Obama and Keyes meet face-to-face
By Ben Bradley
August 15, 2004 — Alan Keyes and Barack Obama came face to face on the campaign trail Sunday. From afar, it appeared to be all smiles, but ABC7 News has learned that there were some sharp words exchanged between the two men running for U.S. Senate.
Alan Keyes is now suggesting that Barack Obama does not represent the true struggle of most African Americans because -- Keyes suggests -- Obama's ancestors were not slaves.
Controversial comments like that are just some of the reasons that when the two candidates met Sunday, they stood toe-to-toe, face to face, at one point, the two men even began pointing fingers at each other. The chance encounter occurred at a parade on the North Side. It began with Barack Obama welcoming Alan Keyes to Illinois. Before it was done the smiles faded the two candidates saying essentially, they don't trust each other.
It was conversation just barely picked up by our microphone.
KEYES: "I don't trust you to dictate to the people of this state -- not on debates or anything else..."
OBAMA: "You only want to dictate your own religious beliefs to everyone standing here."
At one point a parade organizer is heard telling the candidates to wrap-up their testy exchange.
"He wanted to mix it up a little but I just tried to reassure him we'd talk enough through-out Illinois and all the voters would know the difference between the two of us," Obama said later.
Obama says Keyes is using "inflammatory" language to compensate for what he sees as a "floundering" campaign.
On ABC's "This Week" program Keyes suggested Obama doesn't "feel the pain" of most African-Americans because his ancestors didn't suffer in slavery.
"Barack Obama and I have the same race, that is physical characteristics. We are not from the same heritage. It's about time people started to realize there is something racist about not looking at the heritage of an individual and only looking at skin color," Keyes said during the ABC interview.
"I don't know whether he was trying to make the point that on the hierarchy of victim hood that somehow he is more qualified to speak for the oppressed? That is something we'd have to explore further," Obama told ABC.
Ambassador Keyes is certainly the underdog in this campaign. Saturday on the South Side he was repeatedly "boo'd" at the Bud Billiken day parade.
Still Keyes hopes his conservative message will resonate, both he and Obama head downstate this week. Both men will appear at the Illinois state fair.
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