Posted at theamericanparty.org. According to Politics1, The AP is a very small, very conservative, Christian splinter party formed after a break from the American Independent Party in 1972. US Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Governor Mel Thomson (R-NH) both flirted with the American Party’s presidential nomination in 1976, but both ultimately declined. The party won its strongest finish in the 1976 presidential election — nominee Tom Anderson carried 161,000 votes (6th place) — but has now largely faded into almost total obscurity. The party’s 1996 Presidential candidate — anti-gay rights activist and attorney Diane Templin — carried just 1,900 votes. Former GOP State Senator Don Rogers of California — the 2000 nominee for President — did even worse, as he failed to qualify for ballot status in any states. The party — which used to field a sizable amount of state and local candidates in the 1970s — rarely fields more than a handful of nominees nationwide in recent years, although they do claim local affiliates in 15 states. Beyond the pro-life, pro-gun and anti-tax views that you’d expect to find, the American Party also advocates an end to farm price supports/subsidies, privatization of the US Postal Service, opposes federal involvement in education, supports abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency, supports repeal of NAFTA, opposes minimum wage laws, opposes land use zoning regulations and opposes convening a Constitutional convention. Of course, the AP also opposes the United Nations, the New World Order, communism, socialism and the Trilateral Commission. In 2000 and 2004, the party’s Presidential ticket embarrassingly failed to qualify for the ballot in any states and were forced to run as write-in candidates. Attorney, anti-gay activist and frequent candidate Diane Templin — the party’s 2004 Presidential nominee — was again the party’s nominee in 2008 (but again failed to secure any ballot access).
Written by Belanne Pibal – NetRight Daily
The founders of this country were possessed of the revolutionary notion that the supreme power of our government resides in the people. The Declaration of Independence stated “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. Our Constitution, the very document that outlines the principles by which this nation is to be governed begins:”We the People”, indicating that the Constitution itself is a statement made by the”consent of the governed”.
The recent race for New York’s 23rd district as well as the recent Rasmussen poll showing that TEA Party candidates would be more likely to win than republican candidates, are demonstrations that the people are beginning to reclaim that power from the political party establishments, by whom it has been usurped. That’s right, usurped, by the established political parties. Here’s a short explanation of how we have come to the current state of the GOP and the Democratic party:
A group of Americans have similar values. They decide to pool their resources to find and financially support the candidacy of legislators who share those values and, as time goes by, the group expands and gets more and more resources donated to them by other like minded Americans for the purpose of supporting candidates who share their core values. This support does not come with strings attached (other than maybe attendance and speeches at a few group functions for the sake of courtesy and information sharing). It doesn’t need to attach strings, because the basic premise is that the candidate will be a person of strong moral fiber who shares the core values of the group and will vote according to those values, regardless of how the group thinks the legislator should vote.
Eventually, someone who doesn’t care a bit about the core values decides that the power of that organization is attractive and the group now has a problem.
At some point these “privateers” get control (because such people like power, they will take positions of responsibility within the group to obtain that power). And then they begin to suggest that it is inefficient to support candidates who “cannot” win and that the resources of the group are best spent on candidates who can win. They then also argue that the financial and personal resources of the group can, or should, be used as a goad to coerce the candidate to vote as the group desires once he/she has been elected.
Here’s the tricky bit.
At some point, “candidates who can win” turns into “candidates who can win, regardless of whether their core values align with those of the group.” There is a concurrent rise in the belief that the candidate’s values do not have to match those of the group, because the group wields the re-election resources as a whip to ensure that the candidate votes the way they are told.
This is the point at which the organization has usurped the power of “We the People”. For whatever reason, the political parties and their supporters have not viewed this as an ethical breach, although, it is nothing more or less than the purchase of legislative votes-votes that belong to We the People, not to either party. Candidates who accept such aid are, by definition, people lacking in strength of character, because they have agreed, outright or by implication, to sell their votes in exchange for the support of a political party. This is where we find ourselves now.
The GOP and the Democratic Party have turned that corner and are no longer representing the Americans who started them or their core values. Core values are completely irrelevant to these groups and that’s why they no longer have or deserve the support of the folks who want candidates with those core values. If these parties do not change, so that they once again represent the core values of their base, so that they are not in the position of purchasing the legislative votes of those candidates who have been elected with their “support”, they will cease to exist as Americans step up to their individual responsibility to elect people of character who share their core values. If candidates do not show the strength of character demanded by the duties of governing a free people, they will find themselves unemployed.
May the American people make our founders proud by reclaiming our supreme authority over our government.
http:/www.Templin4AttorneyGeneral.blogspot.com
Third Party Revolution // Dec 31, 2009:
“What faction is Templin running with? Keyes or Baldwin?”
As some one being pulled into the June 6th bruhaha, I [for one] would like to know also!
[email protected]
619.420.0209
If no one gives me /us an answer by mid February I might ring her. How is her mental state via her ex husband’s demise? She did not respond to our sympathy card or Ken Bourke’s annual open house invite. [But then we did not expect her to ………]
And what faction is Templin running with? Keyes or Baldwin?
On Wed, 12/30/09, Bill Lussenheide wrote:
From: Bill Lussenheide
Subject: WEBSITE IS UP!
To: “Diane Templin” , “Diane Templin”
Date: December 30, 2009, 8:37 PM
http:/www.Templin4AttorneyGeneral.blogspot.com
Josh Gerstein Josh Gerstein – Tue Dec 29, 10:33 pm ET
Eight years ago, a terrorist bomber’s attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner was thwarted by a group of passengers, an incident that revealed some gaping holes in airline security just a few months after the attacks of Sept. 11. But it was six days before President George W. Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks about the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate.
That stands in sharp contrast to the withering criticism President Barack Obama has received from Republicans and some in the press for his reaction to Friday’s incident on a Northwest Airlines flight heading for Detroit.
Barham, enough of your spam.
I am going back and removing your website from all your IPR posts.
Enough is enough.
SELF INTEREST OR SELF-CENTERED
This is directed at those who admire and criticize Ayn Rand’s beliefs about people who stand on their own feet. Most who criticize Rand say she promoted selfishness, thereby greed, which is self-centered and anti-individual creativity, therefore, anti-Rand. Rand admired the creative individual, such as James Jerome Hill, on whom she was reputed to have based her character Nathaniel Taggart in Atlas Shrugged. If we look at Howard Roark’s summation to the jury, from Fountainhead, we do not see a self-centered individual destroying his work. Were he greedy, he would have simply accepted his payment. We see a self-interested, other- and outer-centered individual in love with his own dreams and creations, as one would love a spouse, child or family and refuse to allow them to be assaulted. Though love for anything spiritual may be missing, a great idea or vision also measures up to that which is spiritual, beyond self, and that view is not that inconsistent with Christianity.
I’m sorry to hear that Ms. Templin’s former husband is in poor health. Have no fear though. I have no doubt that she will run for president in 2012. Just like she did in 1996. And 2004. And 2008. Not to mention running for California AG in 1998 and 2002. And running for governor in California in 2003. And running for Senate in 2000. And Congress in 2004.
There is one thing worse than professional office holders and that is professional office seekers.
Divorced Diane Templin, while still close to her ex husband, to the point of nursing him thru his fatal illness, is in grieving mode and [at least] temporarily out of politics ……….
I haven’t heard much from the AP since the 2008 election.