Former Florida Rep. Allen West says he plans to spend $6 million on midterm elections next year in support of 12 conservative candidates who are either minorities are military veterans.
West, who lost his re-election bid last year, told
Yahoo News that he commends his fellow Republicans for trying to attract more minorities but doesn't believe they will succeed.
"There's fertile ground there, and I'm not going to sit back there and wait for [the Republican Party]. I'm going to do it myself," he said. "I don't want people to have to struggle as I did. I want them to know that there's a place that they can come to for assistance so I can be an advocate for them to help them out."
Still a favorite among many conservatives. as evidenced by the warm reception he received last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, West refers to himself now as just "a regular guy" who happens to co-host an online talk show on pjmedia.com that still allows him to take shots at the Democrats and what he calls the liberal media.
Michelle Fields, one of his fellow co-hosts, says he seems a lot calmer since he left Congress, despite still being engaged on many issues.
"I feel like his guard has come down," Fields said. "He's so much more relaxed and so much more personable now that he's on the show. It's probably just the stress of the election that got to him, and now it's wonderful that we have an opportunity to see who Allen really is."
West has no immediate plans to run for office again. He joked with Yahoo that even Abraham Lincoln only served one term.
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