Carpetbagging

It's official. The Illinois GOP has gone totally off its rocker.

Reeling from the Jack Ryan creepy (make that "avant-garde") sex club scandal and the invincibility of Democratic wunderkind Barack Obama, the GOP have tabbed the bombastic Alan Keyes to run as the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate.

And in case you haven't picked up on it, Keyes doesn't even live in Illinois. He has no ostensible ties to it. This is the same Alan Keyes who blasted Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000 for running for the Senate in New York because it violated the principles of federalism or something like that. In fairness to Hillary, the Clintons did at least buy a home in New York well before she announced her candidacy. Keyes, on the other hand, still has to move to Illinois (or at least establish residency here) in the two-plus months prior to Election Day.

In his acceptance speech he spent a lot of time rationalizing his decision to run in Illinois and admitting a lack of knowledge of Illinois. Call me old fashioned, but that seems kind of important. At least if you have any intention of representing the people of Illinois. And not of representing Alan Keyes.

I'm disappointed to learn that he's vowed not to pay himself a salary out of his campaign coffers, like he did back in 1992 when he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in Maryland. But maybe he'll still jump into a mosh pit for a campaign contribution, which Michael Moore got him to do back when Keyes ran for president in 1996.