Charles Obadiah Baldwin (born May 3, 1952) is an American right-wing politician, radio host, and as founder he served as pastor of Independent Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. As of 2024 he is leading pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Kalispell, Montana. He was the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party for the 2008 U.S. presidential election and had previously been its nominee for vice president in 2004. He hosts a daily one-hour radio program, Chuck Baldwin Live, and writes a daily editorial column carried on its website, as well as on VDare. He is a former editor of NewsWithViews.com.
As a Republican Party member, Baldwin was state chairman of the Florida Moral Majority in the 1980s. However, during the 2000 campaign of Republican George W. Bush for U.S. president, Baldwin left the party and began a long period of criticism of Bush. Baldwin endorsed U.S. Representative Ron Paul for the 2008 Republican nomination for president, and Paul in turn endorsed Baldwin for the presidency in the 2008 general election. He identifies as an anti-Zionist, believing that Zionism is the main threat to the U.S. He writes that Zionists control the media, "the mainstream Christian religion, and the U.S. government" and that Zionism is responsible for the ills of U.S. society and culture.
Baldwin was born in La Porte, Indiana on May 3, 1952, to Edwin J. "Ed" Baldwin and his second wife, Ruth. Baldwin graduated from La Porte High School in 1971 and attended Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, for two years. He met Connie Kay Cole there and married her on June 2, 1973. Though he originally had planned on a career in law enforcement, Baldwin felt called to evangelistic ministry; he moved to the South, and enrolled in, and graduated with a Bible diploma from, the Thomas Road Bible Institute (now the Liberty Bible Institute at Liberty University). He additionally received bachelor's and master's degrees in theology through correspondence programs from Christian Bible College of Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
On June 22, 1975, Chuck and Connie Baldwin and four other individuals held the first meeting of what would become the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida; Baldwin was the founding pastor. According to the SPLC, "He preached an anti-abortion, anti-gay, fundamentalist gospel, and the church grew rapidly. It became a Christian evangelical Mecca, complete with a mock graveyard that honored aborted fetuses." By 1985, the church had gone through repeated building programs and been recognized by President Ronald Reagan for its unusual growth and influence.
Prior to joining the Republican Party in 1980, Baldwin had been a registered Democrat, like his father. From 1980 to 1984, Baldwin served as Pensacola chairman and then state executive director of the Florida Moral Majority, organized by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Baldwin helped carry the state twice for Reagan electors; he says he helped Falwell register some 50,000 Christian conservative voters. Baldwin's father, Ed, a lifelong Democrat, expressed grudging admiration for what he saw as Reagan's honesty and courage. In August 1994, Baldwin had a call-in radio show on the Christian Patriot Network.
In 2000, however, Baldwin left the Republican Party on grounds that the Bush–Cheney ticket was too liberal. He saw the two main parties as “two peas in the same pod”. Baldwin has said that many evangelical minds, similarly to ministers in Nazi Germany, had seemingly given George W. Bush "the aura of an American Fuhrer". He considered himself an independent affiliated with the Constitution Party.
At about this time, Baldwin began hosting a local daily one-hour current-events radio program, "Chuck Baldwin Live", which continues today nationwide on the Genesis Communications Network. He wrote a semiweekly editorial column carried on its website, chuckbaldwinlive.com, and in several newspapers. He has also appeared on numerous television shows and radio shows, including on MSNBC and CNN, and in churches across the country. He was the keynote speaker for the 50th anniversary of D-Day at Naval Air Station Pensacola. He also appeared on “The Political Cesspool,” a white nationalist radio program. His columns are archived on VDARE.com, a far right website and he has contributed to the antisemitic American Free Press website.
In 2006, Baldwin said his only organizational memberships were in his church, the Constitution Party, Gun Owners of America, and the National Rifle Association of America.
2004 vice presidential campaign
In the 2004 presidential election, Baldwin was the running mate of Michael Peroutka of Maryland and was the candidate for U.S. vice president on the Constitution Party ticket, the Alaskan Independence Party ticket, and other tickets and qualified write-in slots in 42 states. The two ran on a platform of "For God, Family, and the Republic". The Peroutka–Baldwin campaign publicly spoke out against abortion, women in the military, and the Iraq War, and emphasized the Bible, traditional family values, and the need for Constitutionally limited government. According to Political Research Associates, "Peroutka’s 2004 failed presidential campaign was well-known for touting conspiratorial claims".
The party joined with the American Independent Party, the Independent American Party and the Constitution Party to endorse Peroutka–Baldwin as their 2004 presidential ticket.
Peroutka was also endorsed by many paleoconservatives, the Alaskan Independence Party, the League of the South (accepted by Peroutka at its 2004 national convention), the Southern Party of Georgia, Samuel T. Francis, Alex Jones, Howard Phillips, and Taki Theodoracopulos. Pat Buchanan also stated there was a chance he would vote for Peroutka, counting them as "a Buchananite party", but eventually endorsed Bush. The ticket came in fifth with 143,630 votes (0.12%) and spent $728,221, somewhat less per vote than either George W. Bush or John Kerry. It was the only third party to increase its share of the vote in 2004.
2006-2008: Ron Paul and the Black Regiment
In the Constitution Party's April 2006 national convention in Tampa, Florida, a heated disaffiliation vote forced members to choose between one of two anti-abortion positions. The assembly voted not to disaffiliate the Independent American Party of Nevada over the more exceptive position of its gubernatorial candidate, Christopher H. Hansen. Baldwin voted in favor of disaffiliation, favoring the more conservative position. Baldwin remained with the party, but several conservative state parties subsequently voted to leave the national party, believing it to have unacceptably compromised the anti-abortion plank of its platform; rump factions have been orchestrated by the national Constitution Party in some of these states.
On August 30, 2007, Baldwin wrote an informal endorsement for Ron Paul for the GOP nomination: "Conservative Republicans have only one choice for president in 2008: Congressman Ron Paul of Texas"; more formal endorsement of Paul came in a December video. That same month, Baldwin said:
Unfortunately, it has been the Christian right's blind support for President Bush in particular and the Republican Party in general that has precipitated a glaring and perhaps fatal defect: the Christian Right cannot, or will not, honestly face the real danger confronting these United States. . . . On the whole, they fail to understand the issues that are critical to our nation's—and their own—survival. . . . Sadly, this is what the Christian Right just doesn't get: ninety percent of the time, it doesn't matter to a tinker's dam whether a Republican or Democrat wins the White House. . . . All the pro-life, pro-family, traditional-values, conservative talk is just that: talk. Republicans use conservative rhetoric the same way Democrats use liberal rhetoric. Neither party believes what they are telling their constituents. They merely say what constituents want to hear in order to get elected; after which, they set about to do what their elitist, globalist manipulators tell them to do.