Gay Republican mulls presidential bid

Karger considers himself an “independent Republican,” and told TheDC he’s more “transpartisan” than bipartisan.

“There’s a term called transpartisan – it’s stronger than bipartisan,” Karger said. “I’m truly in the middle. I was a Hillary Clinton supporter four years ago, a maxed-out donor to her and I supported Gov. John Lynch for re-election, who’s a Democrat in New Hampshire, but I also supported Republican Bill Binnie in the Senate race.”

Like Paul, Karger calls for an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan. But, Karger does think the military should fight terrorism – and thinks the military brass should look into better ways to do so.

“We need to modernize our military to fight terrorism,” Karger said. “The world is a very different place now and the United States, I don’t think, should be imperialistic and going into countries. We need to protect our interests but getting involved in this quagmire in Afghanistan is a terrible move.”

Karger is focused on reforming the education system in the United States – he’s avidly anti-teachers’ unions. He points to California’s public charter schools, which he says are “flourishing,” because they’re able to skate around the American Teachers Association and the National Education Association.

“We need to make school hours longer each day. America has about 180 days of school each year, the rest of the industrialized world is about 220 and some go a lot higher,” Karger said. “In China, they start at 3 years old. If we’re going to compete, and we’re going to have an economy and hope for our generation and for many to come, we’re going to have to compete and we’re going to have to completely reform school and, though I’ll be getting into more specifics on that later, I believe the unions are a huge problem.”

Karger is realistic about his chances, saying the if he enters the race he will do so to be a voice of “moderation.”

“I’m probably not going to win,” he said. “I’m in this for a variety of reasons. I want to be a voice of moderation in the Republican Party and there really is none in this so far.”