By Elizabeth Moomey | Technician – NCSU
Donald Kreamer, a write-in candidate for North Carolina governor, is providing a break from the typical two-party system – which is what 68 percent of voters want, according to his website.
Kreamer is basing his platform on three essential ideas: the economy, education and unemployment. He is concentrating on the education of high school and elementary school students, but not college students.
“We have a pretty good college education system. Just getting them there is the problem,” Kreamer said.
The drop-out rate is high in North Carolina, where 27 percent of students leave school without getting a diploma compared to the national average of 28 percent, according to BoostUp.org.
The high drop-out rate affects the unemployment rate as well, which is an important component of Kreamer’s platform. High school dropouts have a 72 percent greater chance of being unemployed than high school graduates, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Kreamer also emphasizes the importance of small businesses in restoring North Carolina’s economy, saying they are the backbone. He said he hopes to “level out the playing field” and make them more competitive with larger corporations.
Kreamer considers himself a middle-of-the-road candidate, not conservative or liberal, because of his experience of leading a business for at-risk teens.
“I have worked with everyone,” Kreamer said. “Being homeless is just the same as having a million dollars.”
Kreamer has had to personally finance the majority of his campaign fund, so he has had to be socially responsible.
“I have a website and videos on YouTube,” Kreamer said. “We are not the ‘1 percent-ers;’ we don’t have the money, so we are using modern technology.”
While the state typically has candidates from two parties in an election, the active candidates running for North Carolina governor the election are Republican Pat McCrory, Democrat Walter Dalton and Libertarian Barbara Howe.
Pat McCrory’s campaign does not seem to be fazed by Kreamer because it is has a more diverse base.
“We are focusing on republicans, democrats, unaffiliated and first time voters,” Ricky Diaz, Pat McCrory’s press secretary, said.
McCrory’s platform emphasizes fixing the economy, making the government more responsive to businesses, updating the tax code, unleashing the state’s energy resources, creating a future vision for transportation and infrastructure, reforming education, and giving more opportunities to key industries, according to his website.
Dalton’s campaign emphasizes the need of creating jobs, keeping families safe, restoring education funding, treating teachers as professionals, modernizing the classrooms and cleaning up Raleigh, according to his website.
Howe’s platform supports promoting jobs instead of getting in the way, empowering parents to educate their children, ending corporate welfare, instituting the end of the death penalty and protecting individual rights.
Write-in candidates generally run because they think the main contenders are too alike or they are dissatisfied by all parties.
Write-in candidates like Kreamer face an uphill battle to win votes. Only two write-in candidates for the U.S. Senate have ever won, but they were well known and popular.
To learn more about Kreamer’s campaign, visit Kreamer2012.org.
Read in Original Context: As governor’s race heats up, so do independents | Technician – North Carolina State University
