sisyphusshrugged | Oh no he did not say that

Keyes (really, you gotta love this man) says they needed to import him as a candidate because the home team is crooked

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes charged Tuesday that politics in Illinois is chronically corrupt and that Democratic opponent Barack Obama wants to control the system, not reform it.

Keyes, a transplant from Maryland who had no ties with Illinois politics before he was selected as the GOP nominee this month, said his outsider status would be an asset in deodorizing what he called the "deeply smelly" nature of public corruption here.

"One of the problems in this state is this whole political machinery, in which bosses and their little cronies act in the interests of their little cliques," Keyes said after a news conference in Chicago. "People tell me, `Oh, Barack Obama has challenged the bosses.' He only challenges the bosses because he wants to be one of them. He doesn't want to end that system of corruption. He just wants to take it over."

Keyes launched into the corruption theme as he stood with candidates Albert Franzen and Jerry Kohn, an Independent and a Libertarian, respectively, who are seeking inclusion in debates this fall.

Responding to a question about proposed expansion of O'Hare International Airport and construction of an airport in the south suburbs, Keyes said he hasn't made up his mind on the projects but a "political mess" partly explains their lack of progress and the stench in the air.

"It's a little bit like you're standing in a room, and off in the corner of the room there is a deeply smelly toad that is filling the room with a nasty odor," he said. "And everybody's holding their cocktails, and they're wearing their ties and they're fastidiously not talking about the smelly toad. But the room is filled with the stink of it."

I'm guessing - it's just a hunch - that this man isn't invited to too many cocktail parties.

Still, way to talk to the voters of Illinois, dude. People love hearing that sort of thing from someone who's been in the state a week.