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Michael Anthony Peroutka

Michael Anthony Peroutka was the Constitution Party’s 2004 presidential nominee. He is the founder of the Institute on the Constitution, a civic education program, and a partner in the law firm Peroutka & Peroutka, both of which are in Pasadena, Maryland. Peroutka received 143,630 votes in the 2004 election.

Josh Israel interviewed Peroutka on April 30, 2007.

Can you give me a little bit of a sense of some of the obstacles for a so-called third-party candidate running for president in this day and age?

Well, sure. They are immense, to say the least. It’s very difficult for what’s called a third party. And I would actually argue that what we really need in America is a second party. Because what we argued during that campaign, and the case we tried to make to the American people, was that, for all intents and purposes, from a standpoint of principle, the two major parties really are one party. They are two sides of the same coin, or two wings of the same bird, however you might want to say that. They don’t really disagree in principle about anything. And for sure, there is a great deal of caterwauling and yelling back and forth between them. But when it comes down to principle, they are both for abortion, they are both for the war in Iraq, et cetera. None of them will really hold judges accountable. None of them will follow the Constitution. So they really are one party.

So regrettably, these two parties make the rules. They get to make the rules for who else gets to play. And, as you may imagine, they make the rules very, very difficult for anybody to challenge them from outside of what I am going to call that little club. The two major difficulties are ballot access and major-media coverage. That’s the two biggest things working against a person who wants to run for national office, for the presidency of the United States, without being a Democrat or a Republican.

And taking them in order, ballot access — you first of all have to understand that, when you run for president of the United States, it’s really not one election; it’s at least 50 different elections, because you have 50 different sets of rules in the 50 different states. And [you have] to know all of the rules for ballot access to get on the ballot. To know all of those rules, and to know all of the election rules in all of those places, that’s more than a full-time job by itself. That’s a huge problem, just to know what all of the rules are, to follow the rules.

Some states make ballot access very, very difficult; some are relatively easy. But some make it very difficult, and states that come to mind are North Carolina, and Oklahoma, and Texas, and New York is very difficult. There are some hoops you have to jump through. And when I say that, I mean you have to collect signatures. Signatures probably have to be collected on sheets to keep tabs on the different counties that people are in, the different election districts they are in. Sometimes you have to maybe collect those signatures in a certain window of time. Those signatures are subject to challenge. And so if you need to collect, say, 30,000 signatures, you have to collect probably 60,000 so that you can survive the challenge of some signatures and make sure you have enough. So the major parties don’t have all of these signature-gathering things and all of these expenses. They are automatically on the ballot by their own rules.

Another thing that is sometimes difficult is that some states have requirements that, for you to be a collector of signatures — let’s say you wanted to work for the Peroutka campaign and help me out. Well, in some states you have to be a resident of that county, or that district, or that state in order to collect signatures there. So I couldn’t send you to North Carolina and ask you to help me. So that makes it difficult. Now I have to hire or find somebody in North Carolina to do it. And so all of that ballot access and all of the rules are really — most third-party candidates spend a great deal of their time and their money just getting on the ballot. And it depletes the efforts they might have to actually get their message to people. That’s the second part.

So I said ballot access and major-media coverage. The second part that’s difficult is actually getting your message to people. It’s very expensive to do it by mail. You need to be able to get what sometimes we call free coverage. You need to be covered by reporters, or by radio interviews, or by television interviews. You need to get people in their living rooms knowing who you are, and what you stand for, and knowing that you are there, and that you are serious. And that’s very, very difficult to overcome. And as a matter of fact, I don’t mind saying that either the media — I don’t call it the major media anymore, I call it the managed media — to a great extent is kind of in this game with the major parties. And they are part of the filter that you got to get through. We called it the gauntlet during our campaign. You have to get through this filter of difficulty to try to get your message to the people. So those are the two big obstacles facing anybody fixing to run in 2008.

In how many states were you able to get on the ballot?

We were able to get on in 36. And we were shooting for 40 states. That was our goal. And I say that and you think, “Well, why wasn’t it your goal to be on all 50 states?” It’s simply a matter of expense. These are very, very round numbers. Don’t hold me to this. But I am going to say that it cost maybe a half a million dollars, or maybe three-quarters of a million dollars to get on the ballot in 40 states or so.

A sizable sum.

Yeah. But now, once you are on those 40, to get those other 10 costs $5 million or $6 million. So they are so expensive and so hard that in 2004 we had to just write them off from day one. We didn’t try to get on the ballot in Texas, for example. We didn’t try to get on the ballot in North Carolina. We did make attempts, and serious attempts, at about 42 or 43 states, really, with our goal being to make 40. And we only made 36. We had some difficulties. It’s a long story, but we feel we kind of got cheated out of a couple of them. But we were able to get on 36, which really [is an achievement], if you knew how hard that was. We had wonderful people working around the country: Allison Potter had to get up, and Janine Hanson in Nevada had to get up. To make that happen was really a labor of love of many volunteers.

Just approximately, what was the amount you were able to raise for the campaign total?

We raised about three-quarters of a million dollars.

And how did you do that?

Well, we sent out solicitation letters. We called people. We asked them. You understand that’s nothing compared to what the major candidates raise.

We are looking at, I think, $500 million is the estimate per side for 2008 — according to some, at least.

Yeah, it might be that high. I was going to say $200 million. But you could be right. Clearly many, many congressional candidates and senate candidates spend much more than we did for a presidential race. We did the best we could with what we had. And we believed, very firmly, that our mission, our goal, was to present this alternative to the American people, and [to] do it in the most righteous, the most honest, the most decent way that we could. And we felt that our mission, our goal, was not to win the race, but to run the race.

Now we were trying to win, but we realized that without divine intervention it wasn’t a high probability that we would win. But I do believe in divine intervention. One of the questions people asked many times during the campaign was, “Mr. Peroutka, why are you doing this when you don’t have a chance?” And I would say, “I don’t believe in chance.” I actually looked forward to that question, because it gave me the opportunity to say: “I don’t believe in chance. I believe, like our Founding Fathers believed, in God’s providence.” They didn’t have a chance against the greatest navy, the greatest army at that time, in the world, in Great Britain. But they did what was right. They did their duty. And they did place their faith, as they said, in divine providence.

So we got every vote that God wanted us to get; we didn’t get one more, we didn’t get one less. We tried to honor him in our campaign. And we did that because it was our belief. And it was also our belief that it was in the spirit of the Founding Fathers, who did say “God, family, Republic.” There was a hierarchy of order in those allegiances.

The presidential debates are not easy for candidates, outside the Democratic and Republican parties, to get into. Did you seek to participate?

Well, I didn’t personally. I am pretty sure that our campaign did have correspondence with those folks. They put restrictions; you would have to have 15 percent in a national poll or something. There actually is a presidential debate commission, and a book was written right during the 2004 campaign. I can’t remember the author’s name this moment — I saw him on C-SPAN — but the book was called No Debate.

George Farah?

Yeah. And his point was about the idea that this is a closed affair. And yeah, it was George Farah. I believe you are right. I think that was an effective dissertation on how bad the problem is.

Do you think a candidate such as yourself should be included in this?

Included? Oh, sure. It’s not so much that they don’t want Michael Peroutka there, or they didn’t want Michael Badnarik, who is the Libertarian Party candidate, or David Cobb who is the Green Party candidate. They don’t want abortion being discussed openly; they don’t really want that issue on the table of the debate. They don’t really want constitutional money. They don’t really want the Federal Reserve and our illegal scheme of fiat money to be discussed at a presidential debate. They don’t want to really debate a constitutional foreign policy, or really debate closing or protecting our borders. They don’t want the point of view that other people would bring to the table in the room. Because then they would have to deal with it in front of the American people. So that’s what’s really at stake. I don’t think they personally didn’t like Michael Peroutka. I think they can’t abide what Michael Peroutka would be talking about in a debate.

What could be done to change the system for the debates, in your vision, that would make them better and more representative of that range of topics and issues?

Well, I have to admit, you stumped me a little bit there. I don’t know exactly how, given the current set of circumstances, you could actually have a debate. They are so heavily monitored and filtered; the questions asked are already determined. I guess my answer would be that the whole thing needs to get local again. The whole thing needs to be really live, really in front of people, and not a staged panel discussion type of event. And that’s really what it is now.

As far as the finances for a campaign like yours, did you qualify for matching funds?

I honestly don’t know whether we would have qualified or not, because we would have never asked for that. Matching funds from the government, from the state, would mean that we would be forcing your money to be used for my campaign. It would be totally unconstitutional and unlawful. And it is unconstitutional and unlawful for them to do it. So it’s not something that we would, as a matter of principle, be involved in.

That’s as the Constitution Party?

Yeah. The Constitution Party would not have done that. As a matter of fact, I have respect for Mr. Pat Buchanan. When he ran [on] the Reform ticket [in 2000], one of the things that really just did disappoint me personally, because I have learned so much from him and I admire him, is that he took the matching funds in the Reform Party. I don’t know what it was, $13 million? I don’t remember the number. It was nowhere near the kind of funds the major parties get. Look, that’s just another way for them so they can steal your money to do what they want to do, and get their message out, and get their word out. So no, just as a matter of principle, we wouldn’t be involved in that. Now, as I say, I was disappointed when Pat Buchanan did that.

The rise of the Internet is seemingly changing the way campaigns are financed and candidates get out their message, raise money, organize. In your experience and in your general sense, do you think that has the potential to allow a movement like yours to take off in a way that was not the case five, 10, 20 years ago?

I think it does. I am not an expert enough to say exactly how, but I think it does. And I am encouraged by the Internet. It’s like the technology seems to have advanced faster than the bad guys can try to control it. It kind of spiraled out there. And people can communicate in ways they never could before.

These campaign-finance laws, by the way, are a huge part of the problem here. They need to be done away with. When Mr. [George W.] Bush signed the McCain-Feingold law, actually said as he was going to sign it, I won’t quote it exactly, but he actually said, “I believe this may be unconstitutional, but it’s for the Supreme Court to decide.” Well, that’s almost a treasonous statement, because he took an oath to the Constitution. He is not supposed to sign anything or do anything or take any action that is unconstitutional. It’s not just for the courts to decide; it’s for him to decide and be accountable for as well, from his branch of government, from the executive branch. So it’s a draconian quash of free speech.

All of these campaign-finance laws — you can only give $1,000 or $2,000 during this cycle and that cycle and all of that — that’s all unconstitutional. And it’s all a violation of free speech. You should be able to support any candidate you want, to whatever degree that you want. It’s part of your being able to speak freely about what you believe and to apply your resources in that way. Every time they “reform” things like this, they make it better for them. They make it better for the people who are in power. And they make it more difficult for any other party to exercise power.

So if you were in charge and could wave a wand or sign legislation, you would oppose any restrictions on contributions and spending?

Yeah, almost. I would be hard-pressed, at this moment, to think of any restriction that I think is lawful. I am not saying that there couldn’t be some. But the vast majority, certainly, of these laws are violations of free speech. Sure, they should be done away with. And the president is the enforcement arm. He could declare things to be unconstitutional on his own. We have this system where the Congress and the executive just kind of bowed down to the high priests of the [Supreme] Court. And they say, “Oh great Court, tell us, great oracle of the Court.” And yet they have all taken an oath to the Constitution to protect and defend it themselves.

As an example, during the [Grover] Cleveland administration — there is a number of stories like this — there was a bill that came through Congress, because there was some very, very bad tornado or flood in Texas or somewhere. And it was a relief bill. And Cleveland said: “There is no constitutional authority for me to sign this. I can’t take money from one taxpayer and give it to another just because he’s had a disaster. Let’s pray for these people. Hopefully the local churches, and the local community, and maybe even more widespread, folks can contribute to help them.” But if the federal government has to step in and take the responsibility of helping people out in relief, what kind of country have we come to? That was only 100 and some years ago.

Now we have a situation where that is just accepted. As a matter of fact, the people stand there in New Orleans and scream at the federal government and say, “Why aren’t you here helping?” Well, there is no authority to help. There is no authority for that. And not long ago, that was understood by everyone. And I don’t mean to go on here, but just think about health care, how it’s been taken over by the government, and mostly the federal government now. Think of the hospitals near you. The hospitals near me are named St. Joseph, Good Samaritan, St. Agnes. Those health systems were put together by churches, by private organizations. They weren’t put together by governments. Governments have now usurped them and taken them over. But civil government didn’t start those things and doesn’t have any business in them.

What is that TV show, St. Elsewhere? The names still betray their origins. The Presbyterian Hospital, that’s where there are private foundations, or churches, community-based organizations. That’s where the responsibility for health care righteously belongs. This usurpation by the federal government of the land, and the schools, and the health care, that’s all socialist agenda. And it’s taken root in America over the past few generations. But it’s not American. It’s not an American phenomenon. It’s a Marxist phenomenon and it’s a Marxist way of thinking that is now kind of inculcated in our thinking.

And it’s in the thinking of both major parties, even the “conservative” Republicans. If you go back to the days of Barry Goldwater, what did conservative mean? Conservative meant limited government, it meant fiscally responsible, it meant following the Constitution. But the Republicans don’t mean any of those things now. The most bloated budget that we have ever had has been under Republicans. It was a Republican Court that brought us Roe v. Wade, by the way. So the Republicans are just “Democrat Light” from yesterday. I mean, they are just yesterday’s Democrats.

We are on this progressive road toward socialism. The Democrats might be out front, but the Republicans are just hanging onto their coattails, following along. And what we were trying to say was, “No, we need a fixed standard.” Not just a sliding, movable standard, what 30 years ago was considered to be a liberal, or 30 minutes ago, is right now considered to be conservative. We need a fixed standard. We need go by the Constitution. We need to go by common law, which is based on Biblical law. We need to get back to a fixed standard, which is an American way of thinking. I know we are not trying to re-live the campaign here, but that’s what it was all about.

Well, you mentioned the divine-intervention perspective as far as your possibility. On a financial level, what do you think it would take not necessarily even to win, but to have a fighting chance? I know you don’t like the word chance, but to have a candidate outside of the two-party system, or the one-party system as you expressed, have a viable opportunity to have a level playing field at least?

I am going to say, just from a personal experience in today’s dollars, I think you need probably $10 million to secure your ballot access all across the country and make sure that you at least are organized enough to have the structure that you need to do that. I think to get on the ballot in every state, what you ought to do if you are serious, what you ought to strive to do, is going to cost about probably $7 million to $10 million. Then you have the problem of breaking through into what I call the “managed media.” And that is, like the commercial says, priceless.

I am not sure there is a number that you can have. I am not sure money does that, I guess is what I am trying to say. In order to do that, here is the problem: You would have to water down your message. You would have to say socialist, communist, Marxist kind of things, like Mr. [George W.] Bush and Mr. [John] Kerry did, in order to get them to listen to you. If you said truly American things, they will tend to shut you out and keep you out. So even with the $7 million to $10 million to get you on the ballot, you have still got to somehow break through and get to the people.

And you had mentioned earlier in this conversation that one way that you might be able to do that is some kind of very, very sophisticated Internet campaign that uses people to tell people and gives a grass-roots kind of fire going, if you will. That’s the way that I would see it happening. If I were going to run again, I would love to very effectively use the Internet and make sure that everybody I was talking to could vote for me by being on the ballot in every state, if at all possible.

Anything I haven’t asked regarding the campaign-finance system that you want to add?

I can’t speak to this in great deal, because I wasn’t my own treasurer. But the reporting requirements to run, the things you have to disclose, everybody that you ever loaned money to and everybody that owes you money, and the disclosures that you have to make, and the reporting that you have to make to the Federal Election Commission is rather draconian as well. That needs to be seriously reformed. The word “reform” is almost a joke, because when you say reform they make it worse. But it needs to be seriously reformed so that people with great intentions, and good plans, and good support can actually run for president, or for any high office. These election-disclosure things, which ostensibly are for the purpose of making sure the public knows what it needs to know about who you are, and what you have done, et cetera, are really used as an additional filter. And they need to be undone.

You are talking about personal financial disclosures for candidates?

And the continued disclosure every month, or every several weeks, during the campaign, you have to disclose everybody that gave you money, how much they gave you. Again, the reporting requirements are not just my own personal finances, but the finances of the campaign. All of those things are ostensibly meant to be an open book for folks. But much of what is collected is meaningless and not important. And it only becomes important in the transgression of it by some hyper-transgression. I didn’t put the comma here in the right place, and so my treasurer or me is going to go to jail. All of that stuff has to evaporate.