CHARLES JAY WINS PERSONAL CHOICE PARTY'S PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION

SALT LAKE CITY (May 22) -- Publisher, investigative writer, activist, and gambling advocate CHARLES JAY has accepted the nomination of the Personal Choice Party for President of the United States, doing so at the party's first annual convention in Salt Lake City on May 22.

Jay romped home with a victory over perennial Utah candidate Lawrence Rey Topham and U.S. Congressman Ron Paul to win the nomination, garnering 88% of the vote of attending delegates.

With the nomination comes a spot on the presidential ballot in Utah, where the Personal Choice Party has statewide ballot access.

Jay, a graduate of the University of Miami (Fla.) who currently resides in Elkhart, IN, is editor-publisher of TotalAction.com, a sports and gambling portal site that serves visitors from 42 different countries, and also handles national publicity accounts for selected clients. He formerly was a television broadcaster with Prime Network, among others, and a radio talk show host, most notably on the American Radio Networks and WAXY in Miami.

He originally joined the Libertarian Party in the early eighties, after Ed Clark's campaign for the presidency. He rejoined the party last October, and in January of this year announced his candidacy for the Libertarian Vice-Presidential nomination.

However, as he set out on the campaign, his publishing and consulting business experienced a sharp upturn, which had the effect of slowing his progress on the political end. As a result, he suspended his VP campaign.

"Being a relative newcomer to this process, the learning curve was big for me," Jay said. "And I wasn't able to work up a head of steam with the Libertarian convention fast approaching. I wanted to run a campaign through November, if at all possible, because I feel I have a unique message to communicate. Then the opportunity to run for the #1 spot on the Personal Choice ticket came along, and I consider it a great opportunity. Now I have time to develop a campaign, with more support and organization. So all systems are 'go' right now."

Besides the spot on the Utah ballot, Jay intends to secure placement on at least two or three more state ballots. "Much of it, of course, will depend on how much money we're able to raise."

Jay has spent the better part of the last three years investigating the ineptitude and corruption of public officials. He gained a international reputation with his stunning series, "Operation Cleanup", an exhaustive and revealing examination of the professional boxing industry. The series, which evolved into two full-length electronic books, has exposed officials in several states, some of whom have since been "relieved" of their duties. His latest project is to chair a special "Boxing Oversight Task Force", a private, independent watchdog group that operates under the auspices of the International Brotherhood of Prizefighters, for whom Jay serves as worldwide spokesman.

A fierce opponent of wasteful government spending, he is leading a campaign to thwart a bill, sponsored by Senator John McCain, that would federalize control of boxing - legislation he considers "Ill-advised, uninformed, gratuitous, benign, inappropriate and an overly expensive undue burden for taxpayers." He prefers private alternatives for regulation - something his task force may pave the way for.

Out of this, Jay saw a natural gravitation into the political world. "This exploration gave me a unique opportunity to watch and experience how this whole process works," he says. "Right now I'm doing what many LP members advocate, which is to work toward stopping needless government programs that spend money but accomplish little or nothing. In a sense, the experience was worth the equivalent of serving multiple terms in elective office. I intend to bring my own brand of tenacity to this campaign."

Part of that campaign will be Jay's outreach efforts to the gambling industry and its patrons. "Gamblers Autonomous" will focus on bringing members into the LP by highlighting the common ground gamblers and members of the industry have with the libertarian philosophy.

And there are other bills to fight - namely a ban on college sports betting, once again put forth by McCain, and an anti-internet gambling bill spearheaded by the other Arizona senator, John Kyl - "both of which are without merit and perhaps unconstitutional."

"It is time for us to usher in a new kind of politics in this country," Jay told the convention delegates. "The kind of politics where we don't stay away from issues for the sake of political expediency, but attack issues head-on. It's not the politics of hopeless complaint. It is the politics of activism, and even more accurately, PRO-activism. It's not the politics of whining, or seeing who can shout the loudest, but rather, a brand of politics based on shaping the argument better than the next person, standing on firm moral and factual ground, and having the absolute conviction to follow through with an aggressiveness that equals or exceeds that of the opposition. It's not the politics of asking for privileges; it's the politics of declaring independence and demanding rights. It's not the politics of extolling government solutions, but being creative enough to develop private solutions, because those are the ones that will ultimately work best."

Jay is determined to run a more aggressive internet campaign than any other third-party candidate. "The internet is the great equalizer," he says. "If you use it the right way, it can close the money gap in a hurry."

For more information about the Charles Jay campaign, visit the official website at http://www.charlesjay.com, or send e-mail to charlesjay@totalaction.com. Information on the Personal Choice Party can be obtained at http://www.personalchoice.org.

###