National Chairman's Letter

Call for Candidates

March 2004

Dear Independent American friends,

The IAP has members or friends in 45 states, District of Columbia and other places that receive this Chairman's Letter (and countless others who do not). We have formal representation in 25 states. But we are not ballot-qualified in any state. We have made efforts to get on the ballot, but we have lacked the financial and manpower resources to do so. This means that we cannot run IAP candidates this election year — at least in the traditional sense.

It is the recommendation of the national IAP Executive Committee that of all you who have any desire to be a candidate, that you consider running on the Constitution Party or America First Party tickets, or as independents (unaffiliated). The CP and AFP have values and platforms similar to ours. We have long considered them as sister parties. They also have ballot status in many states. I am sure they will welcome you to help bolster their candidate slates. (The CP state affiliate in California is the American Independent Party. In Nevada, it is the IAP.)

The other option is to consider running as an independent (unaffiliated with any party). We have a congressional candidate in Oklahoma and several local candidates in Tennessee who are essentially running as independents. This usually requires a petition drive for signatures to be able to get on the ballot. In some states, an independent candidate is allowed to associate his name with a non-recognized party (such as the IAP).

I urge you to contact your county or state elections office to find out which offices are up for election, the dates and times of the candidate filing period, how much the filing fees are (usually inexpensive for local races), and the petitioning requirements (for independent races). You can also contact the CP at www.constitutionparty.com and the AFP at www.americafirstparty.org to find out whether they are ballot-qualified in your state and what elective offices they are in need of filling. I myself have already filed as a CP state legislative candidate in my state.

In 2002 we had a U.S. Senate candidate and a number of local candidates of our own. But we "adopted" (or endorsed) over 50 candidates from other like-minded political parties. We promoted all of these candidates on our web site. And we will consider doing that again this year. If you run as a Constitution, America First, independent, or possibly some other party candidate, are of good character, and you support our national Mission, Principles and Platform, then we would like to consider promoting you on our web site and in any other way we can.

Now lets look at the presidential race: I have been contacted by a number of presidential candidates last year and this year desiring our nomination. Most of them did not prove credible. But a few have been making serious efforts. Since we do not have ballot status in any state, our nominating a candidate of our own will only be a symbolic gesture. The Constitution Party has been touting Michael Peroutka of Maryland as their likely presidential nominee. The America First Party does not plan to field a presidential candidate this year. The Prohibition Party has asked us to consider co-nominating their candidate.

So we have a choice of nominating one of the several candidates seeking our nomination, co-nominating the Prohibition Party candidate, endorsing the Constitution Party nominee, endorsing some other independent or some other party nominee, or staying out of the presidential race entirely. We can choose a symbolic candidate or choose a candidate who will be on the ballot in a number of states. We will make that choice at our National Conference in July. Prior to that time, I hope to take a poll of everyone's opinion on the matter and present the poll results to the National Committee.

A side note here: I have received a number of emails from individuals thinking that Ralph Nader is running on our ticket. A few are in praise of Nader, but most are from Democrats assailing us for threatening to shift the balance of the election in favor of Bush again. I usually reply with the following --

A clarification is needed here: Ralph Nader is running as an independent (with a lower-case 'i'), which means he is running unaffiliated from any party (including the Independent American, Independence, and Independent Parties -- all with capital 'I's). In short, he is not a member or candidate of our party or of any other party. He is basically running on his own.

They usually respond back thanking me for the clarification, and sometimes apologizing for their criticism.

The idea of cooperating with other like-minded political parties is not new for the IAP. In 2000 we had ballot access in Utah and fielded about 25 federal, state and local candidates. However, for the presidential race, we invited Howard Phillips (the nominee of the Constitution Party) and Earl Dodge (the nominee of the Prohibition Party) to participate as IAP candidates in the Utah presidential primary. Both men graciously accepted. Howard won the primary, and we later co-nominated him as our presidential nominee. In 2002 the IAP voted to associate with the Independent National Committee, an umbrella organization for like-minded political entities. We also had IAP members running as candidates on other party tickets that year. I have had recent phone conversations with John Francis and Dan Charles, former and current AFP National Chairs; and I have had earlier conversations with Jim Clymer, National Chair of the CP.

Since we will only have a few candidates of our very own, our primary role this year will be more educational than political. You can help by promoting the principles of freedom to others and by pointing others to our www.usiap.org web site. Of particular value is our national Mission, Principles and Platform that are in the Beliefs section of our web site. The Action Items section contains material from our Legislative Development Committee. The Viewpoints section contains hundreds of articles substantiating the various points of our philosophy. (We welcome timely articles or letters from our readers for consideration for publishing on our site.) Many of my Chairman's Letters in the Archives section contain commentaries on our Mission and Platform. The Legacy section contains quotes of our founders and various freedom documents.

For God, Family and Country!

Bruce Bangerter
IAP National Chairman