August 27, 1995

The surprise hit speaker at the United We Stand America convention in Dallas was Alan Keyes, the only African-American Republican candidate for president. He discusses his stand on abortion and affirmative action with CNN Senior White House Correspondent Wolf Blitzer.

WOLF BLITZER, HOST: The man whose message excited the crowd at the Iowa straw poll last week:

CLIP, ALAN KEYES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: "They blame me because I bring it up. But I'll bring it up here. It's abortion, and you know that if we don't turn back the logic of abortion we will never rebuild our family lives."

BLITZER: With his crowd-pleasing anti-abortion message, GOP presidential candidate Alan Keyes was the surprise hit of last week's Iowa straw poll. Keyes finished fifth in a field of 10, way ahead of such Republican heavyweights as Pete Wilson, Richard Lugar and Arlen Specter.

Keyes is the only African American in the crowded Republican field and the first ever to run for the party's nomination. Though ranking at the bottom of national polls, he's no novice to campaigning. He ran twice in Maryland for the U.S. Senate in 1988 and 1992 and lost both times. Ronald Reagan appointed him as an ambassador to a United Nations organization and later to the post of Assistant Secretary of State. Today, when he's not hitting the campaign trail, he hosts a nationally syndicated radio talk show.

And now joining us from a campaign swing down South in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, GOP presidential candidate Alan Keyes.

Mr. Keyes, thank you very much for spending some time with us on "Inside Politics Weekend."

KEYES: Glad to be here.

BLITZER: You've made abortion one of the centerpieces, if not the centerpiece of your campaign. Under what circumstances should a woman be allowed to have an abortion?

KEYES: You know, I think that abortion is a basic violation of our Declaration principles, and the only time I can see that one would allow it is in the case of the clash between the unalienable right to life of the child and the unalienable right to life of the mother. So, in the case of a direct threat to the physical life of the mother, I think abortion has to be there as an option. Otherwise, it is against our principle of justice, and it should not be allowed.

BLITZER: If a girl or a woman is raped by her father, should she be forced to carry that child to birth, and give birth to that child?

KEYES: Now, see, I can see no grounds for making exceptions in the case of rape and incest. Why would you be taking the crime of the father out on the child, giving them the death penalty because their father committed rape? If we have to regard, as I think we must, under God's law, as our Declaration said, we have to regard that human life as possessing the unalienable right to life. The circumstances of that situation don't take that right away.

BLITZER: So if you had your way there would be a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions except when the mother's life is in danger?

KEYES: Well I think it's necessary--unfortunately, the Supreme Court, in a decision, Roe vs. Wade, which was badly argued and did not have proper grounding in the Constitution, has accepted or recognized the right [that] doesn't really exist. And therefore, you need a constitutional amendment in order to clarify the situation.

BLITZER: Who would go to jail under those conditions--the doctor who performed the abortion or the woman who had the abortion?

KEYES: Well, you know, in the previous regime that existed here it was never the case that you ever targeted the mother in this situation for punitive action. That wasn't the case under the old regime of abortion laws, before Roe vs. Wade, and it has never been suggested by anyone in the pro-life movement. Obviously, if you had medical practitioners who were doing things in violation of the law, then you have to hold them accountable for that.

BLITZER: What should the punishment be for some doctor who would perform an abortion, if you had your way?

KEYES: Well, you know, I think that that's the sort of question--murder is against the law in this country, but we leave the specifics as to how murder is dealt with to the states and to the localities. That's where law enforcement properly takes place in America. And I think that's where that kind of decision would be dealt with.

You wouldn't, obviously, have just a blanket answer to that question, since you'd have to finetune the law to deal with the circumstances that would certainly vary in which this kind of violation would take place and there would be penalties. As the difference between manslaughter and first degree murder and second degree murder take into account various circumstances, so you would have to have those nuances introduced into any regime of enforcement for protecting the rights of the unborn.

BLITZER: One final question on abortion. There are many women, of course, who would argue that they are the ones, of course, that have to go through and deliver the baby. What gives you, a man, the right to tell a woman whether or not she should carry that baby to term?

KEYES: Oh, I don't have that right. And I'm not telling anybody anything. I simply read the words of the American Declaration of Independence, which say quite clearly, "All men are created equal," they are "endowed by their Creator"--not by decision of the mother, not by a woman's choice, but by their Creator they get their humanity. And we cannot be saying that we will set the woman's will higher than God's will because our Declaration says that that's not so.

So, I am not making any decision. The Declaration of Independence states the principle, and as a people, we must abide by it. It's that simple.

BLITZER: All right. Let's go to another controversial area, affirmative action. You oppose all aspects of affirmative action, I take it?

ALAN KEYES: No, I oppose those aspects of affirmative action that implement quotas as statistical preferences, that try to use discrimination to cure discrimination. That's what I think most Americans oppose.

Helping people who are disadvantaged; helping people who have been the victims of discrimination in specific cases; finding remedies for those specific things--nobody is opposed to that. But we are opposed to the notion that somebody, because they are white males or Orientals or any other reason of their ancestral background is going to be discriminated against. That's what the Civil Rights Movement fought against. We should not be resurrecting that principle now.

BLITZER: Have you ever benefited personally by the affirmative action laws that are on the books over these past 20 or 30 years as you've gone through the educational process and the job process?

KEYES: Frankly, I don't know for sure. I may have, I may not have. I came into various things through merit, I certainly believe. Why you'd ask that question particularly of me, I don't know. So I will not suggest that it's motivated by any prejudice but it's also a silly question. You know, a lot of people benefited from segregation in the old days. Does that mean it should have been continued? If the thing is wrong, stop it. And it does not matter who benefits from it because if it is wrong, that benefit is being procured by means that hurt the principles of the nation--and it should be stopped.

BLITZER: Well the only reason I asked the question, Mr. Keyes, is because, as you know, most of the affirmative action programs ostensibly were designed to help African Americans against whom there was a lot of discrimination in our country.

KEYES: Yeah, so--this is a very shrewd trick, you know, to offer help to African Americans on a principle that destroys their ability to then declaim against racial discrimination. I won't give in to that trick. I am not going to say that discrimination is good, even if it helps me. Let's give it up all together and find a better way to help everybody, that doesn't involve this kind of injustice.

BLITZER: But you will agree there is still discrimination in the United States against African Americans, and as a . . .

KEYES: Absolutely.

BLITZER: . . . and as a result the government should intervene to try to help them?

KEYES: I think that--we're not arguing here about whether we should work against discrimination. I certainly agree with that. So would most fair-minded people. We're arguing about whether or not you should use an unfair type of discrimination to remedy an unfair type of discrimination. Curing injustice by perpetuating it doesn't seem to me to be a very good cure. So that's not the question. The question is not whether we're going to fight this thing, the question is whether we're going to fight it by reinforcing it. That seems to me to be a contradiction in terms.

BLITZER: All right, now let's move along to your presidential campaign. You ran in 1988 and you ran in 1992 for the U.S. Senate seat from Maryland. You lost decisively both times to two of the most liberal Democrats--Senator Sarbanes and Senator Mikulski. If Republicans out there are wondering out there what they can do to beat Democrats, why should they come to you, whose proven track record in actual runs for political office has not been very good?

KEYES: Well, you know, I think in terms of proven track records, we'll see what it's like on the primary trail and how people support the message that I'm delivering. That's what counts right now. It seems to be taking Maryland also, one of the most heavily Democratic states in the Union, and using it as a criteria is not exactly fair--but I don't care, because I am not interested one way or the other in how people bet on the horse race in this presidential race, because that's not why I'm out here. I'm interested in making sure that the American people are able to address the top priority issues that we face as a country right now, and the number one issue is the moral crisis and whether or not we're going to work to restore the moral and material foundations of the marriage-based, two-parent family that is the building block of this society. If we do, I think we have a hopeful future. If we don't, we will bankrupt the country trying to pay the costly consequences. And we are already losing whole generations of our young people because they lack the moral guidance and foundation they can only get from stable family life. So I'll make that the issue, and we'll see how the American people feel.

BLITZER: One of the issues in the '92 campaign that came up, as you well know, was the salary that you took from your campaign, $8,500 or so, a month. Are you taking a salary now, from your presidential campaign?

KEYES: No, I'm not taking a salary now. I'm out there doing lectures and other things to support myself. It's a phony issue, of course. And the only reason people bring it up, I guess, is because they think that only rich people get to run for office in America. And I do not believe that, most Americans don't believe that. Working people who have to work for a living also get to run for office--just by the way, not just Ross Perot and other people who can put their billions on the line. And if you work for a living, and have to pay the mortgage, when you're getting out there and working 18 and 20 hours a day on the campaign trail, it's perfectly reasonable for your supporters to pay you a salary so your family can survive. That's honest, it's upright, it's above board, and it's got to be tolerated unless we're going to let this country become a rich man's oligarchy. I don't think you or anyone else wants to see that happen.

BLITZER: Do you still have any outstanding debts from the '92 campaign?

KEYES: I think there are some, yeah, as other people do, you know. Campaign debts have to be paid over time. Those will certainly be paid. And there are outstanding debts from the '92 campaign that will be paid as we raise money under that rubric. Under the campaign laws, you can't mix this effort with that effort, in any way. But both will be taken care of.

BLITZER: How much of a debt do you still have?

KEYES: That I'm not sure of. You know, I think it's somewhere around $40 - $50,000.

BLITZER: Well, what happens to the small business person who provided services to your campaign, a printer, whatever, who still has a few thousand dollars outstanding? Should he suffer because you haven't been able to repay that debt?

KEYES: I don't know, should the people who are owed money from Ollie North's campaign suffer, another campaign suffer? You're asking me a question about something . . .

BLITZER: It's a moral question.

KEYES: It's not a moral question. That's a practical question. People will be paid. And they'll be paid in a reasonable time. You're raising the question in the usual propaganda fashion of media like yourselves, in order to try to embarrass me over something that's irrelevant and not at all embarrassing because it's an incident of political--of campaign politics in America that everybody has to deal with and that we deal with in an honest, open and above board way, that over time, nobody will lose. All those debts will be paid . . .

BLITZER: OK.

KEYES: . . . and you and I both know it.

BLITZER: Alan Keyes . . .

KEYES: So why are you trying to make an issue of it?

BLITZER: No, well these are issues that come up and if you are running for president obviously you have deal with them. But I have to thank you because we are all out of time. Thank you so much for taking time out on your busy campaign schedule.