Perhaps Obama can work in some version of this clever quip <$NoAd$>once used by now-Sen. Chris Dodd. This from a piece in the New York Times, dated October 28th, 1980 and sent along this afternoon by a friend ...

Connecticut's most spirited race, appropriately, is also the most significant. It is a contest for the Senate between Representative Chris Dodd, a Democrat, and James Buckley, the Republican who sat in the Senate from 1970 to 1976 as a Conservative from New York. Mr. Dodd mocks him with a reminder that each state elects two senators, not each senator two states.

Of course, it's difficult for Obama to keep up when it comes to getting laughs at the expense of Keyes' outsider status. Keyes is far, far ahead of him.

When CNN's Candy Crowley asked Keyes why his out-of-state run in Illinois was any different from that of Hillary Clinton in New York, he pointed out the as-yet-unexplored 9/11 connection ...

Well, I think I have addressed the issue of the very deep differences between what I am doing and Hillary Clinton. She used the state of New York as a platform for her own personal ambition. I had no thought of coming to Illinois to run until the people here in the state party decided there was a need. Just as people faced with a flood, or people in the case of 9/11, would call on folks, firefighters and others to help them deal with the crisis that they were faced with. The people in Illinois have called on me to help deal with what they regard as a crisis.

Alan Keyes: Ambassador, Talk Show Host, First-Responder ...