While Democrats and Republicans look months ahead to the national conventions of their parties, one political group gathers in our backyard this week to declare its presidential nominee.

The Constitution Party is holding its national convention through Saturday at the Downtown Marriott in Kansas City.

As its name implies, the party has as its guiding principle a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Its mission statement reads, in part: "It is our goal to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations."

The party began in 1992 as the U.S. Taxpayers Party but changed to its current name in 1999.

Credential and platform committees began meeting Wednesday afternoon. The convention wraps up Saturday with a state roll call to elect a presidential nominee. Alan Keyes, who announced his departure from the Republican Party last week, is seen as the likely Constitution Party nominee.

David Schantz of St. Joseph, who will not attend the Kansas City convention because of work commitments, said he liked Dr. Keyes' views on the Constitution, immigration and gun rights.

Party officials welcomed Dr. Keyes, a diplomat during the Reagan Administration.

"You can almost hear a nationwide standing ovation," Jim Clymer, the party's national committee chairman, said. "Ambassador Keyes joins millions of Americans abandoning the party that long ago abandoned them. Keyes had the courage to say what a lot of folks have been thinking for years -- that the Republican Party’s leadership is way out of touch with its base."