It's Alan Keyes. Who would have guessed that?

The Illinois Leader is reporting that Alan Keyes, Maryland fundamentalist as eloquent as they come, is the Illinois GOP nominee for Senate.

The bright side for progressives is that it gives Barack a chance to firmly frame government investment in people as the moral thing to do. Alan Keyes' pitch (at least one of them) is a moral awakening (when presumably all this talk about marriage rights for gays and birth control for women is the cause of our moral decline). If Barack Obama can reframe Alan Keyes language on morality in terms of raising the standard of living of people through government investment, then the campaign will have done the progressive movement a valuable service.

I hope they schedule a dozen debates. They're both crackling intelligent and can turn a phrase with the best of them.