From the desk of AIP Chairman Tom Hoefling
To all prospective AIP supporters,
When we founded America’s Independent Party in June, it was in the sincere belief that our existing political leaders and the institutions they control had overwhelmingly failed us. The events of the months since have only confirmed this judgment. Years of compromise by far too many, and the resulting steady rise of a political process that disempowers the principled and empowers liberal media, liberal candidates, and unprincipled money, have produced little but defeat for Republicans and the erstwhile “leaders” of the conservative movement. The forces of the Left are now virtually unchallenged and unchecked.
While occasional lip service has been paid to America’s founding principles, there has been little action to back up those meager words. The abandonment of the clear principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution by our political elites is nearly total.
We believe that American conservatives are potentially the most powerful political force in our country and in the world at large. Unfortunately, in recent decades that potential has been dissipated through poor leadership and a poorly conceived and corrupted process.
And so, we have set out to build a new structure for principled conservatism in this country, before it’s too late. With little in the way of funding, almost exclusively through true citizen-led grassroots action, America’s Independent Party has made great progress in the six months since it was founded. We now have affiliates in all fifty States and in the District of Columbia. AIP is already the third-largest party in America based on voter registrations, primarily because of the recent affiliation of California’s American Independent Party with the national party. Voters in Florida can now register AIP as well.
However, while we continue our efforts to gain legal recognition and ballot access for our new state parties, our main organizational thrust is to invite individual Americans who agree with our party platform to sign a Personal Affiliation Agreement, one that is thoroughly grounded in principle, and that is made without regard to existing party registration.
Endorsements and nominations of all candidates for public office will also be made on the basis of proven adherence to the conservative tenets of our platform, not on the basis of party affiliation.
As principled Independents, we intend to change America’s political culture by example. We are determined to heed our last Independent President, George Washington, and his sage advice concerning the dangers of party factionalism. Following his example, we aspire to be partisans only of what is right. American politics must be reset on its principled foundation. We believe that, in order to truly succeed, we must be unswervingly principled, not merely partisan.
Our motto and attitude is also Washington’s: “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.” While we may not be able to control outcomes, we can certainly control our own actions and activities day by day, and trust God for the results.
The purpose of America’s Independent Party is the same as the stated ultimate purpose of the U.S. Constitution: “To secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Along with the signers of the Declaration of Independence, we believe in the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, that our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come from our Creator, and that just government can only exist by the consent of the governed. We call these Declaration principles “America’s Principles.”
Like President Ronald Reagan, we fiercely defend the personhood of the unborn, and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment protection of the lives of all innocent persons from the moment of fertilization, the very beginning of biological development, until natural death. We are unbending advocates for the protection of the natural family and marriage between one man and one woman as the God-given institutional basis for our civilization.
Also like Reagan, we firmly support a foreign policy of Peace through Strength. We support our troops and our veterans. We demand secure borders, a strict adherence to the rule of law when it comes to immigration policy, and the uncompromising protection of the sovereignty of the American people. We will always remember 9-11-2001, when America was attacked, the towers fell, and America’s heroes, average citizens, gave their lives to save others.
We are completely committed to free enterprise and economic liberty and have a practical plan to restore economic prosperity. Our goal is the return of control over financial and material resources to the individual citizen, to the household, and to the community, through fundamental governmental, monetary, and tax policy reform. This, we believe, is the true basis for real economics, and the only hope for true material prosperity and security for our children and grandchildren.
We believe that while we already have the best party platform in America, it will get even better as the innovative political process we are creating takes hold. Using the means we are developing, which come out of decades of experience fighting in the political trenches, we are recruiting, training and equipping a new generation of leaders – patriotic men and women who will courageously act to implement those principles.
We have made a commitment to no longer allow our political franchise, efforts, and resources, to be used to forward the careers or self-serving agenda of those who compromise America’s Principles in any fashion. This nation will not be turned around, in our view, until a critical mass of conservatives begin to take this principled stand, without compromise. America’s Independent Party is putting in place a system in which principle always come first.
Our nation’s political leaders have failed, because they have abandoned America’s Principles. A DEDICATED, ORGANIZED, UNITED conservative movement, made up of, and led by, average citizens, is, we believe, the only hope for saving America from the inevitable results of those failures. We must have a true revival of republican self-government, led by men and women animated by the same principles and the same faith as the founders of this country. History proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt: AMERICA’S PRINCIPLES WORK when the people put them into practice.
Some people in American politics, even those who are known as conservatives, may maintain an appearance of wisdom when they counsel so-called “pragmatism” that compromises principle. But, in fact, they are not truly practical at all; they are merely short sighted. Their actions are actually very destructive. Doing right is always the true road to true success over the long haul. Jesus Christ asked the question, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” But, He also said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” The difference is in motives and priorities. What ultimately matters is what you put first.
We believe that America’s Independent Party provides the principled AND the practical vehicle for individuals, families and communities to govern themselves effectively. Only the people themselves, with God’s help, can save America. AIP is all about serving that purpose.
The party is being constructed, painstakingly, from the bottom up, person by person. We are already focused heavily on education, communications, organization, and beginning the task of recruiting and equipping future candidates for public office.
If you believe as we do, we hope you will act decisively and quickly in support of our efforts. What we are doing is comprehensive in scope, and will require a high level of commitment from many people, in terms of time, energy and money. The sooner we can assemble the appropriate resources, the sooner we can get America’s Independent Party built.
The Republican Party has failed. The evidence is plain for all to see. Suffice it to say that if you think the GOP is doing fine, you probably won’t see the need for America’s Independent Party. But, if you agree with us that a radically new approach is desperately needed, please help.
While it would be impossible to detail everything here, I am always available to answer any questions you have. I work very hard to respond to every email. If you would like to have a phone conversation, please include your phone number in your email and I’ll get back to you quickly.
You can reach me here, at any time: Contact@aipnc.com
Here is an overview of some of the key components of America’s Independent Party.
AIP: The principled meets the practical
Platform
The approved AIP platform can be viewed at AIPNEWS.com.
Our party constitution and platform are based solidly on the bedrock of America’s founding principles and Reagan conservatism. Our platform process in the years ahead will be an extensive one, starting at the precinct caucus level and culminating in election year state and national conventions. At every level of the organization we are instituting, organizing, and encouraging many means of open debate and intense discussion of core principles, political philosophy, and the development of policies that will work for America in the years ahead.
Personal Affiliation
AIP’s Personal Affiliation Agreement can be viewed at AIPNEWS.com.
If you haven’t affiliated yet, we would like to urge you to do so today. Just fill out the form and click “Affiliate.”
This Agreement is first of all our sentinel at the door. A very high level of personal commitment to the Constitution and to the defense of innocent human life is needed to sign.
It is also our party’s plumb line. If Affiliates begin to take actions in the political arena that violate the agreement, the party will take immediate steps to disaffiliate them. One of the key reasons for the failure of the Republican Party is the complete lack of such necessary party discipline.
The Affiliation Agreement is also the mortar that holds the whole national party together. The maintenance of one central database allows us to react quickly with real personal local contact when someone signs up. It allows our party leaders at every level to know exactly where things stand. And it helps us with the constant flow of information needed to make a national party run efficiently and effectively.
Communications
Our primary communications hub is being built at AIPNEWS.com.
Not only are we creating an ongoing primary news source for our people, we are providing them with an outlet to create news themselves and report on anything that affects the party or our agenda. The site is still being built, one step at a time, but already it is showing the signs of being extremely successful in terms of readership and participation. Many important and useful upgrades are planned as resources become available.
AIPNEWS.com is also the hub for our overall database and provides ready-made pages to every new Affiliate, fully linked into the whole system and the whole country. As Affiliates build subsidiary sites they can then also be fully linked into the central hub. It is designed to potentially become the home of millions of members and hundreds of thousands of Affiliates. It’s also very fast and very secure.
We discovered long ago that the so-called “mainstream” media is not our friend. That’s why our goal is to BECOME THE MEDIA, by every means we can devise. And every day, our people are getting better and better at it.
America’s Forum, which also finds its home at AIPNEWS.com, is one of the tools we will be using to help.
AIP Structure/America’s Caucus
America’s Independent Party is being organized according to unique organizing principles and structure. It will be a truly citizen-led grassroots process with a predominately local emphasis. Except in those rare instances when state laws force us to do otherwise, we will not be holding state-run primaries. Our entire process of nominating AIP candidates will be done through caucuses and conventions.
These are the various levels of Permanent Caucuses and Committees that are being built within AIP:
· Precinct Caucuses
· County Committees
· District Caucuses
· State Parties
· National Convention Delegations
· National Executive Committee
America’s Caucus will be the online tool for operating our permanent local caucuses, educating, equipping and training our people to run their local organizations, and fully vetting candidates for public office prior to the physical caucuses and conventions which will occur in election years.
Multiple means of establishing accountability and checks and balances between all the levels of the party are being established in the national bylaws.
CAN-DO-USA
The “Conservative Action Network, Dedicated, Organized and United to Save America”
CAN-DO-USA is the umbrella group for our planned national and state issues affiliates. While the party itself is a structure, the issues affiliates are networks. By activating these networks, we intend to pull together the various issues activists whose primary interests are in specific areas, such as: pro-life, pro-family, border security, governmental reform, tax reform, property rights, Second Amendment rights, homeschooling, small business, veterans, etc.
Several dozen of these organizations are ready to be rolled out as the resources become available to do so.
Administration
AIP is designed to be extremely lean and efficient, both at the national and the state levels. All the work will be done either by volunteers, contract labor, or in some limited circumstances, by vendors, when we absolutely can’t get all the work done in house. This is one of the ways that AIP will avoid debt. Our policy is to always operate on a cash basis, except under highly exceptional circumstances.
Currently, our accounting, banking, and FEC compliance operations are being run out of our main administrative office in Fenton, Michigan, under the direction of the national party treasurer, Judy Zabik, and her husband, national party secretary Bob Zabik. In addition to their stellar professional credentials, and Bob’s record as a decorated Vietnam vet, the Zabiks have been very active in the pro-life movement for several decades. Their reputation for integrity is well-known, and their commitment to the wise use of every dollar received from donors is beyond question to those who know them.
Primary political operations are being run from Iowa by national chairman Tom Hoefling.
Plans are also being made for shared West Coast political offices with our California affiliate, the American Independent Party, in Sacramento, under the leadership of Markham Robinson, who is both the California AIP chairman and the national vice-chairman.
Our primary technical team is located in Redding, California, and is operated by the national party’s technical director, Marc Nettleton.
Extensive use is being made of conference calling, live video streams, phones, email and websites to pull the whole national organization, both leaders and rank and file AIP Affiliates, together on a regular basis.
While the newly formed state parties are independent and will be making their own business decisions, all are being urged to follow the national model of efficiency and service-orientation.
Fundraising
Our primary means of fundraising is internet-based, and operates on the technical infrastructure provided by AIPNEWS and our other websites. Our expectation is that the preponderance of this support will come from those who have personally affiliated with AIP and believe in our mission.
We will also depend on our finance committee to provide a portion of our budget through the solicitation of high-dollar donors who believe in our cause and understand the value of the work we’re doing.
We will also conduct direct mail and email operations to help get our message out, point conservatives to our websites, and to build our organizational and fundraising base of support.
Our organizational affiliates will be responsible for their own fundraising, accounting, administration and compliance. However, they will have the ability to raise money for their own organizations on their pages at AIPNEWS. In accordance with the national party bylaws, their pages will of course be required to have the appropriate links back to the national party.
AIP’s initial projected budget for 2009 is approximately $2.5 million dollars. A bit over half of that is to be used for party-building efforts. Just under 25% will be for administration costs, including technical infrastructure. The rest will cover fundraising and associated mailing costs.
We expect our budget needs to at least double every year for the foreseeable future to keep pace with party growth.
Conclusion
The leadership of America’s Independent Party is totally committed to this long-term effort to put America back on its principled foundation and save our constitutional form of self-government under God. We will continue the fight to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, no matter what.
With your generous help we know we can do it more effectively, and build AIP much more quickly.
May God richly bless you and your family throughout the coming year!
For Life and Liberty,
Tom Hoefling
Chairman, America’s Independent Party
contact@aipnc.com
