Every weekend is a political weekend these days. Breakfast forums, accountability sessions, campaigning door-to-door.

One such event Saturday was the Pearson Group, a two-part event: A debate between District 77 state representative candidates Paul Moreno, the incumbent, and challenger Marisa Marquez; preceding the debate, a speech by presidential candidate Alan Keyes, a Republican from Illinois who ran unsuccessfully for Senate against Barack Obama in 2004.

Keyes was an assistant secretary of state under Ronald Reagan from 1985-88, and his campaign literature mentions Reagan often. Keyes focuses on abortion as the key issue of our time, and writes that he is the only candidate who represents the Republican Party’s platform.

During his speech, delivered with precision and passion, several audience members, including Marquez, nodded in agreement as Keyes spoke of the divine origin of human rights and the connection to abortion.

So that’s where this will start, with an overview of Keyes’ speech, followed by a little back-and-forth between Marquez and Moreno.

***

Keyes started with the statement that we in the U.S. have the privilege of governing ourselves.

“Most of the people everywhere in the world have been governed by the few. Sometimes they were lucky and there was a concern for the common good. Other times the people were like sheep in a pen,” Keyes said.

He said two key tenets of U.S. law under the Constitution are that all people are created equal, and the government’s authority is only by the consent of the governed.

These can only come from a creator, he said.

Keyes has been controversial for such assertions. In the 2004 campaign, he was quoted as saying Christ would not have voted for Obama, and for calling Vice President Dick Cheney’s gay daughter a sinner.

Saturday, he said he was not a “theocrat,” just someone who remembers the origins of the United States, and that the basis for our freedoms is god.

“There is a creator god and out of respect for his authority we derive these rights,” Keyes said. His logic continued that legislation that denies god – his campaign literature is heavily anti-abortion – denies humanity.

Since the only way to complete understanding of our humanity is through god, he argues, to deny god is to deny humanity, and “if we return to that way of thinking, this way of life will collapse.”

***

Moreno and Marquez traded a few barbs, as they have honed their messages since the first debate between the two on 1650 AM-KHRO.

Essentially, though, their message is the same – Moreno is an honest and experienced fighter for the people who represents stability for the district, while Marquez is energetic, intelligent and young, and represents change.

They fielded questions on the key issues for the district, transportation, and other policy matters, but the most heat came from questions that either regarded the influence of Republicans in the race or indirectly brought that up.

For example, the first question was on the top five contributors to each campaign. Marquez said she received the most from her family members, Dr. Ricardo Marquez and Dr. Tony Marquez, and from Jaime Rosales, Maria Teran, and J. Robert Brown, who is a top Republican donor in El Paso. Moreno said that he received the most from Enrique Moreno, Travis Johnson, and Fred Loya. He did not mention receiving money from the PACs set up at the state level by Democrats who support him.

Another question for Marquez was whether she was associated with Fernando Parra, arrested Friday on charges related to child pornography. Parra, a formerly in-demand political consultant who has been connected to the FBI public corruption investigation, worked on many successful campaigns in the past, including that of state Rep. Norma Chavez, who supports Marquez.

Marquez said she was not working with Parra, and pointed out her political consultant, Ricardo Armendariz, who was standing in the audience.

Moreno later took up the theme of Marquez’s support, bringing up a video making the political rounds of Marquez in a brief exchange with Mark Smith, who is the political consultant for businessman and usually Republican donor Woody Hunt (locally, Hunt also supports Democrats at times, for example, giving to state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh and to Chavez).

Marquez said the video was taken at an event for the Thomason Children’s Hospital, which numerous politicians and consultants attended. “It’s funny how the video doesn’t show me talking with state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, or County Attorney Jose Rodriguez,” she said.

Marquez had her turn to tweak Moreno, as the issue of Tom Craddick came up.

When Moreno said his first order of business would be to vote against Craddick – something Marquez said she also would do – Marquez pointed out a prior vote, which Moreno did not deny.

She said in the 78th Legislature Moreno voted for Craddick for speaker.

On policy issues, neither discussed the finer points of eminent domain, with Moreno saying he was against taking property from the barrio, a reference to the Downtown Plan, and Marquez appeared unclear on the arguments on either side. She said she would have to communicate with the community on the issue of whether blight ought to be defined by a large area or building by building, an issue that came up in City Council last week, and on eminent domain reform, a major issue in the last legislature.

When asked about the RMA, Moreno first had to ask what that was, and when the questioner said, Regional Mobility Authority, Moreno said, “Oh, toll roads.” He said he opposed toll roads. Marquez said there is a need for more roads and she would support tolls as a choice.