Title: Roemer to launch independent bid for President (50 state ballot access - American Elect & Reform parties) Source:
Hot Air URL Source:http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/ ... independent-bid-for-president/ Published:Feb 23, 2012 Author:Ed Morrissey Post Date:2012-02-23 12:29:01 by Hondo68 Ping List:*The Two Parties ARE the Same*Subscribe to *The Two Parties ARE the Same* Keywords:the American Elect party, the Reform Party, former governor & congressman Views:12228 Comments:41
We soon won’t have Buddy Roemer to kick around in the GOP any longer — if we ever did. Today, Roemer will announce his withdrawal as a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, and instead campaign for the American Elect party. If you haven’t heard of the American Elect Party, well …
Frustrated and largely ignored, Buddy Roemer is ending his bid for the Republican nomination and will instead seek the presidency on a third-party ticket.
The former Louisiana governor will make his plans official Thursday at a news conference in Santa Monica, within hours of another Republican debate that he’s been excluded from.
It’s that fact that is driving his decision. The party and the major television networks have “turned their backs on the democratic process” by excluding him, even though he’s a former governor and congressman, he said in a statement.
Roemer has been waging a campaign based in part on ending the influence of special interests in American politics. He capped donations to his campaign at just $100, and raised about $340,000 from individual donors.
He says he will now run for the nomination of Americans Elect, an independent group seeking ballot access in all 50 states that plans to hold an Internet primary to choose a bipartisan ticket.
Roemer will also seek the nomination of the Reform Party, the legacy of H. Ross Perot’s largely self-funded independent runs for President in 1992 and 1996. It hit its high-water mark in Minnesota’s 1998 gubernatorial election when Jesse Ventura narrowly won a three-way race. Unfortunately for the Reform Party, Ventura was singularly uninterested in both reform and governing. His single term ended in embarrassment as Republicans and Democrats crafted budgets without him after Ventura spent a season while Governor as an announcer for the XFL football league. In 2000, the party nominated Pat Buchanan as its presidential nominee, who had no impact on the race at all. By 2004, the Reform Party ended up endorsing Ralph Nader on the Green ticket, and in 2008 nominated that household name Ted Weill to lead their ticket. Thanks to a dispute over control of the party, Weill only appeared on the ballot in his home state of Mississippi … and got only 470 votes.
That is the unfortunate track record of the most significant third party in modern American electoral history.
Independent bids usually have almost no impact on presidential elections, unless the candidate has the money and the inclination to spend millions of his own money or can find substantial funding elsewhere. Perot is an example of the former in the 1992 election; he changed the outcome of the race, but never won a single electoral vote for himself. Nader is an example of the latter, but even that might not have been true in 2000 had it not been for an extraordinarily close race in Florida. He only took 2.7% of the national popular vote, as opposed to Perot’s 19% in 1992.
Roemer’s GOP bid has always been a puzzlement. Roemer has never won office as a Republican; he switched parties during his term as Governor in Louisiana and ended up third in the open primary when he ran for re-election. Until this election, Roemer hasn’t been an organizing or philosophical voice in the GOP, either. He’s a charming candidate to be sure and has much to contribute on ideas for reform if he’s serious, but the move to court the American Elect and Reform Parties strongly suggest that he’s less serious about those efforts and more interested in making himself the point. Nevertheless, it’s impossible not to like Roemer and cheer him on a bit, even if you can’t quite take him seriously.
I actually take Roemer pretty seriously for a few reasons:
1.) America's Elect is a serious organization, with some powerful bi-partisan support. They will be on the ballot in all 50 states.
2.) Every poll shows that the bulk of Americans are sick and tired of both parties.
3.) Roemer is a credible candidate and fiscal conservative -- he was both a Congressmen and Governor. He's a down to earth guy that people can relate to.
Some of his positions:
Economy
- Reduce the size of federal government to about 18 to 18.5 percent of GDP – currently it is at about 25.5 percent.
- Income taxes would be simplified to a flat tax, with an individual exemption of $50,000. A flat tax of 17 percent would be paid on all income beyond that. This means that individuals making $50,000 or less would pay no income tax, while those making more than $100,000 would have an effective tax rate of 8.5 percent.
- Elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax, the Earned Income Credit and most deductions would be key to this plan, to simplify and standardize complicated tax laws.
- Reduce the corporate tax from 35% to 15% and eliminate special interest loopholes.
- Modify social security and Medicare by slowly raising the eligibility age by one month each year for 24 years.
- Cease all energy subsidies, including oil and ethanol, to level the playing field for energy innovation
Healthcare
- Buddy Roemer’s healthcare reform would eliminate Obamacare, but keep insurance coverage of preexisting conditions.
- Any healthcare reform package has to include tort reform, which Buddy achieved as governor of Louisiana to successfully lower healthcare costs.
- Individuals must be allowed to buy insurance policies across state lines, eliminating pocket monopolies and increasing competition among providers. -
- Pharmaceutical companies must be exposed to competition to lower prices.
Education
- School choice is central to ensuring the continuous improvement of educational institutions around the country.
- Buddy Roemer’s healthcare reform would eliminate Obamacare, but keep insurance coverage of preexisting conditions.
It sounds all nice and stuff.
But someone gets a disease that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat. They had no health care coverage. So now they can go buy a policy for a thousand bucks a month or whatever to cover those costs. That sounds like a forumla to bankrupt the insurance providers.
I think pre existing things should be covered. Buy how?
They had no health care coverage. So now they can go buy a policy for a thousand bucks a month or whatever to cover those costs. That sounds like a forumla to bankrupt the insurance providers.
That's definitely an issue.
Maybe the policy should be that you can switch between insurance companies (for example when you switch between jobs) and have your preexisting condition covered. But you can't go from having no insurance, get a condition, and then sign up to have it covered.
Maybe the policy should be that you can switch between insurance companies (for example when you switch between jobs) and have your preexisting condition covered. But you can't go from having no insurance, get a condition, and then sign up to have it covered.
Yeah .....after all why would anyone want a health insurance policy that might actually might help cure a condition that created the need in the first place.
What's the definition of insurance? Something you only need to pay for, if you don't need it?
Insurance is something you would buy in case you got sick. Not something you get once you get sick.
For example if you got in a car accident. You don't go get insurance after the accident and expect it to be honored for the accident you got in before buying the insurance.
"Insurance is something you would buy in case you got sick. Not something you get once you get sick."
Which is why it is required to be insured to drive. It does no one any good if an uninsured motorist can't uphold her or his side of the obligation in an accident.
Similarly, it is important that all Americans have health insurance. It does no one any good if people, when they eventually and inevitably fall sick or need medical attention can't get medical care, thus become a burden to us all as such people postpone health care quyite often to the point where treatment costs a great deal more then it would of had they gone to a doctor in a timely manner.
I was lucky enough to have the VA health care system before I went back to work full time and thus qualified for my employer's health care plan.
I was able to get health care having earned the benefit for serving the U.S. Military.
All Americans deserve the human grace and respect and be given health care should it be needed.
Which is why I support the President's health care plan, and want it expanded to include a single payer element that makes sure no one is ever without the health care they deserve as human beings. It simply is not humane, nor cost effective to do otherwise.
