Roemer to Declare Candidacy at Saturday Rally

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer will announce his candidacy for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination at a rally in Bossier City on Saturday, reports the Shreveport Times.

Roemer, whose candidacy has been largely ignored by the mainstream media, formed an exploratory committee in early March and has already made several trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, two of the most important early battleground states in the fight for the GOP nomination.

Roemer, who was raised on a cotton plantation in Bossier Parish and now lives in Baton Rouge, served as governor from 1987-1991 before losing a bid for a second term shortly after switching parties.  Roemer placed a close but disappointing third in the state’s jungle primary in 1991, finishing behind controversial white supremacist David Duke and failing to make the runoff against silver-tongued Edwin Edwards, who had previously served three terms as governor.

Edwards, the longest-serving governor in Louisiana history, went on to easily defeat Duke in the runoff election that year but was later convicted on charges of bribery and fraud and eventually served eight years in federal prison.

Before winning the governorship in 1987, Roemer had previously served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as a conservative Democrat representing his northwest Louisiana district.

Regarded as a reformer, Roemer rode into the governor’s office in 1992 proclaiming a “Roemer revolution.”  Inheriting a huge deficit when he took office, Roemer balanced the state’s budget by sharply curtailing state spending and enacted several reform measures, including linking teachers’ salaries to performance and pushing sweeping campaign finance legislation through the legislature.

The long-shot presidential candidate is also credited with passing legislation to protect Louisiana’s environment, then considered one of the most polluted in the country.  Roemer also hired Bill Lynch, who had uncovered public corruption for decades as an investigative journalist, as the state’s inspector general.

During Roemer’s single term as governor, business flourished and the state’s unemployment rate, which peaked at an exorbitant 12.6% in early 1987, dropped by more than five-and-a-half percentage points.

Roemer, 67, is one of four former governors seeking the Republican nomination.

In addition to serving as governor of Louisiana, Roemer’s executive experience also includes serving as CEO and president of Business First Bank, a Baton Rouge-based business community bank that he founded in 2006.   

The Roemer rally on Saturday will take place at the Bossier Civic Center from 4 to 6 p.m.

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