Albert B. Moore

Albert B. Moore, July, 1939 (Warrenton, Va.) -

VP candidate for American Party (2000)

Running mate with nominee (2000): Donald Augustine Rogers (1928-2018)
Running mate with nominee (2004): Diane Beall Templin (b. 1947)
Popular vote (2000): ? (0.00%)
Popular vote (2004): ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote (2000, 2004): 0/538

The campaign (2000):

Century 21 would not be kind to the American Party in terms of Electoral politics. Starting in election year 2000 they failed to gain ballot access in any state for all the subsequent Presidential elections to date. Yet they still nominated tickets 2000-2008, and 2016.

39 delegates assembled in Oklahoma City in late March 2000 and nominated controversial former Republican California legislator and oil man Don Rogers for President and Virginia Shaklee distributor Al Moore for VP.

Consistently in the hard Right and embracing numerous conspiracy theories, the group described itself in 2000: "The American Party is a political party of God-fearing people who are pro-life and revere the Constitution. The American Party recognizes that the right to keep and bear arms is the defense of the nation and that the New World Order is a world government to replace the Constitution ... The Campaign announces that its chief goal is to make each citizen safe and secure in their person and property and to reestablish the Constitution as the law of the land. The Campaign slogan is: NO MORE CLINTON-GORE! VOTE FOR ROGERS-MOORE! and REPLACE AL GORE WITH AL MOORE!"

The Party was quite transparent about who they considered to be the best and the brightest to occupy the highest levels of government--

ROGERS-MOORE CABINET NOMINATIONS!
State -- G. Edward Griffin
Treasury -- Byron Dale
Defense -- Robert Dornan or (USCG Ret) Capt. G. Russell Evans
Commerce -- Gov. Evan Mechum
Agriculture -- Tom Anderson
Justice -- John Ashcroft
HUD -- Bob Boyd
OMB -- Doris Feimer
HHS -- Kay Cole James
Interior -- Helen Chenoweth-Hage
Education -- Ezola Foster
Energy -- Walter Myers
Labor -- Linda Patterson
Transportation -- Douglas Joy
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff -- (USAF Ret) Gen. Benton K. Partin
VA Secretary -- Elmer Vaughan
UN -- Arly Pedersen
EPA -- Diane Templin
National Security Advisor -- Pat Buchanan
FBI -- Riley Donica
Fed Chairman -- G. Edward Griffin
Surgeon General -- Dr. Leonard Horowitz
Chief Justice -- Antonin Scalia
Supreme Court Nominees -- Diane Templin; Judge Roy Moore, Alabama; Robert Bork

Not only was the Rogers/Moore ticket not on any ballot, they apparently did not register as write-in candidates as well.

The campaign (2004):

At their convention on July 11-12, 2003 the American Party nominated Robert N. Boyd of Fortville, Ind. for President and Walter C. Thompson of Culpeper, Va. for VP. Before the month was over Boyd withdrew from the race, followed a bit later by Thompson.

The Executive Committee met at a Travelodge in Kenner, La., on Jan. 10, 2004 and selected Diane Beall Templin over Albert Moore by a vote of 7-6. Moore became the VP nominee once again. Templin had been the Presidential nominee for the Party in 1996.

Once again the American Party failed to gain ballot access or become certified write-ins in any state. Templin was running for the US Senate in California at the same time under the American Independent Party, and that appears to be where her energies were directed.

A meeting called by the Clarion Call for Convergence Committee in Aug. 2004 had attendees from America First Party, Independent American Party, and American Party. The topic was the idea of merging the parties on the far Right into one organized political entity. But the largest of them all, the Constitution Party, was not present and nothing came of it.

Here are some selections from the American Party's lengthy platform for 2004-2008:

Preamble

Members of the American Party believe that the original Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights were prepared and adopted by men acting under inspiration from Almighty God, that they are solemn compacts between the people of the states of this nation which all officers of government are under oath to obey, and that the eternal moral laws expressed therein must be adhered to or individual liberty will perish.

--From the Constitution of the American party

The purpose of the American Party is to field candidates who will restore the proper role of government as defined in the Constitution of the United States and interpreted in the tradition of our Founding Fathers. We therefore call for all citizens to inform themselves and enter the political arena with time, money, and dedicated service in order that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people may not perish from the earth.

The proper role of government is limited to those spheres of activity within which the individual citizen, in the absence of government, had the right to act. By deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft, and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute money or property, nor to force citizens to perform acts of charity against their will.

The American Party offers this platform in the sincere belief that these positions on the most important issues of the day are both right and necessary for peace, prosperity, justice, and domestic tranquility.

Education

The present crisis in education must be solved in stages and at several levels. First, so that no parents need defy the law by refusing to send their children to schools of which they disapprove, compulsory attendance laws should be repealed. Second, the control of schools should be returned to the local system by congressional limitation of the jurisdiction of federal courts and by an end to busing for racial balance. Third, the federal government should be eliminated entirely from interference in local schools by putting an end to federal aid. There should be no federal government control of textbooks. The selection of textbooks and approval of their content must be the responsibility of parents and local boards of education. We oppose the federal government's role in education including, but not limited to, the Federal Department of Education, "Goals 2000", "No Child Left Behind", and the total National Education Association agenda.

Fourth, the only permanently satisfactory solution to the many problems of general education - busing, curricula, discipline, drugs, the ban on prayer in schools - is decentralization of the educational system and the adoption of free enterprise methods. The education of children is the God-given responsibility of their parents, and private schools should be available without the additional burden of public (government) school taxes. Control over school policy and subject matter must be vested in the parents. To this end the American Party applauds those parents who are courageously offering their children academically superior education in private schools or at home, and extends the grateful thanks of the nation to them for refusing to relinquish the education of their children to the state.

Executive Orders

The Constitution specifies that only Congress may enact laws and that it may not delegate its legislative powers. Therefore, though the President may issue executive orders to administer the executive branch of government, neither the President nor any other officer may create laws decreed by executive agencies such as OSHA and the IRS. All such existing so-called laws should be declared void and further executive orders forbidden.

Homosexuality/Lesbianism

Homosexuality and lesbianism are a plague sweeping the nation and creating a wave of disease and immorality. Normal sex is an intimate relation between a man and a woman. All homosexual relations are acts of sodomy. People engaging in such acts should have no special rights or privileges and those living in such relationships have no familial rights or privileges such as adoption of children and legitimacy of marriage.

Labor

Labor rates must be established by the marketplace and not by government. Union membership and dues must be entirely voluntary. We favor the repeal of the National Labor Relations Act. We support Right-to-Work laws.

The use by unions of labor, donations, equipment, and money obtained from union dues and pension funds to control the candidates of political parties is both immoral and illegal. Those guilty of giving or receiving such funds should be prosecuted just as certainly as corporations which break the laws concerning campaign contributions.

Government workers hold their jobs as a privilege, not a right, and essential government services must not be interrupted by strikes by public employees. Collective bargaining by public employees must therefore be made illegal.

Public Morality

Neither Congress nor the federal courts should infringe the rights of state and local governments to enact constitutional laws restricting public obscenity, pornography, and illicit sex acts, especially prostitution and homosexuality.

Tax dollars must not be used to finance immoral art, literature, speech or actions.

Regional Government

Regional and metro government run by appointed bureaucrats is a device to impose direct federal control on metropolitan areas and to bypass State and local sovereignty performing an end run around the Constitution and backers of such schemes themselves admit it. As such, it is a blow against local control of representative government and should be abolished. No appointed official should have authority equal to that of elected officials within the same jurisdiction. The creation of regional government is in violation of the principles of the Constitution and is a brazen act of treason against our country.

New World Order and World Government

"New World Order" means world socialist government. This great evil is promoted as a way for the United Nations to function as envisioned by its founders.

Necessary companions of world government are world taxation, centralized world regulation of commerce, international control of the production and consumption of oil, a single world currency, and a world army to enforce the above.

A casualty of implementing the "New World Order" will be national sovereignty and the Constitution of the United States. The American Party is unalterably opposed to world government and to the "New World Order."

It is for this reason we oppose such treaties as NAFTA, GATT-WTO and other UN conventions as destructive of national sovereignty and as attempts to circumvent the Constitution of the United States.

War

Our military involvements in Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Persian Gulf were undeclared wars. We, therefore, would require that foreign military actions cannot be pursued more than 72 hours without a declaration of war by Congress. We denounce any no-win policy as treasonous. It is immoral to draft anyone to fight in an undeclared war. 

Election history:
1999 - Virginia House of Representatives (Independent) - defeated
2004 - American Party nomination for US President - defeated

Other occupations: Shaklee distributor, employee Virginia Dept. of Taxation, employee Philip Morris Tobacco, computer analyst, C.E.O. of Get Moore For Your Money Enterprises

Notes:
Virginia Tech 1963 B.S. in Mathematics and a minor in Physics.
Born in the same city as William C. Payne, VP for the National Negro Liberty Party 1904.

Rufus Edward Shackelford

Rufus Edward Shackelford, March 6, 1926 (Wauchula, Fla.) - June 17, 1992 (Manatee, Fla.)

VP candidate for American Party (aka Americanist Party aka Independent aka American Constitution Party) (1976)

Running mate with nominee: Thomas Jefferson Anderson (1910-2002)
Popular vote: 158,724 (0.19%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

By the 1976 election the American Party and the American Independent Party were two separate political entities, both claiming to be the rightful philosophical heir to George Wallace's 1968 significant third party effort.

The 1976 American Party convention was an unenthusiastic, sparsely attended event according to news accounts. Continuing the John Birch Society trajectory as set by 1972 Presidential nominee John G. Schmitz, the Party's 1976 top pick was the old 1972 running mate, Tom Anderson. Some of the Party faithful wanted Anderson and company to wait and see if Ronald Reagan would be the Republican choice or if George Wallace would be the Democratic standard bearer so they could endorse one of those two. But Anderson wouldn't have it. He wanted to run.

The VP choice was Rufus E. Shackelford, a very wealthy tomato grower from Wauchula, Fla. with operations in California and Texas. He owned his own plane and the size of his pocketbook probably helped in the selection process which was not an unusual practice for several minor parties. This was the only time Shackelford had ever run for public office.

Shackelford was "born a Democrat" and then became a Republican before joining the American Party in 1969.

His stump speeches pulled no punches:

This may sound corny, but I have always felt very close to the Constitution and those two parties have gotten away from it. That's why I belong to the American Party. I find that the other parties are alright to a point. But after you leave the local and state level and get them to Washington, they're the same. You've got Socialism A and Socialism B. We're bogged down in the bureaucratic sense of socialism.

This country is financially, morally and spiritually bankrupt, and all due to the foolishness of the Democrats and the Republicans.

Not many people know this, but it's a fact. The Republicans and Democrats alike are governed and looked after by a single organization, the Council on Foreign Relations. And it's because of this organization the willingness of the two political groups that this country is in the mess it's in today.

The Commies are desperately trying to destroy the very fibre of this nation through the destruction of the Christian concept, and I will not stand for it.

I feel that Henry Kissinger is one of the most unqualified and evilest men in the White House today. How can a man who doesn't even have a complete control of the English language try to solve our foreign problems? I'll tell you this right now, I will have nothing to do with this man.

On Lester Maddox and the American Independent Party: He (Maddox) has no organization. He's a populist movement. We are not a movement. We are a political party and we've got some 700 candidates running for office in this country.

The 1976 American Party platform included: opposition to abortion and euthanasia, dramatically scale back government commercial regulations, support capital punishment, no court plea bargaining for criminals, no federal day care centers, encourage nuclear and solar power, oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, oppose any form of gun control, oppose socialized medicine, abolish the Federal Reserve, oppose quota systems in employment, eliminate public welfare, abolish foreign aid, no detente with Communist states, keep the Panama Canal, remove the United States from the United Nations.

On Election Day the American Party placed 6th, right on the heels of the American Independent and Libertarian parties with all three in a tight 0.19% - 0.21% range. Anderson/Shackelford were on the ballot or had recorded write-ins in 28 states. Consistent with their 1972 results, the John Birch Society-inspired American Party had their strongest support in the Far West: Utah 2.45%, Montana 1.76%, and North Dakota 1.24%. Other states where they, relatively speaking, did well: Virginia 0.98%, Mississippi 0.87%, Kentucky 0.71%, Minnesota 0.70%, Shackelford's Florida 0.68%, and Indiana 0.63%. Anderson actually beat Maddox, both of them write-ins, in the latter's home state of Georgia.

Immediately after the election Shackelford expressed gratitude that Carter had won over Ford because the Georgia Governor would be "the most closely watched man in history" and his inexperience would mean he would certainly face stumbling blocks in getting his "socialist program" through Congress. Shackelford also made a prediction that over time revealed his strength was not in punditry: "Anybody who sees the Republican party as being conservative is crazy. The Republican party is a tool of Nelson Rockefeller and the Ripon Society and will be four years from now despite what columnist Jack Anderson says about Ronald Reagan reorganizing the party."

Other occupations: soldier (WWII), President of 4 Star Tomato

Election history: none

Buried: New Hope Baptist Cemetery (Wauchula, Fla.)

Notes:
Baptist, born-again Christian.
In 1977 Shackleford was endorsed by the American Party leadership in California for President in
 1980.
Financially backed NH Gov. Meldrim Thomson's short-lived 1980 bid for President as a third party
 nominee.
Was a member of Democrats for a Better Government in 1964, an anti-LBJ group.
Earliest Presidential election with a Florida-born VP on the ticket.
His obituaries had no mention of his 1976 VP run.

Thomas Jefferson Anderson

Thomas Jefferson Anderson, November 10, 1910 (Nashville, Tenn.) – August 30, 2002 (Raleigh, NC)

VP candidate for American Independent Party (aka American Party aka Constitutional Party aka Independent aka Independent Party aka Conservative aka George Wallace Party) (1972)

Running mate with nominee: John G. Schmitz (1930-2001)
Popular vote: 1,100,896 (1.42%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

As it happens so often with radical political movements that are personality-driven, when that personality is no longer around a vicious battle for supremacy takes place to fill the power vacuum. So it was with the American Independent Party when George Wallace returned to the Democratic Party after his unsuccessful third party bid in 1968.

Wallace was rather cagey about whether he would return to the AIP or not in the event he failed to win the Democratic nomination, but an assassination attempt gravely crippling the candidate on May 15, 1972 derailed all of his electioneering plans for that year. Several Wallace loyalists felt the AIP was really a one-man party, while others were ready to forge ahead on a policy-driven agenda.

Where the 1968 version of AIP had a populist and segregationist regional appeal in the South, the 1972 version reflected the fact that the ticket was occupied by John Birchers and their message played well in the Far West. But not all was rosey in the Party. Some of the disgruntled Ohio AIP delegates went home and formed their own ticket of Edward Wallace and Robert B. Mess.

John G. Schmitz outpolled segregationist Lester Maddox and fellow John Birch Society member and author Tom Anderson for the AIP Presidential nomination. Anderson became the running mate. Schmitz and Anderson were both well known in the art of sharp-tongued wisecracks.

Their campaign slogan: "When you're out of Schmitz, you're out of gear" was a takeoff on the well-known ad jingle at the time, "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer."

To describe Schmitz as an ultra-conservative would be putting it mildly. In 2004 Schmitz was selected as the third most conservative member of the House and Senate between 1937-2002, behind only Ron Paul and Larry McDonald. Eventually he grew too extreme for even the John Birch Society and was expelled from the organization. A decade later the scandals of his personal life caught up to him, ending his political career. Tom Anderson would run for President in 1976 from the splinter American Party.

The Schmitz/Anderson ticket placed third nationally. Although not nearly as successful as George Wallace was in 1968, they did have some impressive results, actually placing second in a few counties. They were on the ballot in over 30 states. Strongest vote percentages: Idaho 9.3%, Alaska 7.25%, Utah 5.97%, Oregon 4.98%, Louisiana 4.95%, Montana 4.23%, Washington 4.00%, Arizona 3.25%, California 2.78%.

Election history:
1972 - American Independent Party nomination for US President - defeated
1976 - US President (American Party) - defeated
1978 - US Senate (Tenn.) (Independent) - defeated

Other occupations: sailor (US Navy WWII), securities salesman, journalist, author, radio commentator, John Birch Society activist

Buried: Mt. Hope Cemetery (Franklin, Tenn.)

Notes:
Winner of the 1978 race was Howard Baker.
Buried in the same cemetery as Minnie Pearl (Sara Ophelia Colley Cannon)
Methodist.
"America has a great mission to perform: to save the world from slavery and to save the world for Christianity."--Tom Anderson ca1962

Edward Joseph Silverman

Edward Joseph Silverman, August 2, 1913 (Davidson County, Tenn.) - August 12, 1980 (Kenbridge, Va.)

VP candidate for Conservative Party of Virginia (aka Conservative Party aka Virginia Conservative Party) (1960)

Running mate with nominee: Claiborne Benton Coiner (1912-1963)

Popular vote: 4204 (0.01%)
Electoral vote: 0/537

The campaign:

In sort of a spin on the unpledged electors wave of the 1950s-1960s, the newly formed Conservative Party of Virginia ran a ticket that were pledged electors for other people. Originally the Party nominated Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr. (D-VA) for President with Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-AZ) as his running mate. Both senators asked to be removed from consideration.

So the Party nominated segregation activists C. Benton Coiner for President with Edward J. Silverman as his running mate, making it the literary sounding Coiner/Silverman ticket. The fact that both were residents of Virginia and as such would pose a Constitutional problem if elected didn't seem to bother anyone. Remember, Harry Krajewski and Anna Marie Yezo of the Poor Man's Party had been kept off the ballot in New Jersey in 1960 for that very reason.

Coiner and Silverman pledged that if they won they would instruct their Electors to cast their votes for Byrd and Goldwater in a bid to throw the election into the US House. Goldwater's objection was strong enough that they substituted the pledged VP votes to arch-conservative journalist Thomas Jefferson Anderson (who would become a future third party VP and Presidential nominee himself).

Many conservatives in Virginia, although sympathetic to the new third party's platform, felt the election in Virginia was going to be too close and that Coiner/Silverman might hand the state to JFK, so they expressed their support but their votes still went to Nixon.

Silverman, who was connected with a small weekly newspaper in Blackstone, Va., was the segregationist du jour by virtue of his leading a rousing rally called the Bill of Rights Crusade while exhibiting his gift for oratory in Mar. 1959. Newspapers at the time identified him as a charismatic spokesperson for The Defenders of State Sovereignty. The demonstration, described with terms like "a last ditch effort" and "highly dramatic yet minimally effective" by reporters and historians, brought 5000 angry Virginians to the capitol steps at Richmond and launched Silverman's short 1960-1966 foray into elective politics.

On Election Day their 4204 votes amounted to 0.54% of the Virginia results. Their strongest showing was in Silverman's own Lunenburg County with 3.78%, followed by Orange County 3.00%, Surry County 2.77%, Nottoway County 2.56%. Nixon took the state by a comfortable margin.

C. Benton Coiner committed suicide by hanging, Oct. 3, 1963.

Election history:
1966 - US House of Representatives (Va.) (Conservative Party of Virginia) - defeated

Other occupations: newspaper advertising salesman, worker at Railway Handle Corp., newspaper editor

Buried: Kenbridge Heights Cemetery (Kenbridge, Va.)

Notes:
Sometimes listed as Edward M. Silverman