Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore tells a political reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he will be running for President:
Former Gov. Jim Gilmore says he is running for president and plans a formal announcement in the first week of August.
Gilmore, 65, Virginia’s governor from 1998 to 2002, broke the news late Tuesday in an exclusive telephone interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
He said he does not think any other Republican candidates have addressed what he considers the vital national security and economic concerns facing the nation.
“I don’t think we’re addressing the threat to the country,” Gilmore said. He added: “I bring to the table experience that others don’t have.”
Gilmore, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, was governor during the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. He later headed the Gilmore Commission, a congressional panel that advised Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on domestic capabilities for terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction.
The former governor said he is particularly concerned about “the emergency internationally,” citing not just the so-called Islamic State, but Russia’s ventures in Ukraine and China’s moves in the South China Sea.
He also said he believes President Barack Obama’s economic policies have undermined what should be a “foundation of strength” for the nation.
Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio are expected to enter the GOP contest this month. In August Gilmore would become the 17th prominent Republican in the field, not counting Mark Everson, former IRS commissioner under President George W. Bush.
This isn’t the former Governor’s first run at the White House. He made bid back in 2008 that lasted for all of seven months and ended even before the Iowa Straw Poll. Since then, he’s acting as something of an elder statesmen in Virginia Republican politics and working in the private sector.This time around, Gilmore hasn’t shown up in any polling on the national or state level, although to be fair that is largely probably because pollsters aren’t including his name in the mix of candidates that they are asking about, so it’s hard to say exactly where he fits in to the mix of seventeen candidates who will be in the race by the beginning of August. It’s safe to say, though, that he will probably be somewhere near the bottom of the pack, and the fact that he’s announcing so late — indeed, late enough that he obviously will not receive an invitation to the first round of debates — makes one wonder what the point of all this actually is.
