voters." And all of a sudden, Gore was close and Bradley was ahead of Bush. I suspect that that kind of thing is going to happen a lot as we approach election day. We will be clawing for survival within two weeks of the day the election takes place, and they will be speculating on how badly we are going to lose the Congress in order to add to the Democrat momentum.

Don't fool yourself. The reason these people are pushing G. W. Bush as hard as they can is that once they tie him around our neck they are hoping against hope that he will drag us down to a defeat that, at that point, I am afraid we will deserve if we take the cop-out approach and don't address the moral challenge that faces this country.

So I am not thinking about that kind of question. I'm thinking about only one thing: how do I continue with the best will and integrity I can to present to the American people the choice that is best for this country, now. And until the voters have rejected that choice in a decisive fashion, I will go on in that vein and down that path, without any thought of anything else.

One more question.

Question: Ambassador Keyes, here's a softball. How important is it to hang on to the Republican Congress, and how important is it to beat Dick Gephardt?

Keyes: Two things. I think it is very important to hold on to the Republican Congress, on the right basis. And very important to beat Dick Gephardt, especially since we have a great opponent who will run against Dick Gephardt who reflects all of the principles that we believe in. So I think that those two things are very important. I believe that it will be important to hold on to the Congress.

How are we going to do that, though? I mean, we are hanging on by our fingernails right now we all recognize this. They lost what was, in effect, their controlling majority in the last election. The press is just waiting for us to lose the rest of the way. And I think that in the current climate, with the issues now pretty much defined as the Democrats wish to define them, we will lose and the Congress will go to the Democrats.

Do you know we avoid that? We will avoid it, my friends, by doing what Ronald Reagan effectively did. And he didn't effectively just get up and give some good speeches, and all of this. He effectively redefined the basis on which Americans would approach their choice. That is what we must do now. And I would ask all of you to consider in real conscience, and just realism, of all the folks we now have running--the six candidates who are in the field--who has demonstrated the ability effectively to redefine the issues that are addressed in such a way that the moral crisis that is our key to survival as a free people and the Republican Party's key to victory, is brought out in those issues in a way that moves hearts and minds and gets the best response from the American people.

I think that in the last several weeks, that has been pretty clear. It is going to be up to the voters and leadership in the Party to make up their mind whether they will bat away this opportunity for victory, or grasp it. It may require that you overcome some prejudices and predilections. It may require that you overcome all kinds of fears that are planted in our hearts by the media and everybody else.

But when was there a time that real success for this country didn't require courage? As conservatives we must ask ourselves now, not whether we have the right ideas and the right approaches, but whether finally we shall rediscover within ourselves the guts to stand for them without equivocation.

God bless you.