Former La. Gov. Roemer to Seek GOP Nomination

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer will become the 11th entrant in the GOP race for the White House when he formally announces that he will run on Thursday, Politico reports.

“I should be president or somebody better than I should be,” Roemer said. “The only way to make sure of that is to make my opponents go around me, through me or over me in the primaries.”

The Democrat-turned-Republican will join the crowded field officially while in New Hampshire, where he is scheduled to speak at Dartmouth College.

Roemer, who recently stepped down as chairman of Business First Bank, was one of the first GOP members to form an exploratory committee in March, but it seemed to be going nowhere as he had difficulty with funds. The most recent quarterly filings showed he had raised just $41,000, including $10,000 of his own money.

At the time, he said one of the main planks of his platform would be campaign finance reform.

Now he feels he is ready to go ahead with a full-fledged run for the Republican nomination, telling Politico he is moving full-time to New Hampshire “I’m going to rent a place up there and spend significant, continuous time there,” he said.

Roemer, 67, was a one-term governor of Louisiana from 1988 to 1992. He switched parties in March 1991, eight months before the election. But he came in third behind eventual winner, Democrat Edwin Edwards and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, both of whom have since spent time in jail. He ran again for governor in 1995, when he finished fourth.