POLIS

Alan Keyes continues to make daily headlines, this time proposing reparations for slavery. At this point I don't think anyone needs to be convinced of the unseriousness of his candidacy. The fact that he would try to outflank Obama to Obama's left in a vain effort to curry favor with blacks, of whom he is tragically alienated from, on perhaps the most taboo political issue around should be enough for whatever beaten-up state GOPers are still hanging on to beg off this campaign. It's clearly not a position he believes in ("The price for the sin of slavery has already been paid, in blood," he wrote, referring to the Civil War), so diehard Republican voters need to ask themselves whether they support an effort to be the antipode to Barack Obama on every issue, no matter where it falls on the political continuum or how inconsistent with your political tribe. This all quite apart from the constant stream of beyond-the-pale remarks. This is a berserker campaign designed, if not consciously by Keyes then certainly by those who sent him into the ring and knew what they were getting, to sully a man, and sadly I fear it is starting to accomplish that, just by his presence in the race, dirty by association.