Bob Bird (activist)
Encyclopedia
Bob Bird is a pro-life
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...

 activist, high school teacher, and Alaskan Independence Party
Alaskan Independence Party
The Alaskan Independence Party is a political party in the U.S. state of Alaska that advocates an in-state referendum which includes the option of Alaska becoming an independent country...

 candidate for the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 seat formerly occupied by Senator Ted Stevens
Ted Stevens
Theodore Fulton "Ted" Stevens, Sr. was a United States Senator from Alaska, serving from December 24, 1968, until January 3, 2009, and thus the longest-serving Republican senator in history...

.

Bird has been teaching for 34 years on the secondary and collegiate levels, at high schools in Alaska and Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 and at Kenai Peninsula College
Kenai Peninsula College
Kenai Peninsula College is a unit of the University of Alaska Anchorage, and is one of four community campuses. The student body comprises almost 2,000 students at 4 locations.-Locations:...

. He has been a radio broadcaster for KSRM radio in Kenai for Alaska Baseball League
Alaska Baseball League
The Alaska Baseball League is an amateur collegiate summer baseball league, with six teams located in four Alaskan cities. Players in the league must have attended one year of college and must have one year of NCAA eligibility remaining....

 and high school hockey games.

Education

Bird earned his B.S.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 degree from Bemidji State University
Bemidji State University
Bemidji State University is a public state university in Bemidji, Minnesota, USA, located on the shores of Lake Bemidji. It is a part of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities .-History:BSU was founded in 1919 as Bemidji State Normal School...

 in Minnesota, where he majored in Social Studies. He earned his Master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 in history from Minnesota State University, Mankato
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Minnesota State University, Mankato is a public four-year university located in Mankato, Minnesota, a community of 53,000 located southwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul. As of Fall 2011, the student body is the third-largest in the state of Minnesota with over 15,000 students...

 in 1992.

Political involvement

Bob Bird ran as a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 in the 1990 Alaska primary against incumbent Ted Stevens
Ted Stevens
Theodore Fulton "Ted" Stevens, Sr. was a United States Senator from Alaska, serving from December 24, 1968, until January 3, 2009, and thus the longest-serving Republican senator in history...

, earning 34,000 votes to Stevens' 81,000. Bird's notoriety stemmed from organizing and leading the first two events of the Alaska Rescue Project in 1989, the largest civil-disobedience event in the state's history. He served as president of Alaska Right to Life
Right to life
Right to life is a phrase that describes the belief that a human being has an essential right to live, particularly that a human being has the right not to be killed by another human being...

 from 1995-97, was a delegate to the 1996 Republican National Convention
1996 Republican National Convention
The 1996 National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States convened at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California, from August 12 to August 15, 1996...

 in San Diego as a Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...

 supporter and the Reform Party in Long Beach
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in 2000, also as a Buchanan delegate.

Bird joined the Alaskan Independence Party in 2004 and was a delegate to the Constitution Party
Constitution Party (United States)
The Constitution Party is a paleoconservative political party in the United States. It was founded as the U.S. Taxpayers' Party by Howard Philips in 1991. Phillips was the party's candidate in the 1992, 1996 and 2000 presidential elections...

's national convention as a supporter of Michael Peroutka
Michael Peroutka
Michael Anthony Peroutka is a Maryland lawyer, the founder of the Institute on the Constitution. He once held a position in the United States Department of Health and Human Services and was the Constitution Party candidate for president in 2004. He is co-host of The American View radio...

.

In 2008, the Alaskan Independence Party nominated Bird as their candidate for the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

. Bird's opponents included Ted Stevens—the six-term Republican incumbent who was convicted October 27, 2008 on seven (7) felony counts for failing to report $250,000 in gifts which he had received from a private company—and Mark Begich
Mark Begich
Mark Peter Begich is the junior United States Senator from Alaska and a member of the Democratic Party. A former mayor of Anchorage, he served on the Anchorage Assembly for almost ten years prior to being elected mayor in 2003...

, the Democratic mayor of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.

On October 29, 2008, Bird was endorsed by former Republican U.S. presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul
Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...

 of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

.

The November 4, 2008, general election featured five candidates for the U.S. Senate for Alaska: Mark Begich (Democrat), Bob Bird (Alaskan Independence), Ted Gianoutsos (Unaffiliated), Dave Haase (Libertarian), and Ted Stevens (Republican). The outcome was not resolved for two weeks until absentee, questioned and early voting results were tabulated. Begich defeated Stevens by 3,724 votes (150,728 to 147,004). Because Bird took 13,144 votes (4.15%), an article in the Washington Post by Chris Cillizza and Paul Kane suggested that Bird "may end up being the most important third-party candidate in the 2008 race"--an opinion shared by the Independent Political Report in an August article, long before Bird gained significant media attention.

Since the election Bird has been promoting nullification
Nullification (U.S. Constitution)
Nullification is a legal theory that a State has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional...

. Bird's argument can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEwLHe5LLIw and http://youtube.com/watch?v=OZXqzovSBzw where he references the Citizens Rule Book
Citizens Rule Book
Citizens Rule Book is a handbook written to educate American citizens regarding their rights and responsibilities. It is a compilation of quotes from founders of the United States of America and select government documents, including information on the rights of a jury to "nullify bad law" and...

, a document arguably consistent with Richard T. Hughes' thesis in Christian America and the Kingdom of God (see, http://books.google.com/books?id=M_WtIaIqWTgC.)
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