Alan Keyes

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan L. Keyes is paying himself a salary of $8,500 a month from campaign funds in his race against incumbent Democrat Barbara A. Mikulski. In justifying the salary, Keyes campaign officials said he is "not independently wealthy" and needs the money to pay his mortgage and feed his family. In a previous case, the Federal Election Commission was split on whether the salary payment is legal.The Evening Sun would like to know what you think. Do you feel the practice is proper?

The news that Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes would not run in 2006 ignited wild speculation about who might replace him. Alan L. Keyes: phone home. The perennial candidate has had an enthusiastic, if unsuccessful, career running for office. He's made two bids to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate and ran twice for the Republican nomination for president. But then, in August, he crossed four states to run for U.S. Senate representing ... Illinois. He rented an apartment in Calumet City, Ill., to establish residency, without giving up his home near Gaithersburg.

THE ENTRANCE of black conservative and former Reagan administration official Alan Keyes of Maryland in the chase for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination may lead some to believe that an African-American perspective will be represented the coming GOP debates. Don't count on it.Alan Keyes' entrance also doesn't reflect a new and enlightened Republican view of racial tolerance. Mr. Keyes and other contemporary black conservatives often take positions that even white conservatives dare not take.

A 14-year-old spoke of a world that won't let his "two moms" get married. The mother of Matthew Shepard, the Wyoming victim of a fatal 1998 beating, invoked the need for Maryland to include sexual orientation in its hate-crimes statute. And Maya Marcel-Keyes, 19, daughter of conservative commentator and perennial political candidate Alan Keyes, made her public debut at yesterday's gay rights rally in front of the State House in Annapolis. They were among hundreds who urged lawmakers to reject another attempt to pass a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage and to support bills that would add sexual orientation to hate-crimes penalties and would give medical decision-making to gay couples.

Has anyone informed Alan Keyes that he is setting off gag meters all over the state? Mine went off over the weekend and I had to call in a technician to reset it. Could we get a Republican to tap Al -- may I call him that? -- on the shoulder, wave him into a corner and suggest that maybe he muzzle it a bit about being hard-pressed on $8,500 a month?I'm not suggesting a complete gag order -- just a few less gags.As far as I'm concerned, the man can flap away all he wants in that rambling, rapid-fire delivery that sounds like a thesaurus pushed through an Uzi. Listening to Keyes is like watching "American Gladiators" on TV -- it's amusing for the first five minutes, then it becomes annoying.

CHICAGO - Two days after a record loss in the U.S. Senate race, Republican Alan Keyes conceded defeat in a radio interview yesterday. But he said he would never congratulate winner Barack Obama because the Democrat stood for "a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country." Keyes sounded a defiant note Tuesday night when he addressed supporters, but then dropped from public view after losing to Obama 70 percent to 27 percent, the biggest gap ever in an Illinois U.S. Senate race.

WASHINGTON -- Forget politics, Alan Keyes is talking sex. It didn't take long for the former presidential candidate, the fringe phenomenon from the 2000 campaign, to push that hot button on his new MSNBC show, Alan Keyes Is Making Sense. With the Capitol dome gleaming through the set's plate-glass window, Keyes appears in a jaunty suede jacket on a recent evening next to his guest, the talk radio host known as Dr. Laura. The firebrand conservatives are feeling frisky, in a family-values kind of way. "By the way," Dr. Laura leans in to tell him, "married sex turns out to be -- " "Pretty good!"

WHEATON, Ill. - Alan Keyes was running late, and even a Republican supporter loyal enough to show up for a 6 a.m. campaign "meet and greet" couldn't resist saying out loud what many were probably thinking. "Do you think he's lost?" No one laughed, but there were a few tight-lipped smiles. The tardy candidate had, after all, only recently moved from Maryland - or at least temporarily relocated - before this campaign stop in a strongly Republican suburb of Chicago. Once he arrived in Wheaton, 20 minutes late, the former United Nations ambassador and two-time presidential candidate was greeted warmly.

SANBORNTON, N.H. -- Someone punches "God Bless America" on the living room jukebox, and Alan Keyes begins to sing in the Giuntas' home on a snowy ridge here. He throws his head back and, in full-throated operatic style, belts out the chorus. Supporters listen as his voice overpowers them. Drawing out the last note, he leads the room in a round of applause. "Bravo!" he declares for the performance. Republican presidential candidate and former Maryland talk show host Alan Keyes is struck by his showmanship, it's safe to say, not just here but in his campaign.

Join Keyes campaignFrom: Douglas ArnoldPasadenaSince 1986, Barbara Mikulski has represented Maryland in the U.S. Senate. As a member of the Democratic leadership, Ms. Mikulski has been a consistent supporter of bloated bureaucracy, a weak military, limitations on personal freedoms, and she has voted to continue deficit spending that will have to be paid for by generations to come.Additionally, she proposed the formation of a Senate bank similar to the House bank that was a part of one of the worst scandals in American politics.

CHICAGO - Two days after a record loss in the U.S. Senate race, Republican Alan Keyes conceded defeat in a radio interview yesterday. But he said he would never congratulate winner Barack Obama because the Democrat stood for "a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country." Keyes sounded a defiant note Tuesday night when he addressed supporters, but then dropped from public view after losing to Obama 70 percent to 27 percent, the biggest gap ever in an Illinois U.S. Senate race.

WHEATON, Ill. - Alan Keyes was running late, and even a Republican supporter loyal enough to show up for a 6 a.m. campaign "meet and greet" couldn't resist saying out loud what many were probably thinking. "Do you think he's lost?" No one laughed, but there were a few tight-lipped smiles. The tardy candidate had, after all, only recently moved from Maryland - or at least temporarily relocated - before this campaign stop in a strongly Republican suburb of Chicago. Once he arrived in Wheaton, 20 minutes late, the former United Nations ambassador and two-time presidential candidate was greeted warmly.

DEVELOPMENTS Keyes and gays: Illinois Republican Senate candidate Alan L. Keyes labeled homosexuality "selfish hedonism" and criticized Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter. The former Maryland senatorial candidate and talk-show host, who has made two unsuccessful runs for the White House, made the comments Monday night in an interview with Sirius OutQ, a satellite radio station that provides programming aimed at gays and lesbians. After saying homosexuality is "selfish hedonism," Keyes was asked if that made Mary Cheney "a selfish hedonist."

WASHINGTON - Alan Keyes, a two-time loser as a Maryland candidate for U.S. Senate, is one of two finalists to be the Republican Senate nominee in Illinois against Barack Obama, the speaker who created the loudest buzz at last week's Democratic convention. Keyes, of Gaithersburg, would face a decidedly uphill run against Obama, a 42-year-old state legislator from Chicago. Obama, keynote speaker at the Boston convention, has raised $10 million and is regarded as almost a prohibitive favorite to become only the third African-American to be elected to the U.S. Senate in more than a century.

WASHINGTON -- Forget politics, Alan Keyes is talking sex. It didn't take long for the former presidential candidate, the fringe phenomenon from the 2000 campaign, to push that hot button on his new MSNBC show, Alan Keyes Is Making Sense. With the Capitol dome gleaming through the set's plate-glass window, Keyes appears in a jaunty suede jacket on a recent evening next to his guest, the talk radio host known as Dr. Laura. The firebrand conservatives are feeling frisky, in a family-values kind of way. "By the way," Dr. Laura leans in to tell him, "married sex turns out to be -- " "Pretty good!"

Alan Keyes is the candidate who knows what he stands for and says it. He has no chance. The bad news is that 17 percent of young men don't register for a military draft, despite their legal and societal obligation. The good news is that 83 percent of them do. Uh-oh, Baltimore kids are reading. Next, they may expect a generous supply of new books at their neighborhood Pratt. Fusaichi Pegasus for presient!

Alan Keyes is the candidate who knows what he stands for and says it. He has no chance. The bad news is that 17 percent of young men don't register for a military draft, despite their legal and societal obligation. The good news is that 83 percent of them do. Uh-oh, Baltimore kids are reading. Next, they may expect a generous supply of new books at their neighborhood Pratt. Fusaichi Pegasus for presient!

SANBORNTON, N.H. -- Someone punches "God Bless America" on the living room jukebox, and Alan Keyes begins to sing in the Giuntas' home on a snowy ridge here. He throws his head back and, in full-throated operatic style, belts out the chorus. Supporters listen as his voice overpowers them. Drawing out the last note, he leads the room in a round of applause. "Bravo!" he declares for the performance. Republican presidential candidate and former Maryland talk show host Alan Keyes is struck by his showmanship, it's safe to say, not just here but in his campaign.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- When Alan Keyes envisions the future, it comes off sounding like a creepy science fiction movie. "Science will create subjects who will not even know they are oppressed," he says, describing a world where the powerful could manipulate genetics to create better soldiers and other programmed drones. Perhaps the only thing scarier than the future in the world of Alan Keyes is the present, where, in his view, the government has robbed its citizens of their freedoms and chased morality into a dark corner.