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Chuck Baldwin

Chuck Baldwin is the 2008 Constitution Party presidential nominee. Prior, he was the party’s 2004 vice presidential nominee and was state chairman of Florida Moral Majority.  He is the founder and pastor of the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida, and hosts a daily radio show Chuck Baldwin Live.

Josh Israel interviewed Baldwin on May 20, 2008.

You’ve been a pastor, a columnist, a radio host, an author, and in 2004, the Constitution Party’s vice presidential nominee. Is that all right?

That’s correct.

As of a few weeks ago, you became the 2008 presidential nominee of the Constitution Party. I’ve spoken with Howard Phillips and Michael Peroutka already about their experiences running on the Constitution Party ticket as presidential candidate. What were your experiences as vice presidential candidate last time around?

Actually, the experiences I had in 2004 were almost without exception very positive. The thing I was impressed with the most was the fact that everywhere I had the opportunity to speak and to address the issues, the people received that message enthusiastically. That was especially true when I had the opportunity to go to college campuses. I found the young people very receptive to the ideas of constitutional government, limited government, individual freedom, et cetera, the principles we stand for as the Constitutional Party, the same principles upon which America was founded, the principles of Washington and Jefferson.

As I said, since 2004, it’s not that the American people have rejected our message. The American people have not heard our message. Everywhere that I went in 2004 and had the opportunity to present that message, it was received extremely well. That was, I think, one of the most gratifying experiences I had in 2004.

In the effort to get your message out, did you personally have to do any of the fundraising as the vice presidential nominee?

No, I did not.

Now that you’re the nominee — I understand you’ve only got less than a month’s experience as the party’s nominee — I assume you’re going to have to have some involvement in raising money for your campaign.

Oh, yes. That’s a part of the animal. We will be doing what is necessary to generate funds for that campaign. We’re already doing that. Even though the campaign is extremely young and just getting started, we’re already beginning to see enthusiastic support for our campaign. We’re really expecting that there will be a lot of enthusiasm out there for our campaign.

How much, if you have a sense, do you think would be the ideal amount to raise to be able to get your message out fully?

Well, one of the benefits of our modern technology today is that we’re able to circumvent the media, which has traditionally been the only way to get your message out. Today, thanks to talk radio, Internet web shows such as yours, thanks to the Internet columns and newspapers and so forth, we’re able to get our message out electronically in a way that generations before us could never have dreamed about. It doesn’t take as much money today, I don’t think, to compete as a third party as it would have, say, a few years ago.

Obviously, you aren’t going to be able to buy television advertising and radio advertising in the major markets, newspaper ads, et cetera, without mega dollars. Whether or not we will be able to generate that, we will have to wait and see. I do believe that we will be able to do more with less than any of the two major parties. I think this year, especially, there is a vacuum for truth and for integrity and for the vestige of the constitutional government. The two major parties have abandoned those issues and those principals altogether. So we look forward to be able to present those views and those positions into the debate. I really don’t know what the dollar amount would be, but I do believe, as the campaign goes on, we will be competitive.

You don’t necessarily need the $200-some million that some other candidates have raised?

No, definitely not. We believe that Ron Paul served as a real model for what can be done. He did raise a lot of money there at the apex of his campaign, but notice that most of his money was generated through the Internet. I really feel that once our campaign begins to take off and people learn about our campaign, that we, likewise, will be able to generate a lot of funds through the Internet.

What kind of obstacle is it for a party that isn’t the Democratic or Republican Party just to get on the ballot in states?

That is a very good question. I appreciate you asking it, Josh, because most people in the country have no idea how complicated it is for a third party to even get on the ballot. Each state, of course, makes its own laws and rules regarding ballot access. There are seven states in the country that have made it so difficult for independent parties to get on the ballot that it’s, without a lot of money, almost impossible. We expect to be on the ballot in at least 43 states. If fundraising goes well, we could even be on in 45 or 46 states. We’ll see about that. I expect fully to be on the ballot in over 40 states. We will have enough ballots that we would be able to obtain the necessary electoral votes to win the White House, which, in my opinion, should qualify us for the presidential debates on national television.

That was my next question.

It seems to me that if a third party has enough electoral votes via ballot access to theoretically or statistically win the election, they should have an opportunity to present their ideas to the American people. Let the American people judge the validity and the creditability of those ideas. As it is, those invitations are not given.

The ballot access is a major issue and it takes a lot of money to get on the ballots in the various states. Then after you’ve done all that hard work and you get your candidate on the ballot, then the news media will turn around and reject you from the national forums, the national debates, national exposure. They’ll use the excuse, “You’re not pulling enough percentage when we have these public opinion polls.” Of course, they turn around and, by ignoring you and not giving you access to the people, they contribute to the low poll numbers. So they are manipulating the polling data. They’re manipulating the election. They don’t want anyone outside of the two major parties to have a voice.

The reason for that is, of course, the two major parties are pretty much two peas in a pod. They’re pretty much the same. As Pat Buchanan said, “Two wings of the same bird of prey.” They like it that way. It’s easier to manipulate the election that way. If all of a sudden you had three or four strong candidates in a race bringing independent and fresh ideas, who knows? The great American people out there, the rabble across the country, may actually elect someone who is not approved by the elites. They can’t have that.

What do you think of the Commission on Presidential Debates?

I think it’s totally rigged, the way they have treated independent party candidates, not to mention even some of the major party candidates. Look at the way they’ve treated Alan Keyes in the past. Look at the way they treated Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich. I think you can look at several candidates in both parties that have been deliberately mistreated and isolated by the commission. Again, I think what we have is a manipulated election system. I think if the American people really understood just how bad it was, I think they would probably rise with such anger that they would overturn that kind of an idea. As it is, they’re kept in the dark. They really don’t realize how badly they’re being manipulated. [Editor’s note: The Commission on Presidential Debates only hosts the general election debates.  Primary debates are hosted by other organizations.]

I gather that the Constitution Party, as a constitutional interpretation matter, does not believe that the public financing system that we have passes constitutional muster.

You mean the idea that candidates receive taxpayer dollars to run their campaigns?

Right.

Absolutely not. Think about it, Josh. You and I are financing the campaigns of the various and sundry candidates regardless of whether we agree with them philosophically or not. They are receiving taxpayer dollars. I think the fact that they are receiving tax dollars is totally unconstitutional. What’s really interesting is they’re able to go back and forth on that issue.

For example, John McCain, when he was out of money, wanted to be placed on the public trough so he could receive tax donations, so he did. Then after the money started coming in and he was securing a nomination, now he wanted to opt out of that. The reason was, of course, there was a cap on the amount of money you could spend under the former system. If you hop out of that, you’re not relying on public funds, then there’s no cap on your spending. He’s already spent more than the cap. He goes back and says, “I want out.”

The current head of the FEC questioned that. He challenged the idea that John McCain could have it both ways, that you could opt-in whenever you wanted and receive the public funding and then opt-out after you don’t need it anymore and bypass the law stipulating expenditures. He, as the head, [David] Mason, challenged that. Now, interestingly enough, President Bush has just announced that he’s replacing Chairman Mason at the Federal Election Commission. Isn’t that coincidental?

These are the kinds of things that go on behind the scenes that the American people have no idea take place. They don’t see it. The media doesn’t report it. They don’t realize how the entire election cycle and everything, from things I’m talking about here to the things we’ve already discussed in this interview, are being manipulated by the two major parties, by the state parties, Democratic, Republican, and by the media.

Do you believe any restrictions on campaign finance as far as fundraising or as far as spending would be constitutional?

No. I think we need to let the American people support the political campaigns as they see fit. Let the free market work just like it is supposed to do. What we have now is such a restrictive process that the average person feels almost powerless to participate. The most that an individual can give in an election campaign to a candidate is $2,300. The argument is, “We don’t want the rich buying the election.” That’s bologna. That’s the only people we have today that are able to survive in politics, the extremely wealthy. 

Look who we have. We have John McCain who, through his wife’s fortune, has unlimited funds available to him. Name a successful presidential candidate over the last how many decades that has not been among the wealthy and among the elite of our country, people that are of the privileged class. Most of them are coming out of a career in politics in which they have fed off of the public trough for all of their lives. They made a living out of feeding off of the public trough. They’ve become multi-millionaires, some of them, by feeding off of the public trough. They finance their campaigns this way.

Think about it. An average person like me has to work for a living, and trying to run even an independent campaign, and all the rules and laws and so forth that I’m up against, and limitations on fundraising and so forth, yet at the same time, not personally wealthy, not having millions of dollars that I can just afford to throw into a political campaign. At the same time, everyone else keeps their job, all these senators. They get paid from the public treasury. They’re still on the payroll of the public treasury. As a senator, they receive all the benefits. They receive all the salary. Yet what do they do full time? They get on jet airplanes and they jet across the country. Day and night, they campaign and raise money. At the same time, they’re receiving their day paychecks from the treasury.

This is the kind of system we have today. An average person of average wealth and who has to work a job, it’s almost to the point that such people as us are shut out of the political season, political climate. So we have nothing but the elitists and the super wealthy that are involved in politics today.

What would you do to change that?

I would change the election laws if I could to allow individuals to be able to run. I would get rid of the public financing of the campaigns, let people raise their own money, and let people give as much money as they want to a campaign. Let people get out there and generate their funds freely without the restrictions and caps and so forth. Let them run a free campaign without the restrictions that are associated with it. Let the free market dictate. That’s the way it is supposed to be in our country and that’s not the way it is.

Do you support some sort of disclosure for contributions?

Oh, sure. I support disclosures. I think people have the right to know where the donors are coming from and so forth. As far as individual gifts, all we have today is a system that benefits the corporations and the corporate elite. Individuals are squeezed out of the process.

Looking at the way things have been going and the fact that so many individuals — be it on the Democratic side with the Obama campaign or on the Republican side with the Paul campaign — have been active and getting involved as grassroots donors, what we haven’t seen before, do you think the time is ripe for a change?

I think that the time is extremely ripe for change. If they go with Obama, however, the change they think they are getting is probably not what they are going to get. The three major candidates, Hillary, Obama, and McCain, as I wrote in a column recently, are three peas in a pod. They are all proponents of big government. They are all proponents of internationalism and globalism. None of the three are going to close our borders. None of the three are going to stop illegal immigration. They’re all going to push for amnesty for illegal aliens. They’re all going to promote the North American Union, NAFTA. They’re going to build the NAFTA superhighway. They’re going to keep us in Iraq for 100 years. They’re going to keep meddling in the international affairs of other nations, the internal affairs of other nations. They’re going to continue this internationalistic, globalistic bend that we’ve been on for the last several decades. There’s not going to be any change in the direction of the country if any of the three major candidates are elected.

I think this is why there’re a lot of people across the country that are looking to an alternative candidate. I think the mood of the American people is that they know they are losing their freedoms. They know that they should not be meddling in other people’s affairs across the world. They know that our troops are not supposed to be international policemen for the United Nations. They know that we’ve got to close our borders. They know that we’ve got to secure our sovereignty and our independence. They see all of this slipping away. They don’t see the major parties addressing it.

But where do they go? Where do they look? What do they do? The two-party system has created a monopoly on the political process to the point that the American people really don’t know where to go. They don’t know what to do. There’s no question that the climate is there for change in that regard. Ron Paul, I think, really hit a nerve with his campaign, and I’m hoping that we will be able to do the same.