[...] Still, in mostly black East St. Louis, Keyes can't even get the backing of the official GOP leadership.
The East St. Louis Central Republican Committee has endorsed Obama over Keyes. The committee's chairman, DeMarko Mosley, dismissed Keyes, who is from Maryland, as an "outside puppet" who "does not represent the new Republican consciousness."
Religious and political leaders in East St. Louis predicted that voters were not likely to break with the tradition of voting overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. Four years ago, 97 percent of East St. Louis voters supported Vice President Al Gore over George W. Bush.
The Rev. David Crockett, pastor at the Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist Church on Missouri Avenue, acknowledged last week that many in his congregation shared Keyes' strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage. But Crockett said that Keyes' conservative social agenda wouldn't win him many votes in East St. Louis so long as the perception persists that the Republican Party is deaf to the concerns of black voters.
"The Republicans, their programs, to me, favor the other race," Crockett said. "It raises problems for black people when you cut taxes and the benefits to go the rich. So I'm sure that minorities, especially blacks, will feel that there is a difference between the two candidates."
Katie Wright, a former East St. Louis School District 189 superintendent and one of the city's most vocal Republicans, said she planned to vote for Keyes but said she expected few to follow her example. The social conservatism that Keyes shares with many black voters simply will be no match for East St. Louis' Democratic machine, Wright predicted.
"People probably do agree with him, but if they're Democrats they're going to vote Democratic," Wright said. "They've always done it that way. They're not going to look at the issues or the fact that he's a religious man, that he's against gay marriage. They will take their chances and vote Democratic."
Outside the Walgreens on State Street last week, Travis Morrison, 68, said he planned to vote for Obama. Morrison, a retired bridge supervisor for Union Pacific Railroad, said Keyes simply was too conservative.
Keyes "will get some votes in the religious community," Morrison said. "I guarantee he'll get some votes because he's strictly against abortion."
Morrison, who lives in East St. Louis, said he is opposed to gay marriage but does not favor amending the Constitution, as Keyes does, to ban it.
"What the heck would I jump up and down about gay marriage for when I'm being discriminated against?" he said. [...]
| That's the part of Kevin McDermott and William Lamb's St. Louis Post-Dispatch article "Race matters in Illinois Senate campaign" that caught our eye
posted in articles on October 2, 2004 2:32 PM | t (0)
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