First Out Gay US Presidential Candidate On His Historic Run For The White House
Image: Fred Karger. Image: Facebook
“I ran for President; the first openly gay candidate…I crashed the Presidential campaign. That’s what I did,” says Fred Karger, the first Out LGBTQI candidate for US President.
“I’d been in politics for 30 years but I’d never run for office. It was very presumptuous.”
Karger, who was in Sydney recently as part of a promotional tour for his new book World’s Greatest Crasher, sat down with the Star Observer to discuss his historic run for the White House.
“I knew I was a long shot…it was a little bit unique that I came out of the closet to save a gay bar in Laguna Beach (the Save the Boom campaign) and then I decided I was going to run for office. What could I run for? I might as well run for president.”
Actor-Turned-Politician
Before launching his campaign for President in 2012, Karger was a former actor who later became a longtime political consultant, and worked as an advisor on several Presidential campaigns.
“It was a two-and-a-half-year, full-time gruelling undertaking,” Karger says, of his self-funded campaign. “I had staff, I did 20 commercials, we did research we did direct mail…we did all the things that big campaigns did.”
Karger’s competitors for the Republican nomination included such heavy hitters as Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Gary Johnson. Karger is credited as running the first television commercial of the 2012 Presidential race, using the slogan “Fred Who?”
Karger was ultimately one of the final three challengers for the nomination following Newt Gingrich’s withdrawal from the race. Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts ultimately won the nomination but was defeated by the incumbent, President Barack Obama.
Karger’s run was unsurprisingly attacked by conservatives, and Karger was labelled as being part of the “radical homosexual community,” by Steve Scheffler, an Iowa delegate to the Republican National Committee.
The Marriage Equality Candidate
Karger ultimately spent close to a million dollars on his run for the White House. “I was the only full marriage equality candidate including President Obama.”
Karger, who ran as a candidate for the Republican nomination, ultimately quit the Republican Party in January 2020 after 49 years so that he could vote for Pete Buttigieg.
“He’s gonna be our next president; no doubt about that. He will be. He’s so smart,” Karger says of Buttigieg.
Karger says he stayed in the Republican Party “all those years to try and change it, hoping that it would more reflect the country, open up and become far more diverse,” and he is dismayed by the continuing threats to LGBTQI people in the US. “What is going on in this country is so sad. It’s horrific to see politicians attacking the most vulnerable, the Trans Community, all for perceived political gain.“
“The new Supreme Court in the US is just all religious fanatics. Trump appointed three of them, and now it’s a big majority. They’re just salivating. They reversed abortion within months, and now they’re salivating over reversing marriage equality,” Karger says.
“I hope our LGBTQ American political organizations will work hard to defeat these politicians when they face their next election.”
‘I Never Supported Donald Trump’
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Karger is also not a fan of Donald Trump. “I have never supported Donald Trump,” Karger says. “His hostile takeover of the Republican Party is complete, after driving away millions of moderate Republicans. We will have to wait and see how the New York indictment works out. I think a far better approach would be to have the US Justice Department charge him for crimes leading up to and during the January 6, 2021, insurrection.”
When asked to comment on his thoughts about the conservative LGBTQ group, Log Cabin Republicans, Karger says, “Log Cabin has struggled for 45 years, but they work hard to make LGBTQ politics somewhat bipartisan. A great example is when the Respect for Marriage Act was moving through Congress last fall to make same-sex marriage federal law.”
“Forty-three Republican House members voted for it and more importantly 12 Republican US Senators voted for it too, which allowed it to get out of the Senate. Even Mormon Church member, Senator Mitt Romney voted for it, after signing a pledge ten years earlier supporting a Federal Constitutional Amendment to ban same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Log Cabin continues to make a difference.”
Karger himself vows to continue fighting for equality and freedom for the LGBTQIA community. Karger founded the non-profit organization Californians Against Hate in 2008, and he says, “I want to let the community and the adversaries of equality know that I’m not retiring.”
“You can be very happy and fulfilled by helping others,” says Karger. “That’s what I dedicated my golden years to.”
