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.
I realize I’m going to be accused of being some sort of cocktail-party-attending inside-the-Beltway elitist for suggesting that we don’t need additions to the current 16-member GOP field. (Quick, can you name them all? Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Fiorina, Graham, Huckabee, Jindal, Pataki, Paul, Perry, Rubio, Santorum, Trump; Walker and Kasich will make it official soon.) But no. A bunch of these guys have been pretty much absent from the national debate for most of the Obama administration. If your last major accomplishment in the political or policy realm occurred before the iPhone debuted, you’re past your sell-by date, and precisely the wrong contrast with the mostly-geriatric Democratic field.
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.
Okay, in that case, you’re just not paying attention.
Asked what’s different about his 2016 bid, Gilmore said: “I think it’s different because the times are different.”
“The economic challenges are clearer” and “the international challenges much more serious,” he said.
No kidding, Sherlock. That’s a terrible answer.