GOP debate for black, brown voters grows by one

by David Nitkin

Next week’s Republican presidential debate in Baltimore, which has been shunned by the party’s leading contenders, is getting an added starter: Alan Keyes.

Keyes, the former Maryland Senate candidate and conservative activist who announced last week he is running for president again, is "definitely participating," said a campaign spokeswoman, Carla Michele.

Keyes, 56, would be the lone African-American candidate at the Morgan State University forum, which will focus on issues of importance to minority voters.

The decision by the top four Republican candidates to skip the nationally televised event has drawn harsh criticism from its main organizer, talk-show host Tavis Smiley.

A spokesman for Smiley said last night that debate organizers "don’t have an announcement at this time" regarding Keyes’ participation, but indicated he would be welcome.

Earlier this week, Keyes took part in a Republican debate for social conservatives in Florida — his first campaign appearance.

Smiley has said that the stage at Morgan’s Murphy Fine Arts Center would contain four empty lecturns podiums on Sept. 27, representing Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson, who have declined to appear, citing scheduling conflicts and fund-raising obligations.

During commentary on the Tom Joyner radio show this week, Smiley asked listeners to raise the issue about "these Republicans dissing black and brown folk" and called the failure of the leading candidates to debate "a lost opportunity" for the Republican Party.

At one point, he referred to the candidates who agreed to appear in Baltimore as "the bottom five." That category has now grown by one.

Keyes, a State Department appointee in the Reagan administration, lost Senate races in Maryland to then-Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes in 1988 and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski in 1992. He ran for president in 1996 and 2000.

In 2004, he lost to Barack Obama in the Illinois Senate race. Despite being from out of state, Keyes was chosen as the Republican candidate by the state party after its nominee, Jack Ryan, withdrew.