Alan Keyes Biography

Political Figure / Radio Personality

Alan Keyes was one of the U.S. representatives to the United Nations during the Ronald Reagan administration. In the 1990s he became one of the more well-known conservative African-Americans, thanks to his radio talk program, The Alan Keyes Show. His career as a political pundit on the TV and lecture circuit included a 2002 program on MSNBC, Alan Keyes Making Sense, but has been periodically interrupted by campaigns for elected positions. A Republican, Keyes ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Maryland in 1988 and 1992, for the Senate in Illinois in 2004 (against Barack Obama), and for U.S. president in 1996 and 2000.

Extra credit: Though Keyes is sometimes called "Ambassador Keyes," the title can be a bit misleading: he served as the American ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, not as ambassador to the U.N. as a whole or to any individual nation... Opposed to a homosexual lifestyle, Keyes made headlines in 2004 when he publicly chastised Vice President Dick Cheney's gay daughter for "selfish hedonism." By the end of 2004 it became public knowledge that Keyes's own daughter, Maya, is gay.

Keyes appears with Pat Buchanan in our loop on Candidates 2000.