A statistically improbable polymath's views on politics and culture.

 
A commenter at Pandagon points out that Alan Keyes could have run against Barbara Mikulski in his home state of Maryland, but felt the need to run for the Senate in Illinois, a state in which he's spent no great amount of time. Later, I remembered some post connecting Alan Keyes with Allan Bloom... and a crazy theory began to spin.

FACT: At Cornell, Alan Keyes's intellectual mentor was Allan Bloom; he followed him to Paris and to Harvard**. (Via AlterNet) Bloom probably instructed him in the same Straussian philosophy he learned from Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago. Later, Bloom went back to Chicago and taught many generations of Straussians. Additionally, Keyes worked with fellow Straussian and Bloom acolyte Paul Wolfowitz at the State Department during the early eighties.

THEORY: Suppose it's 2004, and Straussians across America are nervous about the meteoric rise of Illinois State Senator Barack Obama. Why? Because he's a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School--and he's got a chance to become the first UChicagoan President of the United States. Having a liberal represent the University of Chicago on a national level is bad for the Straussians--Allan Bloom had made it seem like the University of Chicago was the last academic bastion of conservatism. Obama and his Hyde Park supporters make it clear that the Straussian home base is in the hands of the enemy. They need to get it back--but how? When the Republican candidacy is vacated, Keyes steps in to win back his mentor's turf--not just the University, but the entire state of Illinois.

*Shamelessly stolen from Mike Murphy's "Crazy Times Demand a Crazy Senator" suggestion for a Keyes lawn sign in the Weekly Standard.

**Those who have read Ravelstein know what kind of stuff Bloom did in Paris. I can't wait for someone to bring this up in debate: "Ambassador Keyes, your mentor, Allan Bloom, was a homosexual. How do you feel about that?"
posted by Maureen at 9:42 PM