BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Former Louisiana Gov. Charles “Buddy” Roemer is giving up his attempt to win the Republican nomination for president. But he’s not giving up his bid for the White House, instead trying to run as an independent candidate.
Roemer said he will make a formal announcement Thursday in California.
The 68-year-old former congressman who barely registered in polling on the GOP race said he will try to become the nominee of Americans Elect. The nonpartisan group is pushing for a third-party candidate to run against President Barack Obama and the eventual GOP nominee.
Also, Roemer said he’ll seek the nomination of the Reform Party.
“As the GOP and the networks host debate number twenty-something this evening, they have once again turned their backs on the democratic process by choosing to exclude a former governor and congressman. I have decided to take my campaign directly to the American people,” Roemer said in a statement Wednesday.
Roemer, who served one term as Louisiana governor 20 years ago, built his campaign on lambasting special interests in politics. He limited campaign donations to $100 and refused money from political action committees.
“It is time to heal our nation and build a coalition of Americans who are fed up with the status quo and the partisan gridlock that infects Washington. Together, we will take on the special-interests that control our leaders and end the corruptive influence of money in politics so we can focus on America’s top priority — jobs,” Roemer said.
The Roemer candidacy was always a long-shot.
Pundits and pollsters watching the Republican campaign trail had largely ignored him in the race, and he wasn’t tapped to participate in the major TV debates among GOP contenders.
Even in his home state of Louisiana, Roemer has only polled in single digits among presidential candidates.
Roemer had raised less than $340,000 through the end of last month, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. He also loaned his campaign $50,000, but had about $7,000 on hand to spend.
By comparison, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had brought in more than $62 million in contributions.
Roemer campaigned as an outsider, against what he calls the corrupting influence of money in Washington. He’s complained about debt levels and the federal health overhaul and decried the influence of Wall Street in politics.
The Harvard-educated candidate had been gone from Louisiana’s political scene for 20 years until he launched his presidential campaign last year. Most recently, Roemer built and ran a Baton Rouge-based bank that serves commercial businesses.
He was in the governor’s office from 1988 to 1992, switching from the Democratic Party to the GOP while running for re-election. His “Roemer Revolution” of promised reforms failed to materialize amid disputes with lawmakers and allies of Democratic former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who preceded and succeeded Roemer in office. He lost his re-election bid, pushed out of a runoff by Edwards and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Before that, he was a congressman from 1980 to 1988.
 
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