Chuck Baldwin, the presidential candidate of the Constitution Party, was interviewed by Josh Israel of the Center for Public Integrity on May 20th, 2008. The interview transcript has just been posted over at “The Buying of the President 2008“, which is a project of the Center for Public Integrity. Josh Israel has previously interviewed Howard Phillips, Michael Peroutka, Michael Badnarik, David Cobb, Patrick Buchanan, and Mike Gravel—so his coverage of third-parties has been incredibly fair.
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.
Each interview is quite long, and makes for a good read. Ironically, the last interview posted before Chuck Baldwin’s, was Rep. Bob Dornan‘s. The irony being that Rep. Dornan was the other person that considered entering the race for California’s 48th District in 2005 as an American Independent Party candidate. Jim Gilchrist would eventually decide to run as the AIP candidate in that district, and thus preclude Rep. Bob Dornan from him “comeback campaign”.