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| April 2002 Newsletter |
Greetings fellow constitutional conservatives! I trust the recent warm weather hasn't left you missing winter too much.
With the onset of higher temperatures our thoughts drift towards summer. To Constitution Party members and supporters that means Fair season is almost upon us. My letter will deal mostly with our fair booth initiative but there are a couple of things I should bring to your attention also.
Great news from California! Ezola Foster, the Reform Party's Vice Presidential candidate (Pat Buchanan's running mate) in the last election has left the Reform Party and joined our party affiliate, the American Independent Party of California. We welcome her aboard and invite other Buchanan supporters to follow her lead.
Next a quick FYI: Paid members will be receiving a Call to Convention letter shortly outlining the agenda for our upcoming 2002 State Convention to be held on Saturday, June 15 in Pewaukee.
We will also be holding "pre-convention rallies" throughout the state the week prior to Convention in the following cities: Janesville, Baraboo, Marshfield, Merrill and Appleton. Postcards will be sent to members and supporters in those areas as the dates approach.
Anyone is welcome to attend so this might be a great
opportunity to introduce a neighbor or friend from work or
church to check out the Constitution Party!
Now to the subject at hand, and I'll be getting into more
details about this throughout my letter, the CPoW checking
account is very low right now. I take some responsibility
for this because in my last two letters I didn't really
state our needs.
In the process of trying to recruit volunteers for various needs I neglected to emphasize that the CPoW exists through the financial generosity of our members, friends and supporters. Your financial support is needed right now as we begin the process of booking county and regional fairs all across the state.
Following is a list of the fairs that we are aware of and the cost for each one:
| County/Region Cost | County/Region Cost |
| Adams $60 | Lodi Ag $25 |
| Ashland No prior attendance | Manitowoc No prior attendance |
| Athens No prior attendance | Marinette No prior attendance |
| Barron $115 | Marquette Co $60 |
| Bayfield No prior attendance | Monroe $48 |
| Blakes No prior attendance | Northern WI State Fair $180 |
| Brown $100 | Northern WI State Fair $180 |
| Buffalo $50 | Oconto No prior attendance |
| Burnett No prior attendance | Oneida $135 |
| Calumet No prior attendance | Outagamie $180 |
| Central WI State $210 | Ozaukee $192 |
| Central Burnett $35 | Pepin No prior attendance |
| Clark No prior attendance | Pierce $150 |
| Columbia $100 | Polk No prior attendance |
| Crawford $50 | Portage $30 |
| Dane $340 | Price No prior attendance |
| Dodge $140 | Racine $174 |
| Door No prior attendance | Richland $30 |
| Dunn No prior attendance | Rock $265 |
| Eau Claire No prior attendance | Rosholt Community No prior attendance |
| Elroy Fair No prior attendance | Rusk $80 |
| Florence No prior attendance | Sauk $100 |
| Fond du Lac $150 | Sawyer No prior attendance |
| Forest No prior attendance | Shawano No prior attendance |
| Grant $110 | Sheboygan No prior attendance |
| Green $120 | St. Croix $90 |
| Green Lake $75 | Stoughton Jr. Fair No prior attendance |
| Head of the Lakes $150 | Taylor No prior attendance |
| Iowa No prior attendance | Trempealeau $60 |
| Iron No prior attendance | Vernon $125 |
| Jackson $35 | Vilas $50 |
| Jefferson $130 | Walworth No prior attendance |
| Juneau $60 | Washburn No prior attendance |
| Kenosha $225 | Washington $220 |
| Kewaunee No prior attendance | Waukesha $280 |
| La Crosse $100 | Waupaca $90 |
| Lafayette No prior attendance | Waushara $70 |
| Langlade No prior attendance | WI State Fair $600 |
| Lincoln Co. $175 | WI Valley $320 |
| Winnebago $150 |
As you can see, of the 78 county and regional fairs this summer 32 of them may not have any CPoW booth. And the remaining 46 will cost us $6,234 dollars to have a booth, not to mention all of the volunteers that will be needed to man each of these booths.
We must have an immediate influx of over $6,000 in order to maintain the level of fair coverage we have had in the past! If you are able to sponsor the fair in your area that would be great! Your State Committee makes that $5 and $10 contribution go a long way but as you can see it will take more than that to get our message to the people. Do you live in Portage or Richland County? Can you spare the $30 it will take to have a booth at that fair? Or how about the fairs we haven't been in? Can you help to bring the Constitution Party message to your county by sponsoring our booth?
Your donations actually serve as seed money, since profits from sales at the fairs help us pay the bills later on in the year.
Of course financial requirements are only part of the process to have a booth at any of these fairs. As I mentioned in my last letter we have identified 19 clusters across the State. It is the desire of the CPoW State Committee that the people who live in those clusters will take the responsibility of seeking the financial resources and man hours required to staff the booth at the fairs in those clusters.
Some fairs require that our booth be manned at all hours the fair is opened. During a typical four day fair running from Thursday through Sunday, at three shifts each day, this would mean twelve volunteers are needed to man that booth. Last year about 150 people volunteered their time to man a fair booth, but we can't expect the same people to do this year after year. That is the primary reason for the establishment of the clusters I mentioned earlier. We hope that a person or group of people will take on the responsibility of hosting the fair booth kit and take care of booking the booth at your local fair, gun show, sports show, or any other event where the Constitution Party message needs to be heard.
Your most generous financial contribution is needed right now to ensure a high level of visibility going into this fair season. REMEMBER - this is an election year! We had success at the spring elections and now have six Constitution Party members in non-partisan, elected offices all across the state. This fall we are taking on the Republicrats and Demicans in state-wide races, the most significant of which is Ed Frami's bid for Secretary of State.
The presence of our booths at these county and regional fairs puts our name in front of the voting public. These are the people who will step into the voting booth on November 5th and make choices that will affect all Wisconsinites for the next two years at least. If people have heard the name "Ed Frami" or the "Constitution Party" before, those names will carry credibility in the minds of people as they cast their vote.
Name recognition is the main reason we attend the fairs. We
don't have the multi-million dollar advertising budgets
that the "big two" parties have. Word of mouth is our
current means of getting our message out to the public, and
the ability to put our name and the names of our
candidates, in front of millions of fair goers every year
helps that name recognition set in.
When a person steps into the voting booth we want to make
sure they've heard of the Constitution Party before. Even
if the name of a candidate isn't familiar we want the
voters to know who we are and what we stand for. We must
encourage "Principle over Party" politics!
I remember my days as a straight ticket Republican. I didn't have to know the person running for office, I just voted for the Republican candidate because I thought that political Party represented my idealisms.
Then back in 1996 when I got involved in the Republican Party as chairman of a local unit and a State Convention delegate I saw what was really going on. The rank-and-file of the Party had one idea, a conservative idea, about how things should be done. But those in charge at the State and Federal level seemed to turn a deaf ear towards the membership and continued down the road of big government and big spending. We must encourage "Principle over Party" politics!
Look where we are now. Just in Wisconsin be have a billion dollar budget deficit and we are the 2nd or 3rd highest taxed state in the Nation. I know, September 11 had something to do with the downturn of the economy, but we were one of the highest taxed states before that day. What will the next fiscal year hold for us as the current leadership chooses whether to cut spending or raise taxes?
But I digress… My point was, I voted party lines regardless of who the candidate was. If we can get the Constitution Party name in front of millions of voters this summer, and inform those people of what we stand for: smaller government and less control of our lives; lower taxes; 100% pro-life; pro 2nd Amendment; anti-United Nations; etc. If the voting public knows these things going into the voting booth we stand a fighting chance! Vote "Principle over Party"!!
Remember, in an even three-way race you don't need 50% plus one to win. Rather 34% takes the cake and that number is attainable if we can be vigilant and see to it that our name recognition efforts pay off.
Will you help us to achieve these goals? We need over $6,000 dollars to participate in the fairs listed above, more to expand that list. We need 19 people to stand up and say "I will host the fair kit for my cluster". We need several hundred volunteers to give a few hours of your time to work at one of our fair booths across the state.
Our needs are great, but our resources are greater. We look to God our Father to meet our needs and trust that His will can be accomplished through our efforts. Will you help us as we seek to do God's will in the political arena?
For God and Country,
Daniel M. Hoyt - Interim State Chairman
Constitution Party of Wisconsin
P.S. The Frami Campaign is bringing in John Stormer, author of None Dare Call It Treason, and None Dare Call It Education to speak Friday and Saturday of Memorial day weekend. You will receive notification of the details.