RON PAUL HAS BEEN EXCLUDED FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL FORUM

Some of you faithful supporters of Iowa Christian Alliance might be aware of the fact that Ron Paul followers are angry that Iowans for Tax Relief (ITR) and Iowa Christian Alliance (ICA) have not invited Ron Paul to be part of the June 30th Presidential Forum.  Several of you have asked us why he was excluded and an explanation should be given to our supporters.

Our Presidential Candidates Forum has been the planning for nearly a year.  The decision on which candidates should be invited was made very carefully on objective criteria was made early in March, and on March 5, and invitation letter was sent to every candidate, both Democrat and Republican, who met those objective criteria.

The invitation to participate in the forum was extended to about 17 candidates for the President of the United States -- both Democrats and Republicans.  No Democrat accepted the invitation, and six Republicans did.  We did not exclude people based on my personal political views or those of our supporters.  We had two tests that had to be met before such candidates could be invited:

     (A)  Candidates that were considered viable.
     (B)  Candidates that had shown some visible signs that they were putting together a serious effort to participate in the January 2008 Iowa Caucuses.

Criteria to receive an invitation to the Iowa Christian Alliance and Iowans for Tax Relief Presidential Candidates Forum were as follows:

     1. A Presidential Exploratory Committee was established.
     2. Received 1% or greater in the Strategic Visions Poll taken between February 16-18.  These results were reported on Real Clear Politics.

Ron Paul did not fall into either of these categories when those invitations were sent out March 5, 2007 .

No objection had been made to the exclusion of Ron Paul until ten days ago.  The Ron Paul people had made no contact with ITR or ICA at any time before that, notwithstanding the fact that we tried to contact them (see below).

Now, as we look back over the past several days, are are affirmed in our decision, by the actions of many of the followers of Ron Paul.  The followers have been putting on a childish temper tantrum.  We cannot give candy to children who act that way.  Here are some of the things that the followers of Ron Paul have been doing to me personally and to our organization over the last several days.

     (1)  I was on vacation in Colorado a week ago, and so many Ron Paul followers called me on my cell phone while I was on vacation that I had to turn off my cell phone
     (2)  In the last 10 days, such followers have sent more than 40,000 e-mails to ICA, some of them polite and many of them angry, threatening and obscene.
     (3)  Thousands of telephone calls have come to our office and on my cell phone.
     (4)  Of the approximately 500 e-mails that I have opened, many have been harassing in nature, and many have used sexual and obscene words.
     (5)  Many of the messages sent to us have been threatening in nature.
     (6)  Many officers and staff of ICA and the officers of ITR have also received the same kind of telephone calls, e-mails and cell phone messages.
     (7)  Our new offices have been plastered with Ron Paul signs done in a harassing way.

Although we did not invite Ron Paul to be part of our Presidential Forum, we have tried to contact him in others ways and have never had any answer to any or our inquiries of him and his campaign:

     (a)  An invitation was extended to Ron Paul to be present or send a representative to our large Orange City house Party on May 24th and to have a literature table there.  He was the only Republican candidate who refused to participate in this event.
    (b)   A 2007 Iowa Christian Alliance Issues Survey for Presidential Candidates was sent to Ron Paul, along with all of the other candidates.  We are still waiting for his survey to be returned.
 

Sincerely,

Steve Scheffler, President, Iowa Christian Alliance