The Constitution Party’s Dynamic Duo:

Michael Peroutka and Judge Roy Moore Hit St. Louis on May 18

Mark Dankof

The Washington Times Donald Lambro has it right: Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania may be the Trinity of States holding the key to the outcome of the American Presidential election on the first Tuesday of November.

No greater evidence of Missouri’s impending role in naming the next President of the United States can be uncovered than next month’s strategic arrival in St. Louis of two key players in American 3rd Party Presidential politics: The Constitution Party’s impending Presidential Candidate, Michael Peroutka of Baltimore, and Judge Roy Moore of Alabama.

Moore, the infamous “10 Commandments” judge recently ousted from his post as Chief Justice of the State of Alabama after refusing to jettison a monument to the Commandments established in the Rotunda of the State Supreme Court Building of Alabama, will be honored Tuesday, May 18th in St. Louis at a reception hosted by the National Coalition to Restore the Constitution (NCRC) at Busch Student Center on the campus of St. Louis University.

The event begins at 5:30 p.m. and is being hosted by a panorama of organizations in Missouri dedicated to what they see as a restoration of Constitutional governance in America. In addition to the NCRC, these include Bott Radio Network, Christian Home Educators Fellowship (CHEF), the Constitution Parties of Missouri and Illinois, Concerned Women of America (Missouri), Missouri First, The Positive Action Coalition, and St. Louis Metro Voice. Judge Moore and local pro-life leader Mary Mashmeier will both be honored as recipients of the “Sons of Liberty” Award.

After the reception, Michael Peroutka and Moore will each address a public gathering sponsored by the Constitution Party at the Busch Student Center at 7: 30 p.m.

The Presidential candidacy of Peroutka is beginning to ruffle establishment Republican feathers nationwide. Much like the headache presented to Democrat John Kerry by the candidacy of Ralph Nader, Mr. Peroutka is beginning to make far greater headway in his initial efforts than initially recognized or acknowledged by Washington Republican political operatives and strategists.

In little more than a month of campaigning on a shoestring budget, the Baltimore lawyer and founder of Institute on the Constitution has received coverage in Pat Buchanan’s The American Conservative, The Free American, The Washington Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Middle Eastern TV and print daily Al Jazeera, and a host of Internet news agencies on the Christian and American Right nationwide. The “hits” on his www.Peroutka2004.com web site, a recent increase in campaign donations, and more visibility for the candidate in venues as diverse as Oregon and Missouri, suggest the beginning of more than George Bush and the Republican Establishment had bargained for in this year’s Presidential sweepstakes.

To what does Michael Peroutka attribute his sudden increase in public visibility on the political radar screen? Contacted at his Maryland campaign headquarters for comment, he offered two succinct observations. “First,” he mused, “I have the benefit of gratis professional political advice and strategy from people who know this business and have a ton of experience. Second, I have a Triage or Trinity Strategy involving issues to hit both Bush and Kerry with between now and the election. Yes, we will hit them on their mutual alliance with an activist Judiciary which wants to eliminate State and Federal Legislatures and the Christian heritage of this country--in spades. That is why I will be in St. Louis with Judge Moore on May 18th. But I plan on an all out assault on both Presidential candidates on two other major issues--1) their support of an un-Constitutional war in Iraq which in the interest of replacing the American Republic with the American Empire, is draining us of the blood of our precious sons and daughters, our Federal Treasury, and our international credibility; and 2) the complicity of both of the major parties—I call them the Republicrats—in destroying the economy of this country with job outsourcing to the 3rd World, 550 billion dollar trade deficits, a budget deficit approaching 530 billion dollars, and an ongoing commitment to millions of illegal—I said, illegal—immigrants. All of this represents the Bush-Kerry vision for a New World Order, which I’ll oppose in every town, community, and State I can between now and November.”

Peroutka wasn’t kidding about the conservative pros and pols he has already amassed. They include Howard Phillips, chairman of Washington’s Conservative Caucus; the seasoned conservative columnist and guru of decades, John Lofton; international conservative Internet commentator and Lutheran pastor Mark Dankof; and St. Louis’s own Debbie Hopper of the National Coalition to Restore the Constitution (NCRC). Peroutka is banking that this kitchen cabinet of major players on the anti-Bush American Right will attract even more converts at every level of a Presidential campaign organization which hopes to field a team in at least 42 states by the fall.

Reservations for the Peroutka-Moore reception and gala on May 18th may be made through the St. Louis based National Coalition to Restore the Constitution at 636-861-7052, or the organization’s web site at www.restoretheconstitution.org.

May 10, 2004

Mark Dankof is a Lutheran pastor and free-lance journalist, occasionally contributing to Breaking All the Rules, Iran Dokht, Al Bawaba, Nile Media, CASCFEN, and other Internet news sites. Once a third party candidate for the United States Senate in Delaware (2000), he maintains the web-site Mark Dankof’s America while pursuing post-graduate theological education at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

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