It is easy, of course, to write off Buddy Roemer’s presidential exploratory committee as a delusional, quixotic fantasy, until one considers the competition, his gift of oratory, and his core message of money corrupting politics, to which many Republican voters subscribed in last year’s election. Running as a conservative populist and accepting no more than $100 from individual contributors, the former governor is staking out a niche that no other potential Republican candidate has filled. While criticizing the lack of tort reform in the new health care law (“How much did that cost the lawyers?”), the president of a small bank that did not take federal TARP money further defies Republican orthodoxy by criticizing last year’s Democratic bill to regulate the financial industry for not going far enough.
Roemer says he long thought about a self-imposed $100 contribution limit, and the Internet makes it possible, with contributions already coming in at buddyroemer.com. Roemer acknowledged that his family had leased its vast land holdings in northwest Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale. Rumors have the payoff in the tens of millions of dollars. “That’s their money,” he said. “They can give me $100.”
Just as he started his long-shot campaign for governor in 1987, Roemer is traveling light. He says he has put up $50,000 of his own money and spent less than $4,000, adding, “We’ll work with as few paid staff as we can afford.”
His Thursday press conference was well timed, coming while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich dithered on when he would form his own exploratory committee. Roemer is the first current or former officeholder to form a committee. Watching from behind the bank of TV cameras in Roemer’s bank boardroom was volunteer campaign manager Skardon Baker, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas. Baker has been in town from California working with Roemer on speeches.
He goes to Waukee, Iowa, on Monday for his first campaign appearance, before the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. He will follow that up with campaign trips to early primary states New Hampshire and South Carolina. “I have no organization in New Hampshire,” he said. “I’m going to get one.”
Some of the most dismissive comments about his campaign have come from state politicians. But Speaker Jim Tucker won’t write him off so fast. “In Iowa and New Hampshire, he could catch on if he hits the right nerve,” he says. “I see it setting up for him very much like 1987.”
They said it: “It is not going to be enough to run a campaign saying President Obama is not doing a good job.” —Gov. Bobby Jindal’s advice to GOP presidential hopefuls, in The Washington Post
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
Today’s poll question: What chance does Buddy Roemer have of winning the presidency in 2012?
