I can't help but think that Keyes was drafted after Ron Paul's defeat of Huckabee. What the interventionists need to counteract Paul is a real thinking rhetorician with substance. Keyes fits the bill. Keyes in many ways sincerely speaks the language of Ron Paul in talking about the republic, life, and liberty. He even invokes both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The other GOP candidates could care less to mention such mundane subjects in any substantive way.
However, Keyes diverges from Paul on the central issue of this election, the war, which is also Keyes biggest weakness. In arguing that there's a moral basis for the elusively defined War on Terror, Keyes makes the following point:
"Now it may be hard for Americans to accept the notion that their safety depends on accepting a certain level of commitment of armed force abroad in order to live safely here at home."
The problem for Keyes, as renowned a rhetorician as he is, will be explaining how the US could somehow eliminate the welfare state by compartmentalizing it from the warfare state. This presents a great opportunity for Ron Paul to explain the impossibility of such a prospect and the necessary relationship between the two. I can't wait to see them duke it out.
