HAZLETON, Pa. (AP) — Former Black Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes announced Tuesday night that he has left the GOP and is considering joining the Constitution Party.
Keyes, who also ran as a Republican to challenge Barack Obama's U.S. Senate bid in Illinois in 2004, says he is talking with leaders and rank-and-file members of the Constitution Party.

"They're considering me, I'm considering them," Keyes said in a conference call late Tuesday night. "We have so much in common that I find it hard to believe we won't be able to work out a common basis for working together."

Keyes singled out the nation's present "border issue" as a reason he is leaving the GOP, saying it is a "threat to the sovereignty to the American people."

"There are clear signs that our leaders no longer have an allegiance to the sovereign people of the United States," Keyes said.

"I kind of expected that on the Democrat side. .... And the Republicans are presumed to nominate somebody who is anti-Republican. It puts a lie to the label and puts me in a position where I must question my ability any longer to participate in a party that has departed from its own identity. "

The Constitution Party says its mission is to limit the federal government to functions spelled out in the U.S. Constitution and "restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations."

Keyes declined to say whether he will seek the presidency with the party, which holds its nominating convention April 23-26 in Kansas City.

Keyes, a former State Department official in the Reagan administration, ran unsuccessfully for president in 1996 and 2000 before launching his 2008 bid. Drafted by Republicans to challenge Obama after primary winner Jack Ryan dropped out amid a scandal, Keyes lost by 43 percentage points. [MORE]