On April 10, Chuck Baldwin said he will seek the presidential nomination of the Constitution Party. He lives in Florida and was the party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2004. The Constitution Party national convention is April 23-26.
2008 is a historic year for suspenseful national conventions. As of today, no one knows for sure who will be nominated for president by the Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party.
This may make him the front runner.
Well, if I was a CP delegate, I would vote for Alan Keyes. He is a better candidate who can get more votes. You have to think if Keyes had declared he was running for the CP nomination a year ago, it wouldn’t even be a contest.
I am also pretty sure that McKinney will win the Green Party nomination.
After Nader declared as an independent, it became clear that McKinney would win the Green nomination by default, despite losing the national popular vote.
Alan Keyes is a latter-day Harold Stassen who got less than 30 percent against Obama in 2004. Keyes mainly ran for the GOP presidential nomination this year to retire some of his old campaign debts. He’s famous for using campaign money for personal expenses.
I’d rather have Baldwin than Keyes, but I’m disappointed that ex-Sen. Bob Smith of NH is apparently not running.
When Nader went independent, it became pretty clear McKinney would win.
But–the LP and CP both dont know. And the Democratic is definetly still up in the air.
Mr. Baldwin may be a nice man, but to me he doesn’t have the gravitas needed. Moore or Keyes almost has to be the nominee to make a viable alternative to McCain. The stronger the candidate nationally, the more the CP (and the LP) can send a message to the Republicans that this time they will not be denied a choice.
There’s a rumor going around that Paul Craig Roberts may consider running for the CP nomination. Lets hope so. He would be the best candidate they’ve ever had…
anybody but keyes. the man is a joke.at least the party has a chance to nominate a decent candidate.a lot us will never vote for mccain.
Nominate Nader or Gravel !!!
Barring a major mistake, Obama will be the Democratic nominee.
Keyes has gravitas? You’ve gotta be kidding! He’s a black Harold Stassen. In 2004, he carpetbagged in Illinois, and Obama slaughtered him.
In my view, we haven’t had a real choice between the major parties since 1984.
If P. C. Roberts runs, he’ll need to learn how to occasionally smile.
Well, he was running as a carpetbagger against what many are calling the next president. And yes, to put it mildly, Alan has “issues” to many. But there is no carpetbagging for President — he was born here — and either he or Moore has more national name recognition than Baldwin. There has to be somewhere where the non-political junkie Conservative can go, and it hopefully has to not be McCain.
I can imagine there are “Yellow Dog” Constitutionalists, and Yellow Dog Libertarians. That number may not be that high. Between those two nominees, there needs to be 5-9%, especially in the west and the southeast.
Keyes should not be the nominee for one obvious reason:
He would alienate the single biggest voting bloc that is open to the Constitution Party: old right non-interventionists. As long as Keyes supports an aggressive role in the Middle East, he is likely to drive some CP-leaning people into the Libertarian Party.
I think Baldwin makes more sense than Keyes simply because he IS a Constitutionalist. Keyes is a stirring orator but he has really got the war all wrong from a lot of different perspectives. Chuck Baldwin may get fewer votes but then again maybe not.
I’m going Libertarian. This foreign aggression and interventionism is hardly constitutional.
In addition to the losing ’04 Illinois race, Keyes has run 2 or 3 losing Senate races in Maryland. In at least one of those races, he paid himself a salary out of his campaign funds. He got into a hassle over this with Sen. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.
And, of course, “Stassen” Keyes has run three losing races for the GOP presidential nomination. I certainly hope the Constitution Party is not so hard up that it has to nominate someone like him.
I’d rather see the CP bring Howard Phillips out of mothballs than to run Keyes.
It would be wonderful if the CP and the LP drew 5% to 9% combined, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it happening.
Baldwin will be popular among the dlegates. As a delegate myself, my first choice is Moore. He only way Keyes would have a lock on the nomination even if he declared a year ago would be to have enough of his people join the party and become delegates. Keyes has said he is willing to join the party and help to grow it even though it appears he will not be the nominee. Most of the delegates to the concention will first ask themselves who will best represent the principles of the party? not who can get the most votes?
Why not Moore/Keyes? Would Alan Keyes accept being someone else’s running mate?
BOB barr is going to be the bext choice for recovering republicans.BALDWIN IS O.K. BUT barr is the best hope for those of us that want to see this 2 party monopoly crumble..ALAN keyes is a bad joke.
Steve, I said Keyes has “Issues”, but he does have name recognition. And the 5-9% wouldn’t be nationwide. It would have to be in states like the southeast, Texas, Colorado, Montana, Indiana, etc. States that could turn his election.
I don’t think his (Or the LP’s) votes in CA, NY, IL would do much to the national election. (Though it would help the party get or keep ballot access there, which is very important).
THIS IS THE BEST TICKET FOR 2008 BOB BARR FOR PRESIDENT RICHARD WINGER FOR VICE PRESIDENT. OK FOLKS TRY MATCH THIS GREAT IDEA.
This is the time to implement a very successful morally neutral technique of the Enemy, the United Front. I recommend that the National Committee of the Libertarian Party invite members of the Constitution Party, smaller alternate patriotic parties and even possibly the Greens, on the basis of their opposition to the war and the police state and support for honest elections, to join together if only for this year to create a unified resistance against the Bolshevik/Trotskyite party duopoly. Certainly, the revulsion against Obama, Clinton and McCain by every decent person who has studied their careers should be sufficient motivation to do so.
Alan Keyes lacks the integrity that I want to see in a 3rd party guy. Mary Ruwart of the Libertarian Party is an absolutely fantastic human being and I’m leaning towards her. Bob Barr has the wider name recognition, though he is still a recovering Republican.
Everyone needs to stay focused on one candidate:
Ron Paul
All other candidates are unknown to the public, but people know Dr. Paul’s name now.
We must all put Dr. Pauls name as a write in candidate in the Presidential election in November.
Some states do not allow write in votes. Also, the freedom rEVOLution has to be about more than just Ron Paul. Bob Barr is also very pro-freedom. I support him on the LP ticket. I also support the so called “Ron Paul Republicans” running for various offices nationwide.
35 states won’t count write-ins unless the write-in candidate submits an declaration of write-in candidacy. Ron Paul wouldn’t do that, so write-in votes in most states would be thrown in the wastebasket and the voter’s vote would be wasted. 5 states don’t permit write-ins at all.
Yes Richard,
I believe you are correct on that point, although I wish you weren’t. I’d write-in Ron Paul in a heart-beat. As it stands, it would likely be counted as only a spoiled ballot.
I like David Macko’s suggestion, though my reading indicates that there a number of purists in the LP who blanche at those who are less than perfectly consistent in their ideology. Still, they would be freely agreeing to a coalition…. Hmmm. Let us check this out!
I don’t see this proposed coalition happening. The Constitution Party, e.g., is strongly pro-life, while the Libertarians are silent on that issue, since there are both pro-life and ‘pro-choice’ Libertarians. And I can’t see the CP joining any coalition that includes the Greens.
The CP platform also calls for trade protectionism, which I believe the LP opposes.
I have a Libertarian friend who refers to the CP as the “Taliban Party.”
What we need is people from all parties to unite behind the only true Constitutionalist man running, Ron Paul.
Ralph Nader for president and Matt Gonzalez for vice president!
CP the Taliban party ? Not hardly. It’s the most consistent party of Constitutional advocates, period. Now it is made up of a high percentage of Christians, true enough. But the label “Taliban” suggests they would advocate NO separation of Church & State, which is not at all true. What the CP does recognize, is that one’s moral framework does provide the Foundation of Law by which one will govern. And the reason that they hold to Christianity is that they are observing what America’s founders acknowledged, namely ‘The laws of Nature & of Nature’s God’ (Natural Law theory & Biblical Revelation) form a proper foundation.
The Founders were influenced by some rationalistic & deisic thought, but were mostly Orthodox Christians. While supporting the ‘freedom of religion’, they saw the first amendment as forming chains on Civil Government, preventing it from taking ANY aggressive action towards the churches (which COULD include attempting to establish a sole religious franchise, a National Church, they wisely forbid it to do).
It’s well said that they would have wanted churches to be free from State intervention, they would never have advocated that the State be free from accountability to God. It’s either this, or they were very double minded to have referenced ‘unalienable rights, endowed by our Creator’, and signed the documents in the ‘year of the LORD’.
The LP, for me doesn’t work as well as the CP, becuase it wants the fruit of Liberty, without acknowledging the Spritual root, something that I’m glad the Founding Fathers were very clear on affirming.
So, labeling the Constitution Party the ‘Taliban’ won’t wash. Unless you want to call America’s Founding Fathers the Taliban.
Sam Adams