Alan Keyes may be crazy

I'm not one to judge the mental state of a person, but is Alan Keyes crazy? Read this dodging, weird, and entirely non sequitur exchange.

"You have a couple hundred paid staff in Iowa?” a reporter asked.

“No, it’s not paid staff,” Keyes said. “Are you listening or not?”

“It’s a question. How many paid staff in Iowa?”

Keyes had had enough of such details. “You are working, I guess, for the elites who want us to believe that campaigns are about money,” he told the reporter.

“Do you not wish to answer the question?”

“No, I want you to understand that you don’t have the right to dictate our political process. It belongs to the people, not to you. And money doesn’t buy votes.”

I jumped in again. “Ambassador, I’m going to ask you one more time. Have you personally been doing campaign events here in Iowa in the last few months?”

“I have had several campaign events here in Iowa, but I will not define those events as you do,” he said.

“In the last few months?”

“I don’t define those events as you do. And I don’t think you have any right whatsoever to establish yourselves as the arbiter of what constitutes an event. I will do that in a way that reflects the best needs and purposes of the people who are working with me. Because as I see it, every time somebody comes forward and takes the pledge, that’s an Iowa event.”

Now don't get me wrong, his points about money and campaigns are always worth a conversation or two in the public square. Besides, this Republican time around, you've got Ron Paul who went from nothing to something without even trying, all because of some obsessive fans of his online who just won't stop fundraising for him. But I didn't even know Alan Keyes was running for President, because well, where the hell has the guy been for the last year? Now he shows up at something and people ask him if even has a staff, or if he's even been campaigning at all, and he's all indignant, like "what a n00b for asking such a stupid question." The guy sounds like a lunatic.