CHICAGO, IL- On Tuesday, former Presidential candidate and conservative talk show host Alan Keyes agreed to enter the Illinois Senate race in the wake of the unsavory exit of GOP heartthrob Jack Ryan and face popular Democrat Barack Obama in November's election. After decades of black versus white electoral match-ups, politically active Chicagoans are having a difficult time sizing up this year's candidates. All of this confusion has lead many in the state to query leaders in the black community as to which black candidate are they supposed to vote for this time around.

"On the one hand, Obama is a charismatic rising star in the Democratic Party," said NAACP chairman Julian Bond. "On the other, Keyes is on the opposite side of nearly every issue I care about. Then again, Keyes is technically darker than Obama- not that race or skin color matters at all in this election. It's just an observation."

With Keyes' reputation as something of a loose cannon given to hyperbole, Reporters in the state are licking their chops in anticipation of a heated election season. Columnists and pundits have been quick to compare this run with Rev. Al Sharpton's sound-bite driven race for higher office earlier this year, but Keyes himself doesn't see the comparison.

"I guess people only say that I'm the Al Sharpton of the Republican Party because we're both fairly bombastic," said Keyes. "Honestly, I can see no another reason."

Keyes has promised to work for the people of Illinois just as soon as he becomes one of them. Aides say the the candidate is still busy packing up his carpet bag for the move from Maryland some time later this month.

Democrats have openly voiced suspicions about the GOP's decision to bring in an out-of-state candidate to go up against Obama, but according to GOP chairman Ed Gillespie, Ryan's late-season departure gave them no choice.

"I know it sounds hard to believe, but you have to understand that our hands were tied," said Gillespie. "Believe me, there was not another single Republican in the state with an open schedule between August and November. We called up Alan and, miracle of miracles, it turned out he was available."

The main theme of Keyes' political life hs been to decry the classification of Americans by their race, so on his first day as an official candidate, he set out to set the record straight. "This race is not about, well, race," he said. Keyes then went on to call his opponent an "Uncle Tom" still clinging to a "slaveholder's mentality" but later explained that he used the terms in the most benign and non-racial way possible.

Asked for a response, Obama took the high road. "I'm really looking forward to a vigorous and spirited debate in the next few months- as long as people remember that Mr. Keyes speaks for The Man I represent the Democratic Party, patent holders on the black vote since 1865."

"I think it's great that voters are a little confused," said Gillespie. "This way they will have to evaluate the candidates based on the issues, the merits. I'm confident that in a side-by-side comparison, the good citizens Illinois will carefully consider their options and in the end choose our hollow-eyed, high-voiced nutjob."