SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Everywhere he goes, he's ignored by his own party — including, apparently, in Puerto Rico.
Fred Karger, an openly gay protest candidate for the Republican nomination, has spent six days on the island campaigning and lobbying the office of Gov. Luis Fortuno for a meeting. But according to an article in today's Puerto Rico Daily Sun, the territory's only English-language daily newspaper, the administration never got back to him. The article points out that Karger has spent more time here than any other presidential candidate.
Of course, Fortuno isn't the first prominent Republican to snub Karger: he has devoted much of his candidacy to antagonizing the GOP for what he sees as an anti-gay agenda. Most in the party establishment view him as a gadfly at best — if they know who he is.
But while Karger has failed to make inroads with the party, he's proven extremely adept at getting local press to pay attention to his efforts. Versions of the Sun's headline have appeared in newspapers from Manchester to Michigan: It's practically a genre by now.
Meanwhile, the front page of the Sun makes it clear that editors didn't take kindly to Romney ending his visit to the island early in order to focus on Tuesday's primary in Illinois.
