Fred Karger–a 60-year-old gay Laguna Beach resident, actor and longtime Republican political consultant–has formed an official presidential exploratory committee in hopes of toppling President Barack Obama in the 2010 election.
Karger isn't a lightweight in political circles. He served as a senior consultant for the campaigns of presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford while a partner at the consulting firm Dolphin Group. He helped the Bush campaign tank Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988 with the notorious “Willie Horton” ad.
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But his biggest recent claim to fame is more local. After retiring in 2004, Karger lead an effort to save the Boom Boom Room, the historic gay oceanfront bar in Laguna Beach. He's also created Californians Against Hate, a pro-gay marriage group that monitored Mormon church-related donors to Proposition 8.
The presidential bid apparently isn't a cheap publicity stunt. Karger has reportedly visited Iowa and New Hampshire, the sites of the first two presidential contests.
According to an October 7 article in the Washington Blade, Karger is holding a campaign event today in Washington, D.C.
“I have worked on nine presidential campaigns,” Karger
told Blade reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. “This would be my tenth. I have managed dozens of other campaigns all over the country and would bring that wealth of experience to my own candidacy.”
Karger's candidacy, if he eventually formally declares, would enthusiastically espouse pro-gay rights, he says.
So if Karger is sworn in as this nation's 45th president will there be a First Gentleman?
You can visit his campaign website
HERE.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
