Politics & Government

Karger Campaigns in Concord [VIDEO]

Stresses education reform, jobs in White House bid.

Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger has a plan: To live in New Hampshire, and meet as many voters as he can ... And, give them all blue “Fred Who?” flying discs.

Karger, a former political consultant from California, is trying to break out of what is becoming a very crowded field for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, by campaigning door-to-door, meeting with voters, and having a little fun along the way. 

Karger was at Concord’s National Night Out event on Aug. 3, handing out flying discs and notepads, speaking with parents, kids, and public safety officials about his campaign. The campaign theme is “bringing back the American spirit," with Karger focusing on three key points: optimism, education reform, and job creation.

Find out what's happening in Concordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“I worked for Ronald Reagan and I define that as the ability to get along with people and some optimism, and President Obama is lacking both, I think,” he said. “We saw that divisiveness happening in the debt ceiling talks … that was a big problem.” 

On education reform, Karger said there were a lot of areas on that needed work in the American public education system. He would start by taking on the nation’s two largest teachers unions, calling them “a huge part of the problem,” because they make it difficult to remove bad teachers from the system. He said good teachers should be rewarded with merit pay and decent salaries.

Find out what's happening in Concordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Karger also wants to bring “fun” back to the classrooms, by making education more interesting for students and teachers. He admitted not being the best student, often watching the clock. But dropping out was never an option, due to his parents pushing him to stay in school. Karger thought that there should be mandatory school attendance until teens reach 18, a requirement most states don’t have, he said.

Karger would also like to lower the voting age to 16 or 17, and get kids more engaged in the political process, by teaching interactive civics in the classroom, “teaching politics in real-time,” he called it. He compared it to the experience kids in Granite State have due to the first in the nation presidential primary.

“Get politicians in the high school and get those 2 to 3 percent of kids who like politics, like I did, better engaged,” he said. “I think the kids will then perform better in school.”

On job creation, he said the country was losing thousands of jobs each month to foreign countries. To solve the problem, Karger is putting together a panel of experts to put together some ideas for him to look at.

“We need to keep those jobs in this country,” he said. “We need to either punish these corporations or incentivize these corporations.”

On corporate tax reform, he said he was “unsure” because while the corporate tax rate in the United States was higher than most other countries, there were a lot of loopholes to get around actually paying the rate. Karger pointed to General Electric, as an example, that uses loopholes to escape paying taxes even though the company’s rate would be considered high. 

Karger supports a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and expanding small business to create jobs.

Karger's biggest challenge is getting into the debates and allowing people to hear his message. Placing well in polls and being able to beat the “subjective criteria” that allows major media outlets to keep candidates out of the debate was something he was wrestling with. If he places well in a couple more polls, Karger will be able to get into the upcoming Fox News debate before the Ames Straw Poll, a crucial viability test for the field.

“I’m going to fight every one of these,” he said.

Recently, his campaign heralded a Zogby poll showing him tied with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and just one point behind former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum. All three have been given access to debates while Karger has not. 

If he is allowed into the debates, Karger thinks it will no longer be “Fred Who?" on his flying discs.

“It will be a life altering thing for me,” he said, “and hopefully, I can do OK, and stand out from this not-too-exciting field.”


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