Constitution Party candidates speak at USU
“Ladies and gentlemen, no one is standing up for American government – and somebody has to,” Michael Peroutka, the Constitution Party’s presidential candidate for 2004, said Friday.
Peroutka spoke at the Taggart Student Center auditorium Friday afternoon to publicize his campaign and promote the Constitution Party’s message of God, family and republic as the three fundamentals of American government.
The Constitution Party is gaining a lot of popularity in Utah, Ethan Nuttal,l a Utah State University student, majoring in pre-physical therapy said.
Nuttall is the president of The Young Constitutionalists Club at USU and chairman of that party for Cache County.
The stated goal of the campaign and the party is to reconnect America with American culture and the United States Constitution.
The party believes that America has strayed from the founding principles that the founding fathers set up the United States to have, Delegate Don Dwyer of the Maryland Legislature, said.
“You cannot imagine the evil that takes place in the state Legislature and in Washington, D.C.,” Dwyer said.
Peroutka stood in front of the podium, punctuating sentences with his hands, allowing silence to emphasize his statements.
He quoted Thomas Jefferson to start his speech, saying twice, “Anyone who desires to be ignorant and free desires what never was and never will be.”
The Constitution Party has spent time presenting at Utah Valley State College, in Vernal and Ogden while they travel across the United States, Nuttall said.
Peroutka came the day after President George W. Bush and presidential candidate John Kerry debated in Florida.
“I’m not offended that I wasn’t invited, I’m offended that what I’m talking about today wasn’t invited,” Peroutka said.
Peroutka addressed the issues discussed at the presidential debate last Thursday.
Looking directly at three girls sitting on the front row in the auditorium, Peroutka described the war in Iraq as “a war for empire – a war that, by the way, will draft you girls. We have no authority to be there,” he said.
This is the first year the party has gained ballot access in Utah. The party is fielding 35 candidates for different offices, which is “the largest number of candidates running for office on the Constitution Party in any of the 50 states this year,” according to the Utahs Constitution Party’s Web site.
“I knew that the message that these men gave would resonate with people in Utah,” Frank Fluckiger, Utah’s chairman for the Constitution Party, said.
According to Peroutka’s platform Web site, the Constitution Party believes the three founding elements in America should be to “honor God, defend the family, and restore the republic.”
Fluckiger first heard the about the party in 2002 in Montana.
He said he was “extremely impressed by the number of attorneys in the party” and thought, “I want to be associated with these men.”
KayLyn Alder, a freshman majoring in elementary education, said she respects the Constitution Party and has studied the party with her family and neighbors.
Each week, she said, they met and watched the Institution of the Constitution, a video series designed by Peroutka, to become educated about the constitution.
Peroutka said he encourages people to question the government. He said the public needs to understand the system before it can improve.
Peroutka made the Institution of the Constitution videos before discovering the Constitution Party in 1999, he said.
Peroutka said he started his research on the constitution on a personal level and then invited friends to share in discussions. Peroutka and Dwyer’s children attended the same school, and in 1999 Peroutka invited Dwyer to attend a meeting.
“I learned more in a night than I had in 40 years. I was angered. I became frustrated – but I also become impassioned,” he said.
Dwyer ran in 2002 on the Republican ticket. He said he was considered controversial because he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.
“I didn’t go to the state Legislature to get along – I went to start a fight,” he said.
Alder said she respects the Constitution Party because the first thing on the list of priorities is God and the family and need to return to the Constitution and the Republic.
The United States has strayed from the Constitution because of the title of being a democracy that Americans uphold – the United States wasn’t meant to be a democracy, Alder said.
All speakers emphasized that the key departure from the Constitution was the removal of prayer and faith in God as an American value.
“The acknowledgment of the God is a foundational principle of American government. We must acknowledge God,” Peroutka said.
Alder said she agrees with Peroutka. In schools they aren’t supposed to limit what is said about God or ban prayer, she said. Alder said she is “not a member of the party, but [does] support the things they stand for – for now.”
The Constitution Party is the fastest growing third party in the United
States, Nuttall said.
But, Peroutka said his party is a second – not third – party because the Democrat and Republican parties are the same.
In rebuttal to the usual statement that a vote on a third party is a wasted vote, Peroutka said, “why would you waste your vote on those that have demonstrated infidelity to America and the Constitution?”
According to the party’s Web site, “It is imperative that the members and nominated candidates representing the Constitution Party and its state affiliates recognize the importance of demonstrating good character in their lives.”
The Constitution Party also believes that education is a parental responsibility, Peroutka said. The original school system of the 1840s by Robert Owen, Horace Mann and Robert Dewey, was designed to de-christianize America, he said.
“What they’ve done is exactly what they planned to do,” Peroutka said.
Peroutka said his solution would be to cut taxes and specifically taxpayers’ dollars to educational institutions – elementary, secondary and on the university levels, and let parents take on the full financial responsibility.
This would raise university tuition immensely, Peroutka said, but parents would not have to pay taxes and they could spend their money as they wished.
About two dozen people attended the lecuture and the majority of the crowd were non-students.
-natandrews@cc.usu.edu