National Chairman's Letter

September 1999

Dear Members and Friends of the Independent American Party,

The IAP has had its eyes on presidential candidate US Senator Bob Smith (NH).   Smith broke away from the Republican Party in June. He was expected to seek the presidential nomination of the US Taxpayers Party in September.  However, in late August he announced that he would not be seeking their nomination nor attending their convention.  He would remain as an independent presidential candidate beholden to no political party.  There was some speculation that he would quit the race entirely, but early this month he announced that he was continuing his campaign for president.

I attended the US Taxpayers Party national convention in St. Louis, Missouri on Labor Day weekend as a "guest."  It was a positive convention, but there was disappointment that Sen. Smith was no longer available for the party's nomination.   The party did change its name to Constitution Party, pending confirmation by the Federal Elections Commission that this would not change the party's recognition status with the FEC.  They elected party founder Howard Phillips as their presidential nominee and syndicated columnist Joe Sobran as their vice presidential nominee.  This is Phillip's third consecutive nomination since he founded the party in 1992.

The IAP had potentially hoped to co-nominate Sen. Smith along with the US Taxpayers Party.  Now we are trying to learn from the Smith campaign if they will accept nominations (and ballot positions) from a coalition of third parties in various states. So far, they are undecided as to what relationship they want with various third parties.   They may be stalling in hopes of getting the Reform Party nomination if Pat Buchanan doesn't go for it. Or they may be hoping for the number two spot with Buchanan on the Reform Party ticket.  Buchanan is supposedly leaning toward seeking the Reform Party nomination.

Smith could easily draw the national IAP and at least one (probably more) of the state affiliates of the US Taxpayers Party into his camp if he would but throw out some guidelines as to how we can work with him.  We respect and admire his independent status, but we need to know whether he will even accept our efforts in his behalf.   If they don't reach a decision soon, we may change our focus toward other principled presidential candidates for the year 2000 elections.  We are anxious to start campaigning.

The IAP will hold its national nominating convention tentatively in July 2000.  If there are no relatively viable candidates such as Smith or Buchanan available, delegates may want to choose from Howard Phillips of the US Taxpayers Party, Earl Dodge of the Prohibition Party, or the nominees of other third parties; or we may field candidates of our own.  Our convention is ten months away.  We hope that the battle lines will be drawn long before that.

Yours for Freedom!

Bruce Bangerter
IAP National Chairman