Above and below, Robert Ornelas and Wiley Drake
Robert Ornelas, ca1972 (California) -
VP candidate for American Independent Party (2012)
Running mate with nominee: Thomas Conrad Hoefling (b. 1960)
Popular vote: 38,372 (0.03%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
OK, this one is a bit tangled to sort out, so here goes--
In 2008 Wiley Drake had run for VP in the American Independent Party in California with Alan Keyes. The controversial minister Drake's name had already been in the news several times. On the humanitarian side, he had provided a place for the homeless on his church parking lots and legal assistance for illegal immigrants. On the homophobic side, he called for a ban on Disney for recognizing Gay partnerships as the same as straight marriages in terms of employee benefits. Drake loudly opposed the appointment of an American ambassador strictly based on sexuality.
In 2007 Drake's name was in a letter of support for James Kopp, convicted sniper, terrorist, and murderer with his targets being abortion doctors. Drake claims he did not authorize the use of his name.
Drake campaigned partly from his pulpit. At first for Gov. Huckabee in the Republican primaries but then for Keyes later in the season. The Americans United for Separation of Church and State advocated for an IRS investigation of Drake. Drake's response was to pray for the death of his enemies.
After the 2008 election Drake went on to, in a very public way, pray for the death of President Obama and of anyone else who displeased him as he urged God to be his hit man. Keyes, Drake and AIP Elector Markham Robinson filed a petition with the Superior Court in California at Sacramento challenging the right of Obama to assume the office of President based on spurious "birther" claims. The action was filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation, an organization characterized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim hate group.
Drake filed with the FEC in March 2012 with no party affiliation for his own run for President. He sought the nomination of the California-based American Independent Party and had already selected Christian hip-hopper Robert Ornelas as his running-mate. Ornelas, also known as "Battle Ax," or Robert SOG Ornelas [SOG = Son of God] had been inspired to become an evangelist by Drake's work with the homeless.
Meanwhile, Thomas Hoefling, who had been one of the people behind Keye's 2008 campaign with his America's Independent Party had shortened the name to America's Party in 2011 and began his first Presidential run under the new banner. His VP was Jonathan D. "J.D." Ellis of Savannah, Tenn. He was running a self-described "front porch campaign" from Iowa and had managed to make the ballot in three states and was a registered write-in for more than a dozen others. One of those states where he was a printed option was California, where he gained access by winning the nomination of the American Independent Party which had come under the control of the Keyes faction due to a decision by the California Secretary of State in 2008. Hoefling's presence extended that influence.
Hoefling was selected by the AIP Aug. 11, 2012 in a very small convention with 7 in-person votes and 13 proxy votes. Ornelas communicated with the group via phone that he wanted the VP spot but was hoping Drake (who was an in-person delegate) would be the one getting the Presidential nomination. Instead, Drake was selected as Chairman of the AIP and it seems Hoefling was able to co-opt and absorb Drake's campaign, including acquiring Ornelas as his running-mate. So Ornelas in 2012 filled the AIP position his mentor Drake had occupied in 2008.
The 2012 AIP platform was very centered on their interpretation of God's place in the workings of government--
Platform of the American Independent Party
Introduction
We Acknowledge the Creator's Gracious Gifts
The American Independent Party gratefully acknowledges God as the Creator of all and appeals to Him for help in protecting all He has graciously given us. With all these gifts comes the right to use them justly. Hence all such rights are the gifts of God as affirmed in our Declaration of Independence. These include the right to life and liberty.
Declaration of Independence Rights are God-Given
All rights are unalienable in that none have a right to take them unjustly. Liberty includes the pursuit of happiness, which is the possession and exercise of virtue. Liberty includes the right to use and claim as an individual possession any unclaimed thing received from the hand of God, in or upon or above the Earth. This right to any possession includes its entire use, that is, its exchange, control, protection, and entire disposition. And the first and greatest of these possessions is our life.
God-Given Duties to Individuals
God gave Man this earth to make of it a well-tended Garden, not to leave it an uninhabited wilderness. He gave us our lives, not to be lived to ourselves alone, but in love to one another. And the duty to love certainly includes the duty not to act hatefully towards others. Therefore, we have a duty to be at peace with each other. Our duty to love one another includes a duty to protect each other from unjust harm. We have further a duty to cooperate with each other in the fulfillment of these duties. Such duties are the basis for just government.
As the only creature made in God's image and likeness, all men have an equal duty to love themselves and others to honor that image of the God they are commanded to love. To obliterate that image by unjustly taking a life is the highest crime that one may do to another. To take a life justly is the most somber obligation God ever imposes.
Our Constitution Enables Us to Protect Our Rights and Fulfill Our Duties
To secure and fulfill all God-given rights and duties, governments are instituted among men. To fulfill those duties and protect those rights, We the People of the United States of America ordained and established a Constitution for ourselves.
Rights and Duties of Association, Including that Forceful Association, Government
God created Man with two great dimensions, individual and social. In so doing He gave us the right to associate with each other to take advantage of our rights and to fulfill our duties. The right to associate includes the right to choose one's associates, but does not include the right to force others to associate.
God has imposed on men a duty to associate in governments to put a justified fear into the hearts of evildoers. These duties are given for the good of all, but not to deprive any of the rights they are designed to protect! Governments should never commit the crimes they are created to prevent!
No association of men has any rights of itself, but only by reason of the rights contributed to it according to the covenant established among its members. That fundamental limit on associations includes the greatest and most forceful of all human associations, government. However, among all our rights we find those derived from our duties, for we all have a right to justly pursue our duties.
Therefore:
The Constitution: the Original Contract that America has with Itself
The American Independent Party is the party of ordered liberty in a nation under God. We believe in strict adherence to written law. We believe the Constitution is the contract America has with itself. Its willful distortion has led to the violation of our Tenth Amendment guaranteed right to limited government, which inevitably requires oppressive taxation. Its faithful application will lift that awful burden.
Freedom from "Liberalism"
Freed from the lawless oppression of Liberal rule, we may then compassionately and justly use our energy and ingenuity to provide for ourselves and our families. We will then establish truly free and responsible enterprise and reassert the basic human right to property.
The Protection of Life, and the Duties and Rights of Families
We believe in protecting all human life however weak, defenseless, or disheartened; we endorse the family as the essential bulwark of liberty, compassion, responsibility, and industry; and declare the family's right and responsibility to nurture, discipline, and educate its children. We maintain that all humans are persons from the beginning of their biological development and especially deserve our love and nurture when they are weakest and most dependent.
Marriage Between a Man and a Woman
We insist that marriage is between a man and a woman and assert the role of the law in establishing and reinforcing the mutual rights and obligations of that God-ordained contract.
The Individual and Common Defense
We assert the absolute, concurrent Second Amendment guaranteed individual right to self defense against impositions by other citizens or our government, coupled with a strong common defense, a common defense which requires a national sovereignty not damaged by imprudent or un-Constitutional treaties.
Opposition to Illegal Immigration and Support of Secure Borders
We oppose all illegal immigration. We support secure borders and immigration policies inviting the best of the world to join us in freedom. We emphatically demand that our borders be protected against intrusions by that most straight-forward and practical means, a fence, reinforced by all the necessary manpower and electronic surveillance. We also insist that those who violate our immigration laws, be they illegal immigrants or their employer, be punished for their crime in a way that will deter them from future offenses.
Our Great Pro-Life Constitution
The Republic established by our Constitution is the greatest of all pro-life institutions. In the first place, it protects our lives from the impositions of foreign nations and internal disorder. Our Constitution in its Fifth Amendment also forbids the government to take life, or liberty, or property unjustly. The Fourteenth amendment requires all States to apply all the protections they provide for life equally to all visitors or citizens, and to all born or unborn persons within the territories governed by their laws.
Public Servants, Not Public Masters! All Governments Under God
We believe that all those who govern are the servants of God for the good of citizens. Therefore all governments are under God whether they like it or not! This is why we call those who rule in our nation, Public Servants. We will resist by all political means at our disposal the increasing inclination of our Public employees and representatives to become, ever more, Public Masters.
In consequence whereof, we call upon all men who value their God-given liberty to join us in pursuit of these political convictions.
The Ornelas publicity campaign included this (the "Dr." prefix is an honorary or pastoral title, it is not clear which)--
Dr. Ornelas was selected by the delegates for his support of Israel and current activism throughout the country. This is the first time in the history of the United States that a hip-hop artist and Latino with Mexican descent is running for the office of the U.S. Vice President. And it is the second time in history a person who has Native American ancestry has vied for this office. He is the second after Herbert Hoover’s Vice President, Charles Curtis, to have a Native American ancestry. Dr. Ornelas is the great-great-great-grandson of Chief Cristobal Osuna from a tribe in the San Diego Mountains circa the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848).
The American Independent Party of California seeks to uphold the God given gifts asserted by the Declaration of Independence which include the rights to life and liberty for all people including the unborn.
Ornelas said in an interview with Huffington Post in 2016 that, "My great grandmother was from the Cocopah Nation out of the Yuma Arizona area."
It needs to be pointed out that although not a musician by trade, the first Hip Hop activist to be on a Presidential ticket was probably Rosa Clemente, VP for the Green Party in 2008. Pinning down the first Latino of Mexican descent to be a VP is more difficult as there were more than a few before 2012, perhaps starting in 1968 with Adelicio Moya of the People's Constitutional Party, or Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales of the Peace and Freedom Party. Before Ornelas there other VPs with closer ties to Indian Country, both genetically and from life experience-- 1964 Ramona Frances Crowell (Independent), 1976 Austin Marion Burton (Independent) [Burton could have been a Pretendian], 1980 LaDonna Vita Tabbytite Harris (Citizens Party), 1988 Wynonia Brewington Burke (New Alliance Party), 1992 Asiba D. Tupahache (Campaign for a New Tomorrow), and the most prominent of all 1996, 2000 Winona LaDuke (Green Party).
On May 29, 2012 Ornelas on Facebook helped spread the "Obama Admits He is a Muslim" Youtube, which has been exposed by Snopes and others as a pernicious effort at deliberate disinformation.
On Aug. 30, 2012 Ornelas posted on Facebook, "I am believing for an economic revelation from God to help our nation. This plan will help generations to come after we are long gone. Jesus, we honor you!!!!!!"
If the Drake/Ornelas ticket had survived until Election Day, in the event of their victory the fact they were residents of the same state would have posed a Constitutional problem.
The Hoefling/Ornelas ticket finished 6th out of 6 of those on the California ballot, 0.29% of the popular vote in the Golden State. Hoefling's national total was 40,649, and 38,372 of those came from California, accounting for more than 94% of his poll.
All three of the 2012 principals mentioned here ran for the American Independent Party primary for President in California in 2016, finishing with Ornelas 3rd, Drake 4th, and Hoefling 7th. In the end the AIP not merely endorsed but nominated Trump/Pence in 2016.
Election history:
2014 - Governor of California (American Independent Party) - withdrew
2016 - American Independent Party nomination for President - defeated
2018 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (American Independent Party) - defeated
Other occupations: community activist, Christian Hip Hop artist, evangelist, missionary, Elite TV producer, American Independent Party chair, founder of SOG Crew,
Notes:
Ran as a write-in in 2018.
Mother was born in Mexico.
