National Chairman's Letter
November 1999
Dear Members and Friends of the Independent American Party,
On October 25 Pat Buchanan formally announced in Vienna, Virginia that he was
no longer a Republican, that he was now a member of the Reform Party, and that
he was seeking the Reform Party presidential nomination. I and my wife were
privileged to have been guests at the announcement and at the Buchanan reception
the day before. Sadly, a few days later, US Senator Bob Smith ended his
independent candidacy for president and returned to the Republican Party.
Meanwhile, Howard Phillips, the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party,
continues his campaign and efforts to build his party.
The Independent American Party has no viable candidates of its own as yet. We
are very interested in the Buchanan and Phillips candidacies. We would like for
both of them to enter our Utah IAP presidential primary election and seek our
presidential nomination as fusion candidates. Phillips is definitely interested
in entering our Utah primary, and there is some interest at the national level
of the Reform Party for having Buchanan enter our primary. One concern both
sides have, will their candidates still be able to run under their own party in
the general election in Utah if they lose the IAP nomination? We are seeking a
clarification from the Utah Lt. Governor's office on the matter.
Buchanan has a fight to win the Reform Party nomination. We want him to win
and be one of our candidates also. We invite you pro-Buchanan IAP members and
your friends to help him secure the Reform Party nomination by becoming members
of both the Reform Party and the IAP where state and party laws allow. We are
not advocating that anyone embrace the Reform Party as a whole -- as that still
includes the liberal Ventura-Trump elements. Rather, we only suggest that you
work with the pro-Buchanan elements of that party.
Likewise, we invite you pro-Phillips IAP members and your friends to help
Phillips and his Constitution Party. Phillips already has the nomination, but
his party is struggling to gain ballot access in many states, and needs workers
to help on petition drives. Our nation and our freedom are at risk! I feel we
need to set our party lines aside and do what we can to help these two good men
-- Pat Buchanan and Howard Phillips -- have the opportunity to get elected.
Please contact us, and we will put you in touch with either campaign.
For the IAP only: We want to post a list of contact persons for each state on
our USIAP.ORG web site. Each contact person's name, address, phone number and
e-mail address will be posted on the site under his or her state name. We ask
each of you who are interested to reply back your willingness to serve in this
capacity. Your duties will be to record the names and data of those who contact
you, and forward that information on to the national party. You are not likely
to get too many contacts. We ask that you serve until the end of next year, or
until the IAP is organized in your state, or until you request otherwise. Thank
you in advance for your service.
Yours for Freedom!
Bruce Bangerter
IAP National Chairman
