Baldwin: I would bring our troops home

Editor's Note: This is one in a series of question-and-answer sessions with candidates for the office
of president. Today, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin says this could be the year for a third-party candidate.

Charles Baldwin

WND: What is your assessment of the 2008 presidential race? Typically, third-party candidates have
struggled even to get attention.

Baldwin: I think this year is different from anything that we've ever experienced in my lifetime. I think
the American people are extremely fed up with the two major parties. I don't believe that any of the main three
candidates, John McCain, Hillary or Obama, have captured the loyalty of the American people. I think the electorate
is totally open to alternative candidates and ideas this year. I think furthermore there is a deep distrust and suspicion
among the American people that the two major parties have their best interests at heart. Therefore I think the
opportunity is wide open for an independent or a third-party candidate to do well. As to what the outcome will be,
that's in the hands of God. But I do believe this is an historic opportunity for third-party or independent party
candidates.

WND: Don't people forget the Republican Party started out as a third-party?

Baldwin: When Abraham Lincoln ran his party was just a young party, a third party or an independent
party. Of course then it became a dominant party when he won the election in 1860. Remember, too, that in that
race there were four major candidates running for the office of president, and he won with 39 percent of the
popular vote, so you don't have to have a majority of the popular vote to win, and I do believe that we are hopefully
seeing the beginning of the end of the two-party monopoly on our political process. Our country was not founded
on political parties. Our country was founded on principles, bedrock principles, and as the party serves the country,
they can be beneficial, but when the party ceases to serve the country they should be discarded. If you read
Washington's farewell address, you will see he very emphatically warned the American people about an
over-infatuation with political parties. He talked about how sometimes the propensity is for people to put the party
interests above the country's interests, and I think that's what the Republicans and the Democrats have been doing
for many years, but I think it's more apparent to the American people this year.

WND: What should and could the United States be doing in the war on terror?

Baldwin: The first thing that I would if I were elected president would be to begin the process of
bringing our troops home from Iraq. I do not believe that the war in Iraq is serving to make our country safer. I
think just the opposite. The longer we occupy Iraq, the more the enemy uses that occupation as a recruiting tool for
those that would hurt us. I think our presence in Iraq is the biggest asset that al-Qaida and whatever other terrorists
are over there have and they are using those troops to their advantage. I do believe we must secure our borders and
our ports. It is absolutely asinine to think we would send troops to the Middle East to fight terrorism while at the
same time, leave our own country's borders wide open to potential terrorists sneaking across those borders that may
do us harm. The first thing we need to do is seal our borders and our ports, to ensure that we will no longer make
our country vulnerable to potentialsterrorists and then I would bring the troops home as expeditiously as possible.
Obviously there would have to be a plan in place to do that so that we could do that safely, but to bring those troops
home and be sure that we no longer provide the catalyst that I think we have in the past in being perceived as an
aggressor in other nations' affairs.

WND: What about the nation's response to illegal immigration?

Baldwin: We have to close the border, and we can close the border. We can do it with a fence or we
can do it without a fence. We have troops, National Guard troops, over in the Middle East that are protecting the
borders of Iraq and other countries by the way, yet we're not protecting our own borders. Whether we do it with a
fence or not, we must close that border. We must seal it shut. Secondly, we must punish those employers who are
hiring illegal aliens. You cut off the food source, the food supply, and make it clear to employers that if they hire
illegal aliens they are going to jail. It's not just pay a fine, it's going to jail. They are no longer going to be able to
use slave labor in order to increase the profits for their companies. They're going to have to abide by the law.
They're going to have hire people who are in the country legally, and do it the way it's supposed to be done. We're
going to make sure we seal that border so that not just terrorists but MS-13 and the other gangs that are beginning
to blossom in that part of the region no longer have a fertile field to grow.

WND: What's your perspective on the issue of Roe vs. Wade?

Baldwin: There's several ways you can go about this . First I would use the bully pulpit of the White
House to pressure Congress to pass Ron Paul's Sanctity of Life Act, which he has introduced into the Congress
every year. This act would do two things. No. 1 it would take out from the courts jurisdiction over abortion, which
means Roe vs. Wade is overturned. Secondly, it would identify unborn persons as persons under the law. Right now
that distinction is not known, and unborn children are not classified as people and that's how Roe vs. Wade can
stand. Ron Paul's deal would negate both of those. It would eliminate the jurisdiction of the courts ... and then No. 2, it would
declare the personhood of the unborn child. The other thing is that if Congress refuses to act, I would use the power
of the executive branch to [stop] funds to enforce Roe vs. Wade.

WND: What's your perspective of the federal Marriage Amendment?

Baldwin: I know that a lot of my pro-family friends that don't agree with me on this. They don't see
the danger of this. If a federal Marriage Amendment was enacted all that would do would [be to] authorize the Supreme
Court to meddle with it, and by the time the Supreme Court would be done with it, it could be something far more
monstrous than what the pro-life and pro-family people would want. I don't that's a good idea. I don't think that's a
necessary approach. First of all I support the Defense of Marriage Act that was already was passed by Congress and
signed by then-President Clinton. So it's already the federal law that they recognize marriage is between a man and a
woman. That's already been done and I support that. I also believe that the states have the right and I would defend
the rights of the state to protect that definition of a man and woman for legal marriage. In other words, they would
not be forced to accept another state's definition, say Massachusetts or another liberal state that would try to
redefine marriage.

WND: What should the U.S. be doing to protect its own economy?

Baldwin: First of all you're not going to solve the economic problems by printing more worthless
money and throwing it into the money supply. All that does is tend to devalue the dollar even further which
increases inflation, increases the price of everything. That does no good. It's an immediate feel-good approach, but
it does nothing in the long run to solve the problem. First of all the war in Iraq. We're talking about a war that's
taking trillions, not billions, trillions of dollars out of our economy. When that is over and we bring our troops
home and we're no longer expending those funds, for those purposes, obviously that's a huge savings, from an
economic point of view. Secondly, I really believe we've got to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I think so
much of the economic crisis we're in today is related directly to the cost of gas and the oil pressures that are now
being felt. The dollar's dropping. oil's rising, inflation's rising, unemployment's rising, and I believe we've got to get
a handle on that. The way we've got to do that is get the government out of the energy business. I would dismantle
the Department of Energy. I would get the government out of it. We need to get businesses pumping more oil
again. We've got to open up the oil wells that we already know are there, and we've got to drill for new oil. We
know that in Alaska, for example, there is enough oil under the soil of Alaska to take care of our energy needs for
the next 150-200 years. There's more oil in Alaska than there is in Saudi Arabia. We've just discovered huge oil and
gas deposits in the Dakotas, we've discovered huge oil and gas deposits in the Gulf of Mexico. Nuclear energy. We
haven't built a nuclear plant in what? 35 years or more? We've got to get our country producing again. We need to
cut our dependence on OPEC, Venezuela and these other foreign interests. And I do think, I know we can do it, it's
just a matter of having the will to do it. And so far neither political party has the will to do this. I would have the
will do it.

WND: What other issues will your campaign focus on?"

Baldwin: The biggest threat that faces America is not found in Tehran or Baghdad or any other
country. I believe that our biggest threat is in Washington, D.C. I really believe that our nation is fast becoming a
nation that does not respect the freedoms and liberties that this country was founded upon. George Bush's Patriot
Act ... in essence eviscerated the Fourth Amendment and did serious damage to other amendments in the Bill
of Rights. I do believe that this burgeoning North American Union that Dr. Corsi has written so much about in your
newspaper is a real threat to our national sovereignty and our national independence . I do believe that the
determination to merge America into a regionalized government with Mexico and Canada is very real. And I think
that it is very real and I think it's progressing at a very fast pace. The day that I take office that new world order
comes crashing down. There's no North American community. We're getting out of NAFTA. There's no NAFTA
superhighway. There's no NAU or any of that. We will retain the integrity of our national sovereignty and our
national independence, and to me that is a very high priority.

Ronald Reagan said a nation without boundaries is not a nation, and he's exactly right, and that's what's
happening. The boundaries between our three countries are being blurred almost to the point they don't exist any
more. and I believe it's deliberate, and I will put a stop to it. I'm opposed to it with every ounce of energy in my
being. If God would smile on our endeavors and would somehow put us in the White House you can count on it
that we will maintain the integrity of our national sovereignty and independence.