The Lonely Gay Warrior Runs For The White House

By David Mixner -


   Who would volunteer to eat rubber chicken at political dinners, navigate the snows of New Hampshire and milk that cow at the county fair in Iowa? Longtime political strategist and openly gay Fred Karger is doing just that At the risk, even in his own community, of being accused of tilting at windmills in the best tradition of Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, Karger is not deterred. Already pushing the stone up the hill we find Karger making it heavier by deciding to run in the Republican primaries in his request for that party's nomination for President in Tampa in 2012.

   In The Washington Post this past Wednesday featured an article by Dan Zak, "Crashing the Party", chronicling Karger's courageous effort. The reporter followed Karger on the campaign trail and filed this report.

"He has visited New Hampshire more than any other presidential prospector in this young election cycle. This skiddy late-night ride from a gathering in Keene to his Concord hotel is part of his 11th trip to the state in the past year. He's slingshotting around, hosting tiny town halls, collecting volunteers one by one and arranging coffee dates with policy experts, academics and state politicians.

This is not a stunt, Fred insists." 

Zak describes one event in New Hamphire:
  

"Fred has Frisbees.

And stickers featuring his slightly airbrushed face. Fred has retirement money, which he's burning at a rate of between $20,000 and $30,000 a month on his almost-campaign. And T-shirts featuring a New Hampshire license plate that reads "FRED WHO?" And customized pins that cross the American flag with the rainbow one.

And Fred has pizza. Where there is pizza, there are college students.

He draws 25 of them to a basement meeting room at the University of New Hampshire in Durham last Tuesday, and about a dozen Dartmouth College Republicans to a conference room in Hanover the following night. His tortoiseshell glasses, gray wool suits and previous acting experience might win him a walk-on part as John Slattery's older brother on "Mad Men." He runs through his biography, outlines his rickety platform (a 28th amendment to lower the voting age, education reform to make school "more interesting") and compares himself to Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, who ran for president in 1972.

Chisholm : Obama :: Fred : The first openly gay president of the United States.

"I know this sounds crazy," he acknowledges to the students, who regard him with arched eyebrows and the occasional nod. "Why am I here?"

Because the GOP needs a pro-choice, antiwar, freedom-for-all, spendthrift compromiser inspired by Nelson Rockefeller and Teddy Roosevelt, he says."Who would volunteer to eat rubber chicken at political dinners, navigate the snows of New Hampshire and milk that cow at the county fair in Iowa? Longtime political strategist and openly gay Fred Karger is doing just that At the risk, even in his own community, of being accused of tilting at windmills in the best tradition of Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, Karger is not deterred. Already pushing the stone up the hill we find Karger making it heavier by deciding to run in the Republican primaries in his request for that party's nomination for President in Tampa in 2012.

for more from David visit Live from Hell's Kitchen.

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