The website, RenewAmerica.us was the stomping grounds of one of the faithful whom they have solidly backed for President. I can't tell you how shocked I was when I went to the website today and saw that it has had a serious make-over in design. Before the design had been rather dark and lacking a bit in aesthetics. It's beautiful now - a really professional design. But then I noticed it, or actually sensed something missing. Where was Alan Keyes?
Renew America once had a graphic of Alan Keyes for President right on the top banner. I honestly thought that the website was owned by Alan Keyes his picture and name were so prominent on the site.
***Update***: The graphic displayed here is from the candidate's website. I believe the graphic was once also displayed at the top of the Renew America website. That is a disputed fact. However I have added several screen shots below that do verify that the banner did include photos of Alan Keyes for quite some time.
Now the banner is a subdued graphic of the founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention.
No where could I find mention of the Alan Keyes campaign for president. And I could not find Alan Keyes as a contributor to the site. So I used Google search and found his campaign website. On August 20th, 2008, with little fanfare, Alan Keyes was selected as the presidential candidate for America's Independent Party.***Update***: There is one mention of Alan Keys in the History section of the Renew America website.
***Update***: Article in the Christian News Wire states that Renew America spearheaded the political action committee, We Need Alan Keyes for President. The following statement if from the article of June 5, 2007:
'We Need Alan Keyes for President' Website Launched.Here is a link to a letter asking for support published on the Renew America website.Aims to inspire grassroots support for moral conservative leader
Contact: Stephen Stone, President, RenewAmerica, 801-494-1412, editor@renewamerica.us
According to a statement at the website -- AlanKeyes.com -- the organization's purpose is to "determine and rally support for a presidential candidacy by Dr. Keyes."
The statement adds, "We Need Alan Keyes for President, Inc., is a political action committee . . . not managed by Alan Keyes."
The effort is spearheaded by several individuals at RenewAmerica, a grassroots organization affiliated with Keyes.
And here is a screenshot just in case it is gone by the time you read this:
Here is the appeal as to why we need Alan Keyes:
Why we need Alan
Like the writer of the above e-mail, many conservatives have concluded that none of the existing candidates is prepared to lead our country to the kind of moral, political, social, and- -yes- -religious renewal needed to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" in these troubling times.
While many of the candidates are admirable individuals with notable strengths, only Dr. Keyes has the comprehensive- -and exceptional- -understanding, skill, intelligence, credentials, and leadership needed to guide our country back to its foundations, in an election that may be the most crucial in our nation's history.If conservatives are to have a strong, unifying voice in the upcoming presidential election, they need to rally around Dr. Keyes and create a veritable army of right-thinking citizens who are willing to amass the support needed to elect him.
- Alan is the only potential nominee who can truly unite and inspire grassroots Americans in the cause of reclaiming our republic.
- Alan's record of courageous leadership in defense of moral principle
- -including defense of the unborn, the traditional family, and religious liberty- -is unsurpassed.- Alan's understanding of sound national policy and clear founding principle
- -and his energetic advocacy of these things in public life- -set him apart from the current field of hopefuls.
Who is Alan Keyes? His resume is interesting to say the least. Dr. Keyes has run twice for president and three times for the U.S. Senate. In 2004 he ran against Barack Obama for the Illinois senate doing the bidding of the Conservative movement. This was their tactical play to take down Obama early before he had a chance to run for president. Keyes is running for president again now in 2008, but you won't see him on CNN, MSNBC, or even Fox News. Why not? Even though he it the one candidate that fully embodies the conservative and pro-life beliefs that the radical right say they also stand for, he has not received their anointed permission to run for president. John McCain is the anointed one. John McCain scooped up the right-wing babe, Sarah Palin as his veep, and now an aura glows about John McCain. Or is that just the reflection of Sarah's bright light?
***Update***: What Alan Keyes has to say about the McCain/Palin ticket.
In the article, Gov Sarah Palin: Unequally Yoked, posted on September 5, 2008, Alan Keyes states the following:
I hear that Richard Viguerie, the renowned conservative political consultant, described McCain's selection of Sarah Palin to be his running mate as "perfect." As a matter of unalloyed political calculation, I'm sure he's right. McCain cannot win without support from the pro-life moral constituency. Given his abandonment of pro-life principle, he cannot get that support on his own merit. Support from supposed leaders of the moral constituency wasn't getting the desired results. Their endorsements and fallacious arguments couldn't stand up to the truth about his actions. Given the facts, these leaders were simply destroying their own credibility. Since his own record belies any attempts to portray him as pro-life, the choice of Sarah Palin allows him to run on someone else's. All his supporters have to do is convince the moral constituency to forget that they are voting for John McCain and act as if they are voting for Sarah Palin. McCain can't be too comforted, however, by the knowledge that some of them are trying to make their point with whispered references to McCain's age, and the likelihood that his early demise would bring his running mate to the Oval Office.Richard Viguerie's comments about McCain's choice of Sarah Palin.
An alternate view was published on Renew America, Sarah Palin, McCain's Ticket to Victory by JR Dieckmann:
Rather than showing up at the polls just to vote against Obama, conservatives now have a reason to support the Republican ticket — not just a reason, but a good reason. McCain could have gone the other way and chosen a VP who would appeal more to the left, in keeping with this own views, but he not only did the right thing, but the smart thing as well when he picked Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin for the position.When I search for Alan Keyes using Google search I found some pages you won't find navigational links to on the RenewAmerica.us site. Either they are holding them until after the election, or they just haven't bothered to delete them. I snipped this screen shot from RenewAmerica.us because I am guessing it is not long for the world and I wanted you to see just how recent this change has been. Was it the Sarah Palin pick by McCain that caused this change and a decision of Renew Amercia to get behind the ticket? The website has removed all formal mention of Alan Keyes. If you click the picture it is linked to the actual page, that is unless by the time you click it, the page has been purged. There is a lot of purging going on over the web since Palin has joined the McCain campaign.
Links from the live page:
Who is Alan Keyes?
On the issues Speeches & interviews Column Streaming video Pictures Scheduling to speak***Update***: A service used by Renew America to track audience traffic provides a link that shows how the site looked in the past. The archive shows the site as it looked six months ago and then previous. The most recent six months are not yet shown at the link:
Wayback Machine: see how renewamerica.us looked in the past
Here are some snapshots. They don't show the graphic I remember being there in the recent past, but again, they don't show the most recent six months. What is shown is that Alan Keyes photos are part of the Renew America Banner six months ago and up to six years ago. The point being that Renew America has been affiliated with supporting Alan Keyes for years.
My question remains. Why was Alan Keyes purged from the Renew America website? Did he preemptively leave the site and ask that his articles be pulled because he is appalled that the site is now backing John McCain?
February 2008
January 2007
December 2006
January 2005
January 2003
July 2002
Today, September 7
Alan Keyes Archives
I would be remiss if I did not also direct you to the candidacy of Cynthia McKinney, also a Black American candidate for President in the 2008 election. The Green Party website.
When Ralph Reed wrote his fiction thriller Dark Horse about an Independent candidate that comes out of no where and stirs up the presidential election, was he thinking of Alan Keyes?
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
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