Gay candidate Fred Karger was scheduled to file paperwork this morning at the FEC Offices in Washington D.C. seeking the Republican nomination for President. Karger is the first candidate to officially do so.
Karger was the first to announce he was seriously considering running for President on April 10, 2010 at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans and the first to establish a Presidential Exploratory Committee on July 18, 2010. He was the first to run commercials in New Hampshire right after Labor Day last year, the first to run an Iowa commercial right after the November midterm elections and the first to hire a State Director in Iowa on December 1, 2010. So it only stands to reason that Karger would be the first to file for the Republican nomination for President. Oh, yeah, Fred would also be the first openly gay candidate to run for President in history.
Karger brings with him a wealth of political and campaign experience. He has managed dozens of campaigns, worked on nine Presidential campaigns including senior consultant with President's Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
After a 30 year career in politics, Karger retired in 2004 and became an LGBTQ activist. During the summer of 2008, he discovered the Mormon Church's complete control of California's Proposition 8 and filed a sworn complaint with the California Ethics Commission against the Mormon Church. The Salt Lake City based Church was prosecuted, investigated, found guilty and fined after an 18 month investigation.
Karger also filed the successful complaint against the National Organization for Marriage for alleged money laundering with the state of Maine's Ethics Commission. That investigation is ongoing after 16 months.
And Karger's group Rights Equal Rights, organized national boycotts of four major donors to California's Yes on Prop 8 campaign. He settled two and two are ongoing. The boycott of $125,000 donor Doug Manchester's hotels in San Diego has been in effect for nearly three years, CLICK HERE. Karger's boycott of A-1 Self Storage Company, whose owner Terry Caster gave $693,000 to qualify and pass Prop 8, is in its 30th month, CLICK HERE.
Roll Call reports that Karger was warmly welcomed by RNC Chair Reince Priebus (pictured) and RNC Chief of Staff Jeff Larson on Tuesday:
“He welcomed me and said they would provide any of their facilities — obviously they have to be neutral,” Karger said, adding that his Washington-based communications director was invited to attend presidential-related RNC meetings in the future as well.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and his vice chairman joined the meeting soon after it began.
“In comes Reince to shake my hand,” Karger said. “We had a great meeting. I gave him one of my T-shirts.
“They rolled out the red carpet,” he continued. “I've been getting a lot of resistance from the establishment, particularly in Iowa. … So to have the chairman, vice chairman and chief of staff welcome me with open arms was very gratifying.”
In early January, Karger was blocked from a candidate's debate by the Iowa Christian Alliance's Steve Scheffler, who is also a GOP committeeman there.
Scheffler told him in an email: "You don't care about transparency–you and the radical homosexual community want to harass supporters of REAL marriage. I am the Republican National Committeeman for Iowa. As a private citizen and knowing literally thousands of caucus goers, I will work overtime to help ensure that your political aspirations are aborted right here in Iowa. Have you studied our past caucuses–you have NO chance here in Iowa!"
