Constitution Party chooses Baldwin.(THE LAST WORD)(Charles O. Baldwin)

At its April 24-27 national convention in Kansas City, the Constitution Party nominated Florida pastor/political activist Charles O. "Chuck" Baldwin as its candidate for president of the United States. Baldwin received 383.8 votes to 125.7 garnered by Maryland's Alan Keyes and a few given to minor candidates. During the proceedings, hundreds of delegates from across the nation heard speeches from a slate of seven candidates and also from party founder Howard Phillips, conservative activist Richard Viguerie, Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt, popular author Jerome Corsi, and myself.

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Younger looking than his 56 years, Chuck Baldwin was born in northwest Indiana and received his education at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan; Liberty University of Lynchburg, Virginia; and the Christian Bible College of Rocky Mount, North Carolina. In 1973, he married the former Connie Kay Cole, and they are proud parents of three children and now enjoy six grandchildren.

As pastor of the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida, Baldwin once served in the 1980s as Florida chairman of the Moral Majority founded by the late Jerry Falwell. Before Falwell passed away in 2007, Baldwin distanced himself from his former mentor because of Falwell's continuing support for President George W. Bush and other GOP headliners who had "strayed from positions vitally important to conservatives." In the widely read Internet news column he has authored for many years, Baldwin endorsed the 2008 candidacy of Texas Congressman Ron Paul for the Republican nomination, and he specifically spoke out against the candidacies of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and John McCain.

A consistent critic of the current occupant of the White House, Baldwin has regularly chided fellow Christian Right pastors and their flocks for "blind support for President Bush in particular and the Republican Party in general." He has faulted them for refusing to "honestly face the real danger confronting these United States," the loss of sovereignty.

Among the many stands appearing in the party's 39-page platform and totally supported by the candidate, one can find unequivocal support for both the right to life and the right to keep and bear arms. The party opposes conscription and any type of constitutional convention. It calls for repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the "anchor baby" loophole used to provide legal status within our nation for border crossers. It seeks abolition of the Departments of Education and Energy; withdrawal from the United Nations, ...