The always-excellent Ballot Access News reports that the California Secretary of State’s office has certified Alan Keyes as the Presidential nominee of the American Independent Party. That party is, or had been, the California affiliate of the Constitution Party.
For now, Keyes is on the ballot and Baldwin is off. But it’s not over as everyone is expecting this fight to go to court next.
Richard Winger’s report…
On July 21, the California Secretary of State recognized the American Independent Party state convention that was held in Sacramento, instead of the one that had been held a week earlier in Los Angeles. The Secretary of State’s Chief Counsel, Pam Giarrizzo, said that the Secretary of State made the decision based on the fact that Ed Noonan is listed in the records as the state chair. She said the office has no knowledge of who was at either convention, and of which convention had the larger attendance of state central committee members. She had no memory of how former Secretary of State March Fong Eu handled a somewhat similar situation differently, in 1988, for the Peace & Freedom Party. She said she might or might not look into the 1988 records, but said also that the decision is final.
Since the convention chaired by Ed Noonan chose presidential electors pledged to Alan Keyes, he will be the American Independent Party presidential nominee unless the other faction is able to sue successfully.
Let’s see, Alan Keyes gets to be to AIP nominee in California because Ed Noonan’s name still happens to be on the party stationary as the Chariman?
Let that be a lesson to all you non-major party people out there. If you dump your chairman and he threatens to bolt and take his marbles with him, be sure to change the stationary right away so clueless employees in the Secretary of State’s office will be well aware of who is officialy in charge.
Sheesh!
Of course this will go to court and sadly resources that could have been spent on the Baldwin campaign have to be spent fighting sore losers like Ed Noonan who wish to be a part of Alan Keyes’ big circle jerk.
Question for Ed: What will you do if Keyes suddenly dies?
This isnt the end of the debate at ALL.
First off–Noonan CANNOT serve two consecutive terms as Chair of the party,as he’s now doing. Secondly, and more importantly, there were more members of the State Central Committee at the Los Angeles-Baldwin meeting.
“If his name does not appear on the ballot in the largest 3 states (CA, NY and TX) I see no chance for his campaign to be taken seriously by the MSM.”
Even if Baldwin was on the ballot in CA, NY, and TX, I’d see no chance for his campaign to be taken seriously by the MSM.
Those were both very competitive party primaries though. In the general, it will be a choice between voting for McCain, Barr, Obama, etc.
Disaffected conservatives will trickle to Keyes a bit more than they did in the primaries this time around when Huckabee, Thompson, Romney, and Hunter were all on the ballot.
I still maintain 100,000 votes as a remote possibility. Depending on ballot access.
Alan Keyes only got 11,742 votes in the California Republican presidential primary this year, and only 4,060 in Florida’s Republican primary.
I also agree that the silence is a bit deafening, especially from CPers. Guys?
You are right of course, New Fed. I wonder if this risks Baldwin slipping below the theoretical-win threshold for the electoral college.
This might also give Jim Dobson another candidate to vote for.
I don’t know about Austin’s estimates in other states, but I can’t see Keyes breaking 40K here (and that’s giving him a handicap for name rec).
By the way, the rationale for Keyes getting to 100k is as follows….
Peroutka got 26k in California, Badnarik has 50k.
Keyes is better known that either of them and may appeal to some hard core conservatives. It’s a safe state to defect from McCain since the GOP has no chance anyway. In the 2000 GOP primary, Keyes won 170,000 votes there. In 2008, in a crowded and competitive field, he only won about 12,000.
So I think it’s safe to peg him at 50,000 in the general election from CA.
Add 10,000 from Florida. And another 4,000 from Colorado and Louisiana each. That gets us to 68,000. 2,000 in New Jersey puts us up to 2,000.
Then the question is if he can bridge the gap somehow by getting on in enough vote rich states to piece together 100k. Or if he performs better than I’m expecting just based on name recognition.
Remember that a lot of people don’t know he sought the CP nomination and still think he’s a Republican. And for many, their last memory of him is either as a Senate nominee in Illinois or as a somewhat credible candidate in 2000.
Well, basically it probably dooms Baldwin’s campaign to a sub-Peroutka performance.
And it gives Keyes a remote shot at hitting 100,000 votes if he can also get on in Florida and another half-dozen low-hanging fruit states.
I know this has been discussed at length over at Ballot Access News but I am still surprised at the lack of posting here at IPR about this. If this decision stands it badly hurts the Baldwin campaign. If his name does not appear on the ballot in the largest 3 states (CA, NY and TX) I see no chance for his campaign to be taken seriously by the MSM. The campaign has already missed in TX, now appears to have lost CA and isn’t likely to make it in NY. How this might effect Paul supporters still deciding between Baldwin and Barr remains to be seen but I can’t believe it will help Baldwin.
Caught me on this one, Austin.
The AIP & CP wouldn’t have had these problems if they nominated the guy with the pitch fork and Peruvian accent.