Politics & Power Quote by Alan Keyes

Alan Keyes stakes a sweeping moral claim, measuring a contemporary politician against the character of Jesus and declaring the comparison impossible to sustain. The move does several things at once. It converts a policy dispute into a question of discipleship, it asserts privileged access to what Christ would do in a modern democracy, and it turns voting into a test of theological fidelity rather than civic reasoning. The language is absolute and personal, accusing Barack Obama not merely of error but of behavior inconceivable for a Christian exemplar.

The context is the 2004 Illinois Senate race, where Keyes, a staunch social conservative and Catholic, ran against Obama after being drafted into the race by the state GOP. Keyes anchored his campaign in natural law arguments and opposition to abortion, repeatedly citing Obamas votes in the Illinois legislature, especially his opposition to versions of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, as evidence of radical moral failure. Casting Jesus as a hypothetical voter crystallized his appeal to religious conservatives who see public policy as an extension of unyielding moral truths.

The strategy also reveals the era’s culture-war posture. By invoking Christ as an arbiter, Keyes collapses policy complexity and pluralist considerations into a single moral axis. That can energize a base, but it risks alienating moderates who resist claims of divine endorsement in electoral politics and who note that Jesus neither participated in elections nor prescribed a civic platform. It implicitly denies Obama’s own Christian identity, substituting a purity standard that equates dissent on abortion policy with apostasy.

As rhetoric, it is memorable and polarizing. It asserts that moral authority trumps pragmatic calculus, and it reframes debate as salvation history rather than statute. As politics, it illustrates a recurring American impulse to sanctify public choices with sacred language, a move that can clarify convictions but also compress the democratic space where citizens of differing faiths and consciences must still deliberate together.