party’s VP pick in state: West
Vice chair: ‘ We’ve tried to get in touch with Kanye’
Kanye West is the conservative American Independent Party’s candidate for vice president. And party leaders will let the rapper know as soon as they can find him.
“We’ve tried to get in touch with Kanye, but haven’t had any luck,” said Markham Robinson,
vice chair of the party’s central committee. “I imagine he’s heard by now, since it’s all over the news.”
West, who is already on the ballot as a presidential candidate in 10 states, is on the American Independent Party’s ticket in California with Rocky De La Fuente, a businessman and perennial candidate who is also the Reform Party and Alliance Party candidate for president.
“We actually preferred Kanye on top of the ticket,” Robinson said, but De La Fuente was the only person who requested the nomination.
Although Phil Collins of Nevada, who is also the candiMinor
date for the Prohibitionist Party, finished on top of the American Independent Party’s nonbinding presidential primary in March, 20 party leaders met in a telephone convention in August and chose De La Fuente, the secondplace finisher, and West, who wasn’t even on the ballot, as their ticket.
In 2016, the party nominated
Republicans Donald Trump and Mike Pence as its candidates.
West’s national visibility as a rapper, record producer and fashion designer played a role in his selection, Robinson said.
“He’s famous, frankly,” the party leader said. “De La Fuente can be nothing but pleased with anything adding to the visibility for the party.”
West is also more conservative than De La Fuente, which is important for a party that was founded in 1967 to boost the presidential hopes of segregationist Gov. George Wallace of Alabama.
West is opposed to abortion, and his presidential platform calls for allowing prayers in public schools, a strong national defense and an “America first” foreign policy. He has also been a strong supporter of Trump, and Republicans in other states have backed his presidential campaign as a way to siphon Black voters away from Democrat Joe Biden.
West also “justified his platform positions with scriptural quotations,” which impressed party members, Robinson said.
But a ticket featuring a Latino businessman educated in Mexico and a Black entertainer is very different from what people would expect from the the American Independent Party, given its origins.
While the party remains very conservative, it welcomes all races, Robinson said. Alan Keyes, an African American who was a diplomat and assistant secretary of state under former President Ronald Reagan, was the party’s candidate for president in 2008.
“George Wallace would never get the party’s presidential nomination today,” Robinson said.
The party, which has its headquarters in Vacaville, has 616,584 registered voters in the state, making it by far the largest of California’s four minor parties. Democrats and others theorize that many, if not most, of those voters thought they were registering as independents.
In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have forced the party to change its name, saying the measure was probably unconstitutional.