Jim Antle passes on some depressing news: Alan Keyes will be joining the Constitution Party and possibly running for its nomination.  Where do I turn in my (non-existent) membership card? 

To the extent that I have ever been a partisan, I have been registered with the New Mexico Taxpayers’ Party (as the national party used to be known) when I started voting, so I suppose I am still technically a member of that party, and I did cast my vote for Peroutka in 2004.  I will go on record right now and say that if they nominate Keyes I won’t ever vote for a Constitution Party nominee again.  More or less pointless protest candidacies based in principle are one thing.  Tying yourself to a ludicrous fraud in the process is something else all together.  I say this as someone who once bought what Keyes was selling.  Happily, I am done with that phase. 

Jim is right that “he would still be the biggest name candidate the Constitution Party has ever attracted,” but in this case that is definitely not a good thing.  Most people have no idea what the Constitution Party is.  With a Keyes candidacy it will become known as “the vehicle for the looney’s latest ego trip and money-making scheme.”  If he wins the Libertarian nomination Mike Gravel has to be hoping that Keyes gets the CP nod, since it will easily make Gravel the one considered credible and sane among the third party candidates.