Chuck Baldwin
Charles Obadiah Baldwin is an American right-wing politician, radio host, and as founder he served as pastor of Independent Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. As of 2024 he is leading pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Kalispell, Montana. He was the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party for the 2008 U.S. presidential election and had previously been its nominee for vice president in 2004. He hosts a daily one-hour radio program, Chuck Baldwin Live, and writes a daily editorial column carried on its website, as well as on VDare. He is a former editor of NewsWithViews.com.
As a Republican Party member, Baldwin was state chairman of the Florida Moral Majority in the 1980s. However, during the 2000 campaign of Republican George W. Bush for U.S. president, Baldwin left the party and began a long period of criticism of Bush. Baldwin endorsed U.S. Representative Ron Paul for the 2008 Republican nomination for president, and Paul in turn endorsed Baldwin for the presidency in the 2008 general election. He identifies as an anti-Zionist, believing that Zionism is the main threat to the U.S. He writes that Zionists control the media, "the mainstream Christian religion, and the U.S. government" and that Zionism is responsible for the ills of U.S. society and culture.
Family and education
Baldwin was born in La Porte, Indiana on May 3, 1952, to Edwin J. "Ed" Baldwin and his second wife, Ruth. Baldwin graduated from La Porte High School in 1971 and attended Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, for two years. He met Connie Kay Cole there and married her on June 2, 1973. Though he originally had planned on a career in law enforcement, Baldwin felt called to evangelistic ministry; he moved to the South, and enrolled in, and graduated with a Bible diploma from, the Thomas Road Bible Institute. He additionally received bachelor's and master's degrees in theology through correspondence programs from Christian Bible College of Rocky Mount, North Carolina.Ministry
On June 22, 1975, Chuck and Connie Baldwin and four other individuals held the first meeting of what would become the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida; Baldwin was the founding pastor. According to the SPLC, "He preached an anti-abortion, anti-gay, fundamentalist gospel, and the church grew rapidly. It became a Christian evangelical Mecca, complete with a mock graveyard that honored aborted fetuses." By 1985, the church had gone through repeated building programs and been recognized by President Ronald Reagan for its unusual growth and influence.Political activity
Prior to joining the Republican Party in 1980, Baldwin had been a registered Democrat, like his father. From 1980 to 1984, Baldwin served as Pensacola chairman and then state executive director of the Florida Moral Majority, organized by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Baldwin helped carry the state twice for Reagan electors; he says he helped Falwell register some 50,000 Christian conservative voters. Baldwin's father, Ed, a lifelong Democrat, expressed grudging admiration for what he saw as Reagan's honesty and courage. In August 1994, Baldwin had a call-in radio show on the Christian Patriot Network.In 2000, however, Baldwin left the Republican Party on grounds that the Bush–Cheney ticket was too liberal. He saw the two main parties as “two peas in the same pod”. Baldwin has said that many evangelical minds, similarly to ministers in Nazi Germany, had seemingly given George W. Bush "the aura of an American Fuhrer". He considered himself an independent affiliated with the Constitution Party.
At about this time, Baldwin began hosting a local daily one-hour current-events radio program, "Chuck Baldwin Live", which continues today nationwide on the Genesis Communications Network. He wrote a semiweekly editorial column carried on its website, chuckbaldwinlive.com, and in several newspapers. He has also appeared on numerous television shows and radio shows, including on MSNBC and CNN, and in churches across the country. He was the keynote speaker for the 50th anniversary of D-Day at Naval Air Station Pensacola. He also appeared on “The Political Cesspool,” a white nationalist radio program. His columns are archived on VDARE.com, a far right website and he has contributed to the antisemitic American Free Press website.
In 2006, Baldwin said his only organizational memberships were in his church, the Constitution Party, Gun Owners of America, and the National Rifle Association of America.
2004 vice presidential campaign
In the 2004 presidential election, Baldwin was the running mate of Michael Peroutka of Maryland and was the candidate for U.S. vice president on the Constitution Party ticket, the Alaskan Independence Party ticket, and other tickets and qualified write-in slots in 42 states. The two ran on a platform of "For God, Family, and the Republic". The Peroutka–Baldwin campaign publicly spoke out against abortion, women in the military, and the Iraq War, and emphasized the Bible, traditional family values, and the need for Constitutionally limited government. According to Political Research Associates, "Peroutka’s 2004 failed presidential campaign was well-known for touting conspiratorial claims".The party joined with the American Independent Party, the Independent American Party and the Constitution Party to endorse Peroutka–Baldwin as their 2004 presidential ticket.
Peroutka was also endorsed by many paleoconservatives, the Alaskan Independence Party, the League of the South, the Southern Party of Georgia, Samuel T. Francis, Alex Jones, Howard Phillips, and Taki Theodoracopulos. Pat Buchanan also stated there was a chance he would vote for Peroutka, counting them as "a Buchananite party", but eventually endorsed Bush. The ticket came in fifth with 143,630 votes and spent $728,221, somewhat less per vote than either George W. Bush or John Kerry. It was the only third party to increase its share of the vote in 2004.
2006-2008: Ron Paul and the Black Regiment
In the Constitution Party's April 2006 national convention in Tampa, Florida, a heated disaffiliation vote forced members to choose between one of two anti-abortion positions. The assembly voted not to disaffiliate the Independent American Party of Nevada over the more exceptive position of its gubernatorial candidate, Christopher H. Hansen. Baldwin voted in favor of disaffiliation, favoring the more conservative position. Baldwin remained with the party, but several conservative state parties subsequently voted to leave the national party, believing it to have unacceptably compromised the anti-abortion plank of its platform; rump factions have been orchestrated by the national Constitution Party in some of these states.On August 30, 2007, Baldwin wrote an informal endorsement for Ron Paul for the GOP nomination: "Conservative Republicans have only one choice for president in 2008: Congressman Ron Paul of Texas"; more formal endorsement of Paul came in a December video. That same month, Baldwin said:
In April 2007, he launched an appeal for pastors to join the Black Regiment, a network of "spiritual leaders" who support values such as strong borders, resisting abortion and homosexuality, and repudiating George Bush's "unconstitutional" policies. Members decline to register their churches with the IRS for purposes of federal tax exemption.
2008 presidential campaign
Baldwin's vice presidential run, and Peroutka's withdrawal from the national Constitution Party, led to active 2006 speculation that Baldwin would seek the presidential nomination in 2008. Baldwin responded in October that "I have learned to never say never, but I have no desire to run. would require several 'miraculous' signs of reassurance that, frankly, I cannot see happening. However, I am always open to God's will." He repeated this stance through March 2008.Baldwin announced on April 10, two weeks before the national convention was held in Kansas City, Missouri, that he would make himself available for the party's nomination at the convention, while "not 'running, but continuing to seek God's will. A Nolan Chart writer conveyed speculation that Baldwin's availability may have been responsive to the sudden candidacy of former ambassador Alan Keyes, who strongly favored the Iraq War. Baldwin, a noninterventionist, admitted others "have urged me to place my name in nomination". In a convention speech, party founder Howard Phillips endorsed Baldwin and controversially referred to Keyes as a neoconservative and a too-recent Republican.
Baldwin was nominated on April 26, 2008, after what was described as the most contentious battle in the party's 16-year history. He received 383.8 votes, ahead of Keyes, who drew 125.7 votes from delegates; Keyes had abandoned the Republicans for the Constitution Party, much as Baldwin had done in 2000. Party members such as national chairman Jim Clymer said Baldwin's stands were more in line with party thinking. Baldwin asked the convention to nominate bankruptcy attorney Darrell Castle of Tennessee as his running mate, and this request was honored.
After Ron Paul withdrew from the Republican campaign in June, he remained neutral about making a presidential endorsement. On September 10, Paul held a National Press Club conference at which Baldwin, Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney, and independent candidate Ralph Nader all agreed on four principles—quickly ending the Iraq War, protecting privacy and civil liberties, stopping increases in the national debt, and investigating the Federal Reserve—and on their opposition to the Democratic and Republican parties ignoring these issues. Paul's advice at the conference was to vote for whichever third-party candidate one has the most affinity to, because "we must maximize the total votes of those rejecting the two major candidates." However, on September 22, 2008, Paul stated his neutrality was "due to my respect and friendship and support from both the Constitution and Libertarian Party members... and I'm a ten-term Republican congressman. It is not against the law to participate in more than one political party." Paul then gave his endorsement to Baldwin: "Unsolicited advice from the Libertarian Party candidate... has me to reject my neutral stance in the November election. I'm supporting Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate." Paul later clarified that though he would vote for Baldwin, he recognized the diversity of his support base and could not bind anyone's conscience. A former Paul primary backer, Houston term limits pioneer Clymer Wright, also contributed to the Baldwin campaign.
Baldwin wrote specifically against the candidacies of Barack Obama and John McCain, and those of vice-presidential nominees Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. In his campaign, he said that the September 11 terrorist attacks might have been an "inside job," attacked Republicans for not eliminating federal departments, called for closing of the Education and Energy departments of the Federal Government and the IRS and Federal Reserve, and called for the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations, "a sinister organization run by Marxists, socialists and communists".
Baldwin received 199,314 votes, 0.15% of the popular vote, putting him in fifth place, while Paul and Peroutka polled 2% in Montana.