alt Hacker NewsTo drive that home, Alan Keyes got to 27% by
- running against a charismatic Obama
- being a last minute insert when Jack Ryan was caught in a sex scandal (who was already fighting an uphill battle with sharing a last name with the corrupt former governor)
- being a carpetbagger (he didn't live in Illinois at any point until running for senate)
- running as a hard-line social conservative in a state where the GOP is torn between appealing to suburban Chicago fiscal conservatives and downstate Illinois social conservatives
And also being a person of colour, which is tough in the "hard-line social conservative" lane, where that is often a negative with those voters. Against another person of colour, who could pick up the other voters for whom it is a positive.
And the crazy.