The First Openly Gay Major-Party Presidential Candidate | Fred Karger

In this episode, I sit down with one of the most unexpected — and fearless — figures in modern LGBTQ political history: Fred Karger.

Before he became a nationally recognized LGBTQ activist, Fred was a longtime Republican political consultant working inside the GOP at the highest levels. But in 2004, after retiring from political consulting and taking a life-changing trip to Peru, everything shifted.

What started as a local fight to save Laguna Beach’s historic Boom Boom Room — one of the country’s oldest gay bars — became the moment that publicly brought him out at age 53 and launched him into full-time activism.

We talk about how that campaign (“Save the Boom”) ignited something bigger. After California’s Proposition 8 passed in 2008, Fred founded Californians Against Hate, targeting the major donors behind the anti-marriage equality movement. Instead of yelling into the void, he focused on strategy:

• Publicly tracking Prop 8 donors
• Publishing a “dishonor roll”
• Organizing high-profile boycotts — including the Manchester Grand Hyatt
• Forcing accountability through economic pressure

Those efforts cost businesses millions and ultimately pushed several donors to redirect money toward LGBTQ causes.

Fred also details his years-long battle exposing the Mormon Church’s behind-the-scenes involvement in Prop 8, filing ethics complaints across multiple states, facing threats and subpoenas, and refusing to back down.

Then we get into history.

In 2012, Fred became the first openly gay major-party candidate to run for President of the United States as a Republican. We talk about:

• Why he decided to run
• His experience campaigning in New Hampshire
• Media breakthroughs
• What it was like challenging his own party
• The global impact of that historic candidacy

This conversation isn’t just about the past. It’s about strategy, courage, and what effective activism actually looks like. Fred shares his rules for winning political change, lessons from independent organizing, and why voter registration and campaign involvement still matter more than outrage.

We also discuss his two books and how he wants his legacy — as an activist and as a presidential candidate — to be remembered.

If you care about LGBTQ political history, marriage equality, the fight over Prop 8, or how to create real accountability in politics, this is a conversation you need to hear.

For more about Fred Karger check out his website  https://fredkarger.com/

And also “FRED”  the documentary https://youtu.be/sb6__cDI1o4

You can write to us at: Questions@DukesDownload.com

And follow us onInstagram: 

• @jamesdukemason
• @PrideHouseMedia

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Duke's Download, my new weekly podcast. I'm Duke Basin here. And each week I'll bring you candid, thought-provoking conversations with incredible guests from the worlds of politics and pop culture. Together we'll explore the stories, ideas, and moments that shape our lives and drive change. I'm so glad you're here. Now let's get started. Hey everybody, welcome back to Duke's Download. I'm your host, James Duke Mason. And today I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome one of my dear friends and one of the most influential LGBTQ activists in the country, Fred Carger. Um, Fred made history in 2012 as the first openly gay candidate for president of the United States in American history when he sought the Republican nomination, a longtime political insider who worked on campaigns for Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. Fred later turned his insider skills into powerhouse activism. He founded Californians Against Hate, led headline-making boycotts that cost anti-equality donors millions, took on the Mormon church over Prop 8, fought to save the legendary Boom Boom Room in Laguna Beach, and has now shared his wild journey in two books: Fred Who, Political Insider to Outsider, and World's Greatest Crasher. Fred, thank you so much for joining me. I've been really excited to do this for a while.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

It's a pleasure. Great to be with you, Duke. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Of course. Um, I've read both of your books, obviously, and we've known each other for about 15 years now, which is crazy. But uh I knew your story, and obviously I first found out about you before we ever met uh when you were running for president when I was still living abroad as a teenager. Um but you know, in the midst of getting to know you better, I learned that your first big uh I guess role or campaign or project in terms of advocacy was on the local level. It was actually to save the boom boom room, which was a legendary gay bar in Laguna Beach, sort of like the Abbey, but uh of you know Orange County back in the 80s and 90s and 2000s. After you had been involved in Republican politics and uh state and national politics for so long, why did you decide that that was going to be your first entree into advocacy?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Well, it's kind of a strange story, but uh I'd retired in uh 2004 and uh from you know, as you mentioned, a long career in political consulting, wasn't sure what I was gonna do. I was 53, and I said, I want to do something significant, but I had no idea what that meant. And then I was ended up in Machu Picchu, Peru, it's kind of sacred spot, had this weird thing happen on top of the mountain after the park had closed. And I'm I'm not sure what happened, but I I started being an activist uh about three weeks later, and the bar in Laguna Beach had been sold to this multi-billionaire, Stephen Udvarhazy. Nobody seemed to be concerned that he was going to close it and build a hotel. So I stepped up to the plate, brought my political skills with me, and organized an effort called Save the Boom. This is 2006, internet websites, everything kind of new, but I had a good friend who put a great website together and we organized it a two-year campaign. We kept the bar open an extra year, but I took those skills and um kind of aggressively went after this multi-billionaire. He ended up selling it. Uh, but what it did for me, Duke, was out me because uh in all my years as a political consultant, I'd never been openly gay. I had partners, I was in a 11-year relationship, I I was very active in the gay community, but in in gay politics too, behind the scenes, never out front. And so this was kind of a big coming out for me at 53 years old and um got a huge amount of attention. LA Times did five separate stories on it, including a Sunday magazine piece with 12 pictures of me. And so I I became uh an out activist as the people I had admired and envied for so many years. Suddenly I was now in the loop and I had to figure out what I was gonna do with this newfound uh uh activity of mine and in retirement.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

I think that's a really important lesson, actually, or at least a important thing to take away, is that it really did come from a place of genuine passion and obviously a personal investment in terms of being out and all that. But the idea that advocacy and activism comes from a place of authenticity, and that you know, you despite having years of national political experience, you decided to at least initially make your focus like a local passion project of source, and then as you said, it kind of grew from there. But um was part of it historic preservation? Like, did you all did you just feel strongly that you know having a landmark like that that was a refuge or a beacon for the gay community was that a goal? And is historic preservation for the gay community something that you feel uh passionately about?

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Well, it turned into a little bit of that. We actually compared the boom boom room to the Apollo Theater, which was pretentious, all right. But uh it was so there were similarities, and the state actually bailed out of New York, bailed out the Apollo Theater. So the the thing I started going to the boom boom room when I was in my 20s and first moved to California, about an hour and 15 minutes south of LA. And as I mentioned, I wasn't out at all. So I was very paranoid to go out in Los Angeles. I might run into somebody I know, particularly as I got more involved in politics. But if you went about an hour and 15 minutes south, it was a much safer place. And many, many people from all over the world came there because it was a very comfortable place to go and it was very fun. And Laguna Beach, those of you who don't know, it's just an amazing, beautiful beach town. Uh, it's always had a lot of celebrities. Betty Davis used to live there, and it's just it's a it's a great, great refuge. And so I would go there all the time feeling comfortable, and and tens of thousands of other people, and you know, I'd be boyfriends, I'd just go down for the weekend, and so it was a special spot. And also, well, you know, half of it was that I was bored. I needed something to do, which poor Mr. Udvarhazi regretted, but I needed a project and I felt it was time to step up and do it. And I tried to get others to front it, nobody would. Um, and so I just did it. Now hey, I took those political skills, and then the new wonderful internet and the website, my friend Leif Strickland put this great website together. I was gonna announce I was gonna spend$100,000. You needed to, you know, at least talk big initially. But when once that website went up, media, people from all over the world got um excited about it and it looked very legitimate. So that taught me a very valuable lesson, which I then used in my other activities as I took on bigger projects.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Well, it was sort of serendipitous timing because obviously this happened in 2006, and then two years later, Proposition 8 passed, and you became a leading force in that whole resistance, anyway, or the aftermath of Prop 8's passage. Um, one of your boldest moves, one among your first major moves as an activist, was the boycott of the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, uh, after the owner, Doug Manchester, donated$125,000 to support Prop 8. And I'll let you take the lead, obviously, in explaining what happened. But you teamed up with labor unions, it cost the hotel millions of dollars. Um what walk us through how you pulled that off and what the ultimate results were. Um, because it was obviously a major, it was a major news story in in Southern California, in California, especially given the sort of broader political implications at that time.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Oh, yeah. So I I knew as you know, being active in politics for so long that the money was going to be as they had, as it had been in all the other 28, I think, elections, gay marriage elections in the country, where we'd lost all 28. And I'm thinking to myself, gee, when do you change your strategy after you lose the fourth one or tenth one? Or but the LGBTQ Inc., the establishment that were running all these opposition campaigns, didn't switch up the strategy. So I figured, all right, I'm gonna step in, I'm gonna target the big donors and make it, as I said in the New York Times, which broke the story, which is crazy, the guy and a laptop and a good website on that as well. I started California's Against Hate. And the New York Times broke it with the LA Times. And I said, I want to make it socially unacceptable to give vast amounts of money to take away the rights of a minority. And that was taking away same-sex marriage, which we had just been granted, as the other side had gathered signatures smartly to put it on the ballot to take it away. And boy, did I get opposition in San Diego. They ran me out of town. They want nothing to do with this. We're talking about love. We're not talking about that. I said, great, do whatever you're doing. I'm not gonna take any money from, I'm gonna fund this myself. I will contribute to Noah Prop 8. But I just took the reins. And thanks to Cleve Jones, talked about working with labor. He was the uh representative for Unite Here, local, uh the local there, which was the rock star, Young Union. And so we partnered in this boycott. But I got resistance every step of the way. That's not what we do. And so we launched the thing, um, and uh on gay pride in July, I think 15th around there, 2008, and it got you know tremendous amount of media attention. And then, of course, then people started getting on board, but it wasn't until Mr. Manchester kind of waved the white flag because they had announced they'd spent, I mean, they were losing, I think, a million dollars a month. That's what they admitted publicly. Wow. And this was so we know it's a lot more, and lost business. And the union successfully worked to get away to get a lot of these organizations, unions, particularly anybody who was coming in there to cancel their meetings, weddings were canceled, all kinds of things, and he became a real pariah, which wasn't difficult because he was pretty unpopular in San Diego anyway. So we took that to a few other companies as well, and uh wanted to show if you could give money, it's no problem, it's free country, but there are consequences.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Was there there was a big website back then where they would list the major donors to prop aid, right? Where they would like, was that you? That was you, of course.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah, nobody would near this, nobody, everybody was hoping I would fail. They're hoping that okay, I boycott Doug Manchester, you'll give a million dollars next time. And that was always my fear because these guys, you know, have this kind of money where if somebody goes after him, we'll show them. And so no one ever did that. But what we did was several several different parts of this. One was I called it the dishonor role, right? And I had five thousand dollar and over donors. That's a lot of money, particularly in 2008, to pose gay marriage. And so it's all reported. It was a brand new system of the state of California where it was reported daily. Every night there'd be a printout of$1,000 and up donors, and so this pattern started happening, and and we would go after you took advantage of the new technology. The new tech before you used to have to go down to the registrar of voters three months after the election and look at the campaign reports. But this was now instantaneous, and so hired a good friend who was great with Excel. We tracked all the donors. So there was the other thing, the media, you have to look at these campaign reports. You don't know how much they've given, you know, cumulatively. It's they'd see the thousand, but maybe they have 10,000 a month earlier. So we tracked all that. Great asset for the media. Um, I was attacked for that. We uh just put public information from the California Secretary of State on it, but the boycotts we did, and we did four during the campaign, very gutsy, because again, everybody I know was hoping I would fail, but I didn't. They all three of them settled, gave as much money as they gave to the yes on eight, to either the no on eight or to LGBT organizations, and it was very successful. One we had one holdout, but it kept the pressure on them, and then everything I did got press. And that was the weapon, and I knew that I was, of course, on the good side and that the media would be much more supportive than these awful people who were, you know, trying to take away marriage and everything else, some real right-wing nuts, many of whom are in government now. Um, so it was a very successful effort, and you know, I would negotiate with these people to get the money that they had given to the yes side, to the no side, and and that worked. And the idea was not just to humiliate and embarrass one individual, but to send a message to the donor community across the country through the New York Times and all these other MSNBC, everybody, that if you give money, you may get the LGBT community to boycott your businesses. And that's what we did. We'd done that in 1978 with the COORS boycott, working with organized labor. And then because none of these organizations would do anything like this, that's not in their DNA, then I took up that mantle.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

There's so much to cover in terms of your advocacy and activism activities. Uh, so I'm gonna try to you know summarize or trunk truncate the whole Mormon church uh issue as much as I can. But you were obviously in the aftermath of Prop 8, one of the Mormon churches in terms of their political apparatus, one of their main uh opponents and exposers in terms because they'd been going, you know, invested in fighting gay marriage back to the 90s, and when it first was uh brought up as an issue when the Hawaii Supreme Court, you know, was considering the issue. Um, you expose their massive behind-the-scenes funding and organization in terms of supporting Prop A when religious entities are not supposed to be involved in politics at all, uh, you know, officially or legally. Um, you filed complaints in multiple states, you ran ads and salt park parodies, uh, related to exposed the Mormon church. What was your strategy and what kind of impact did that pressure have?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

So I was looking at these campaign reports every night and look expecting having worked in Republican politics, I'd know some of these donors to the Yes on Prop Aid campaign, didn't recognize any names. All these new names I'd never heard of all over California, started coming in 5,000, 10,000, dentists from Riverside giving$35,000, insane amount of money to take away gay marriage. Well, we did Brian did some Googling, which was also new then. Well, they'd only given one political contribution in their life to Mitt Romney for president, who's Mormon. They are bishop in their Mormon church and wherever they live. And this was starting to get for other states too. So it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on because it's started it money trickling into something like I think$300,000,$400,000 a day coming in, was all Mormon money. So I had had a big story about me and my boycotts in the Wall Street Journal. So I went to them because that's if you're going to get the business community to back away, that's your best source. So they did a wonderful story. Mark Schufs, who was a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, did the story, the research. We worked closely with them and broke the story about the Mormon church's involvement. And as I was told by the former head of PR for the Mormon Church, who's now come around to our side, uh, that the church has never been the same since. Very sensitive to PR. So when I discovered that, I just went full-on Fred Carger for the next nine years to do everything I could to get them out of the gay marriage business, which I announced publicly, did the animated series, ran ads, did all this stuff, spent a lot of money, a lot of time. I don't know, over 50, 60 trips to Utah. And when the uh the marriage bill in the U.S. Senate came up, they announced that they were supporting that bill. And it was Romney, I think, and they all the all the Mormons voted for it. I mean, it was a 180, and I was told by every Mormon you don't understand this is in our doctrine, this is never going to change. And I just go, Well, let's see. And so I held their feet to the fire and and was successful. Now, of course, it's turning a little bit the other way, but they they actually became an ally. And it and it's still a huge problem in the church, the acceptance of LGBTQ Mormons, the suicide rate in Utah. When I was working, was six times the teenage suicide rate of any other state, six times. So you imagine that, and all the attempted, I just it was an awful thing. The church is still very, very evil in how they treat their LGBTQ members. Um, you know, you had David Archillette on, it was great to see that. And and you got to see the personal effect on someone like that. And you know, he was a celebrity within the church. So the average people of the Mormon church who are LGBTQ are just had their lives are ruined by that church. So I made it a personal cause. Nobody could figure it out. All these Mormons, ex-borvers, what the hell am I doing? But I I knew I had a cause and I I felt a real calling to take that on, and and I did very aggressively. Got a lot of death threats, got subpoenaed by the Mormon Church twice in federal lawsuits. They're trying to ruin me, get me out of the business. But guess what? I'm still, well, I'm sitting now, but I'm still standing.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

You are still standing, and uh, you've stood high, tall, and uh and high amongst, you know, for in the history of our movement. I mean, I'm ready to get to your campaign, but the but I wanted to ask you first, um, you know, as someone who has been incredibly effective in terms of activism and applying pressure to whether it be uh, you know, Mormon church, major companies and donors to anti-gay causes, what ways do you think are the most effective, whether it be tools or lessons or principles for actually achieving, you know, change and progress? Are there certain principles or rules of thumb you keep in mind every time you start a new project?

SPEAKER_01 18:47

My boss, Bill Roberts, who taught me everything I know in politics, who is one of the most famous political consultants in the country starting in the 60s with television advertising, political polling they started, and then none of this has been done. He said, you know, the public votes for two reasons. They vote for one guy or cause and or against a guy or cause. So you got to come up with reasons to vote against something. So my job was to come up with reasons so they would, you know, be unpopular, all these people who are funding all these causes. The LGBTQ organizations that I had revered my whole life, I couldn't believe all that these people were first, they were out, they were giving money, they're doing all this great, great stuff. Well, as I've gotten more immersed in all this, I've seen that they're just they're more cautious than anything, other than a brief period of three or four years when Chad Griffin was heading HRC, a political consultant. Like they were, they were aggressive. Now they're just, you know, selling merch and raising money. They don't really do anything because they're too cautious. And I understand they have boards and you know, donors. And if you do something and piss somebody off, then people walk away. So they have to, that's what associations are notorious for, being cautious. So it takes an independent guy like me and my organizations, which grew wasn't just me, it grew after a while. Plus, I had consultants and lawyers and accountants, and I I created somewhat of a big operation and production. We did a lot of great commercials. The websites are all still up, Californians Against Hate, which after California, I took the Mormon Church uh to Maine, was the next election a year later, and I got their front group, the National Organization for Marriage, investigated, found guilty after a five-year investigation by the state ethics office. Janet Mills, who's running for Senate, was attorney general then, and she ran that whole effort, which bankrupted the National Organization for Marriage. So you got to be aggressive and you often need independent groups. It's like campaigns might be nice, but they'll have a super PAC that will do the dirty one. And my firm and I used to specialize in the opposition research and not just research, but then action against that, uh, against you know, taking your findings and going up against those people.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Absolutely. And that's a good point. I feel like, I mean, you're you obviously are much more accomplished activists than I am, but I will say, even on my own terms of my own uh activities, you know, having that independence to be able to do whatever you want to do and speak out in whatever way you want to speak out, it gives you a sort of a dexterity that a lot of these bigger, uh sort of slower-moving, clunky organizations, uh sometimes clunky organizations don't have. So that's a that's a really good point.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Like Wake Out of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Very successful.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

You were very helpful and supportive and instrumental in supporting me through that whole process, which meant a lot to me. Um I was gonna I'm gonna ask you about your books, but I figure that first it would make sense to talk about um your campaign. Your 2012 presidential campaign, which changed my life in terms of No, I vividly remember being 17, sitting in my uh bedroom in France, where I lived at the time with my parents, and seeing that you'd formed an exploratory committee. I can I'll never forget seeing it on the advocate website, that news. But your campaign made you and will forever make you the first openly gay major party candidate for president in American history, period, full stop. And uh and I think that's obviously in its in and of itself, putting every other thing you've accomplished aside, that will be a historic achievement forever. Um but looking back, and this is also a question where there's so many different components to it, but I would say, in sort of in essence, in summary, what were the biggest sort of takeaways from that experience? And how did that experience change you and change your life? And uh, you know, I know it's kind of a big, big thing to sort of put into a summary, but what were the main takeaways for you from that whole experience?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Well, so after my Save the Boom campaign and then California's Against Hate and all those activities, I thought, okay, I'm out now. I've uh I've worked in politics my life, I've always wanted to run for office, always, since I was a little kid, but I knew I couldn't because I was gay and had this secret. Well, I don't got the secret no more. So I can run for office, but I was what, 60 years old? What do I do? So I decided to run for president because there'd never been an openly gay major party candidate, as you mentioned. So I figured, well, it would be pretty funny to do it in the Republican Party because they're the ones that are, you know, the big problem. And I have very good Republican credentials going back for many years, always on the more moderate side, but I worked for Reagan and H.W. Bush. And so I decided to step it up and I did an exploratory trip to DC, met with uh Victory Fund and HRC and Public Winter Choice, a bunch of people who were kind of you know in shock and and disbelief. And a lot of I got that same kind of bewildered look from everybody, but then I went to New Hampshire and I spoke to a group of uh LGBTQ um uh kids at this um Gay Straight Alliance at the University of New Hampshire in Dover, and I just got this unbelievable response. Um, and it's I remember seeing that footage.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

It was I even I got kind of emotional watching it because it was you know, you were, I mean, for I mean, we know we both love Pete Buttigieg, but you know, people forget the world was very in America was very different even 15 years ago. And so I remember seeing that footage, I think, in the Fred documentary, which the poster of which is in the behind you, which I was honored to be uh interviewed for as well. But not to interrupt, but I I remember seeing that footage, and it's true. I mean, for people like me who had been interested in politics for so long, you really took something that was like an abstract idea that a lot of people had, you know, people, I don't think a lot of people had even really thought of the possibility, really, in terms of a real credible candidate, and you made it a reality, which I think is, and and so I remember that footage of seeing these students who it was almost like seeing something that they dreamed of or only imagined, you know, actually brought to reality.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

You know, they gave me the green light because I was pretty much decided against it at that point after New York and DC trips, and I spent a week in New Hampshire, and it looked like just you know an impossible mountain to climb. I've never run for office before. I certainly know politics, but I'm not a billionaire, and so it was going to be an uphill battle, number one to be taken seriously, because you know they get a lot of kooks that run for president. Not that I'm not a kook, but I ran a very serious campaign and I patterned it after Shirley Chisholm's campaign, who ran 1972 as the first African American to run for president. And she was just very distinguished, always, and articulate and polite. And it was just kind of a good blueprint for me. And I, of course, revered her, remembered her. I was involved in that 72 campaign, not on hers, but and so it was um it was something that I just kind of carried through and built momentum and you know, baby steps, but we got a few big breaks. We got the Washington Post called me after we'd had an event in DC and wanted to come up to New Hampshire and cover the campaign for three days. This is when the Washington Post kind of ruled the world, and a reporter named Dan Zach came up every night after this we put these days three days together, the full-on campaign schedules, townhouse, town uh hall meetings, and a lot of media. And he was just passed out in the back seat of the car, tired. We wore him out, but he went, wrote a wonderful story, and that did two things that got a lot of national attention, other media interested, but even more importantly, New Hampshire, where they weren't quite sure how to what to make of me. I suddenly became very serious because everywhere we'd go, and it's a small state, he'd introduce himself, Dan Zach, Washington Post. What do you think of this? What do he asked? And so the word of the Washington Post covering me got around in a hurry. And boy, did that change everything for me. I ended up in the primary, which had we had another month that we should have had, I would have done better. But I did end up uh beating this Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, who was my goal, Hendrickson tour, the two most homophobic people running that year. I don't know who was worse. They're both just awful. And so I I made a letter, got some, got on the next ballot in Michigan, which was great, and spent a month there campaigning, hired a staff there, traveled all over, then Maryland, and ended up going to Puerto Rico, that primary, beat Ron Paul, who's a congressman who had run four years earlier, raised$40 million. In every debate, I got more votes than he did, which was a big upset and got me a lot of press. And then ended up in California on my home state ballot, thanks to Mark Leno, a state senator, convinced the Secretary of State to put me on, and then ended up in Utah. Romney versus Carger. I was the last candidate standing against him in his, you know, in a Mormon state, but Mormon candidate. And I took on the church very aggressively, which got me in bad stead with the LGBT community there because I the study had just come out, and I mentioned it's six times the attempted suicide rate in Utah. And I did a really graphic commercial about that and appealed to the church president to meet with me to try and figure something out. Of course, they laughed me out of the state, but I I made a huge impact and little things like uh had our southern Utah coordinator set up an interview with it's called the St. George Spectrum, and that's 99.9% Mormon in Southern Utah. She'd been working as an activist just to get this newspaper there, the main paper, to print the word gay, which they'd never done. Well, guess what? When I did an interview with them, I was front-page news, gay candidate campaigning in Utah. And so it became, you know, little things like that that really broke through for people who, like when I was like you, a political junkie in high school, would see something like that. It would just have a huge impact on me. And that's what kept me motivated, going for two and a half years full-time, with the feedback I got from so many people, and I thought younger people, but I hear from the 80-year-old who said, Yeah, I've been closeted my whole life, I was married to a woman to have kids, but now I feel comfortable in coming out and living my life. Um, so it really was a roller coaster for me emotionally um and exhausting. Uh, but it was something that I felt needed to be done. And and of course, you mentioned then Peepta Judge, eight years later, whom I met actually uh just about what seven years ago last month, and became very close, fully supported, endorsed him, been very active in his campaign. And we have kind of this strange bond because we're the only two, and you know, he took it to the moon, couldn't get a better candidate. So I'm very honored to pass the baton to Pete Buttig, who I'm looking forward to working for um two more years.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

There's that great inscription that Pete wrote to you in his book. Uh which was what was his book called? I forgot, but uh but uh he wrote an inscription to you basically saying, Thank you, Fred, for paving the way. And uh I mean that's true. You guys are the only two, basically, uh or not basically, literally, ever. Well, you know, we'll we'll see. I you know, hey, obviously politics has always been my passion, so we'll see what the future holds. But uh, but um no, I mean, I you know, I think it's important for the record to say that you know, you ran an incredibly credible campaign. I mean, you were on David Frost, one of the most like you know uh legendary reporters of all time, interviewed you. Rachel Maddow interviewed you, Washington Post covered you. Say it again? Many times.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

No, I thought literally thousands of interviews and a lot of international. And you know, what do you hell you talking to the main magazine in Germany for? They are no, they're no American voters. I said, Well, I this message and why I'm running is for this worldwide effort. So some kid in you know Hamburg can see that there's a gay candidate running for president, it's just hugely empowering.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

I was in France and I and I saw that headline. So it was had it it re had far, it was far reaching in terms of its impact.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

The international press was probably the best I got, and I got the other thing was I the media was very intrigued once I started to catch on a little bit, and I used the Gary Johnson model, so he was a former governor of New Mexico. I always big fan of, more moderate and pro-marijuana legalization, all that anyway. So we he would get a story because he was you know former two-term governor, and then we'd wait a day, and then we'd like my communications director, Rena Shaw, who's all over television now, she would call the Atlantic and say, Hey, here's another candidate, and they'd skeptically meet with him and then meet with me and then end up doing a story. So we we really worked hard to get media, but once it caught on, then that became probably the bulk of what I was doing, and even went to Israel. I'm also the first Jewish Republican to ever run for president, and I was welcomed there by all the leadership. Uh, huge front-page story in the Jerusalem Post, you know, very relieved. What do you mean with like the defense minister or something like that? The former ambassador, the minister of defense, uh several of the members of the Knesset, uh, including the first openly gay member, and then went to London and I appeared on it's the David uh Sacker or not David Um Sacker, it's uh um it's kind of Meet the Press on Steroids. Can't think of the name of the show, but it's their big, big talk show. And he's a tough interviewer. So I wanted to take this away from just the U.S. and spread my message that you can do anything you want to do in life if you're LGBTQ, including running for president of the United States. And it it it resonated with a lot of people because I heard from so many. And then the book Fred Who, I've got it every every chapter, I've got an email or message that I've gotten from younger people, particularly, thanking me for what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Well, you know, you've written two books, one of which was about your life and about your campaign. First book is called Fred Who, the second book is called World's Greatest Crasher. Uh what made you decide to write each one? And what do you hope readers, especially younger LGBTQ folks, take away from them?

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Well, I put a checklist together when I decided to run for president, and every the stars kind of aligned. Um, and one of the things you have to do is to write your memoir. And you're seeing that, you know, in spades going, your Gavin Newsom's thing. I mean, every every presidential candidate has to write a memoir. It's just part of the checklist. So, of course, I did, but not being much of a writer, I don't even like writing thank you notes. I did, uh, I brought on a good friend of mine who'd written several prominent stories, including James Baker III's memoir, uh, head of the Southern Poverty Law Centers. So he was a natural, grew up to a block from each other. Brilliant guy, Yale, and the University of Chicago Law School. So he wrote this wonderful memoir telling my story and you know the difficulty I had, the scares, the blackmail attempts, the whole bit. So it's a great story, and it's more of a you know, personal story, gets into the campaign a little bit. And then the second book was because I was also anointed the world's greatest crasher by this Canadian lifestyle blog. Uh, I figured I'd better tell those stories too. And it also gave me a little purpose during the pandemic to work on that. Yeah, worked on that with a very good uh co-writer as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

And by crasher, we should clarify, we wouldn't have to go into it into it too much. Well, not that I would mind, but we we have limited time. Uh, but just for people who don't know, Fred is is you should read the book. It's great, but there's great videos on YouTube and interviews he's done. But talking about how he literally is the greatest party crasher ever. Oscars twice, the White House, Matt Gala, all of it. Uh, it's pretty epic. But uh we we I won't go into the details, but Fred uh graciously invited me to go along uh for a for a uh attempted crash recently. But uh we sort of we semi-succeeded, but I think my short sleeves gave it away. Uh we were going to a more formal event, but uh but that button is amazing of a wristband.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Good lesson for those aspiring crashers out there. You know, wristbands are a big part of events. So if you have long sleeves on, they don't know if you have a wristband, but if you have short sleeve, you know it's obvious lesson learned.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

No, it's lesson learned for sure. But I think you know, those two books together, the crashing book, but also Fred Who, together they sort of give a pretty they're both extremely entertaining and insightful, not just about you, but about there it is. A lot of people, but I think together they sort of provide a great comprehensive history of not just you, but also just the the times and the some of the events that occurred during you know Prop 8 and I mean all of it, your campaign. Um what advice would you give to young activists today who want to make the kind of concrete measurable change you've achieved? Because obviously, when you by the time that you got into activism, you had already been quite accomplished and successful in in politics and can see as a consultant, as an operative. But in terms of small steps that you think young people out there can take, people who aren't necessarily already plugged into politics or activism, what are some small lessons that you think you can impart uh on them or give them and steps that they can take to get involved?

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Well, one of my pet peeves, as I said, I've gotten to know these big LGBT political organizations, is in the 20 years that I've been very involved, I've not seen one voter registration effort. And I try to explain, and I've talked to every head of the HRC since Joe Salmany's when I got involved. The way you win elections is by getting more votes for the other than the other side. But you know, they're doing a million other things. And they go the thing with HRC, they go to the gay prides, hundreds of them every year, all over the country. And they have booths and they have all the merchandise and stuff. Not one you know, tablet to register to vote. It's very easy now. But we need younger people to take that mantle. Everybody get all these organizations start up. Oh, we're gonna you know take back the house and they're gone in a year or something. But if there was a real concerted voter registration effort, you go to West Hollywood Pride or other prides. I've been to dozens of prides. I mean, you get a million people at West Hollywood Pride and over the weekend, and not one person is registered, registering people to vote. And it's a no-brainer because anybody who's at a pride is gonna be a sympathetic, you know, and uh and a supporter. So why don't they do that? Because people move, so they need to re-register. It's very easy now, but a lot of people don't bother, and so you gotta do that. So my advice to younger people would be to start doing that, and you could just take your tablet and do it, or your phone, or get paper from the the registrar or print stuff out online and just sign up voters at LGBT events, and even if they're registered, say we'll register again because it'll be you know, the the system will figure it out. But that's something that I has been missing, and it's just something I just I want to get more involved in. I even took out uh working a little bit with Cleve was called Milk the Vote. It was going to be a project right after we lost prop eight because it's a time to you know take advantage of that. And that's what you know, Chad Griffin took it a different route and went to the courts, which was brilliant, you know, to have able to get the money and the man the power to do it. But you know, you we I thought we'd go back to the ballot, so you just got to register voters. So I think you know that's the thing. Another part is to get involved in campaigns and get to know the candidates, uh, even if they're not LGBTQ, if it's your local congressional candidate or state house or city council or something, get involved because if you're in the room, you're open, you know, it's gonna be good. And obviously, you want a candidate who's supportive of our issues, but to kind of get involved and meet people and network and do all that, and then through the clubs and schools, and there's just so much. And there's you know, now is the time to do it. And this is you know a defining moment in in our history, and better step up and get involved, not just, you know, I love these people on social media that get pissed off and put a you know comment or something. That's it. Well, they can do a lot more, and they should do a lot.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

No, I think that's a great point. Registering people to vote. Uh yeah, it's perhaps mother. I mean, look, I think a perfect example of that on the other side, but just goes to show how important that is, is Charlie Kirk and Turning Point and all that. I mean, that was really what they were all about was registering young people, mobilizing them to turn out to vote, uh, and look what they managed to achieve. Obviously, not to our favor or to our to you know to our detriment, but um it's not glamorous, it's not fun, but it's it's the grunt work.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

But you can actually, you know, you hire there are all these companies, you hire people, you pay eight bucks a signature or something or more, right? And you get the people registered. And every labor union and every national, state, local party does it. It's not a new thing, it's politics 101. And why our LGBT group, the task force, they don't do anything, they don't, they don't just don't get how elections work, and it's really sad.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Absolutely. I hope there's some change uh on that front. Um uh and soon, because it's soon they're a little late to the game on that. But uh, you know, for those of you watching who want to know more about Fred and his significant contributions to gay act advocacy and activism, there's a great book. It's a book, but also a great New York Times essay that was written by Sasha Eisenberg. Uh I forgot what the name of his book was, but he did a great, it was an excerpt from his book in the New York Times, but it actually led with the story of what you did uh at the in the aftermath of Prop A.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

And uh full page in the Sunday New York Times, giving me 100% credit for same-sex marriage based on the fact that I cut off the money and support to the other side. And yeah, I worked with him on his books called The Engagement. He's a real hero. It's the definitive book now on same-sex marriage, going back to Hawaii in '95 and Mormon Church throughout the whole course.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Yeah, and it said you basically wrote a whole new playbook for the digital era of activism and that that didn't really exist before that point. Um, so you know, in addition to your two books, I think reading that article would be great, uh, is is great reading for people. As a final point, Fred, um, what do you see as your big as your legacy? And or what do you want your legacy to be? And uh what are you most fired up about working on next?

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Well, the um I've decided after 2019 and 20 when Pete was running, and all the major news organizations declared him the first ever openly gay candidate for a major party. I had to do what I called True Squad 2020, which was to set the record straight. The New York Times actually incorrectly said that five times and and fixed it, corrected it five times, which is very rare to get news organization to do that. I'd been in communications and politics for over 30 years, and I'd never once asked for a retraction or corrections. It's not a good idea. But in this situation, I had nothing to lose. And there were literally hundreds of news organizations, and I put a team together on that. We had a website and all kinds of things, and would you know go meet with people, get them to set the record straight. So it's important. So, what I want to do in this next go round, and it's as you guys know it's uh something information. I want to do a podcast, but as opposed to being the host, like you I want to be the subject, and I'm going to talk about all the aspects of this 2012 campaign, which is two and a half years of my life and it full time. And it's a lot of interesting stories. You know, the hate I got, the ballots I got on it, ballots I was announced, but then taken off because I was gay, the lawsuits, everything. A lot of complaints, the complaint I filed against Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes for excluding me from the Fox debate that they were hosting that I qualified for and should have been in. And things would have been very different if I got in that. So I want to talk about that and do kind of maybe a 12-15 episode thing, talking about very specific components of that campaign, bring on some of the people who were involved in it and talk about that because my legacy is that campaign. It was significant. Well, even then, you were a liberal Republican.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

It wasn't like trying to change the and you were in a way, you were doing sort of in a shouldn't even make this comparison, but sort of doing in a way doing what Trump, not for the same end, to the same end, but sort of running as an insurgent inside the party, trying to change the party and change the party at the time. It was still like a very, you know, religious right-oriented party where you know it was about being anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-and you were actually trying to take it back to like at the Rockefeller liberal, liberal Republican roots. So, you know, but yeah, just because you were a Republican, they wrote you off, which I think is is really obvious. But it's never taken away. Oh, in the end, I think history will record, you know, it definitely will record. You gotta fight for it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

You have to fight for it because otherwise it's a race, and they want to erase it. After like 10 years and my berating of their niece Parker, their head of the victory fund, they put one sentence in their on their website under the year 2012. One sentence, that's it. So I think you know, most African Americans who run for office know that Shirley Chisholm was the first. Jesse Jackson was the second African American candidate to run. But as far as the LGBT organizations and a lot of media, they would just as soon erase that. They loved my activism. I was in the New York Times all the time. Not one story on my campaign. CNN never covered my campaign. Uh MSNBC, a little too much, but we loved it. Uh so it's, you know, you I understood what I was doing, and I said at the time, gay Republican is kind of a good headline, and it was, because it's uh a bit of an oxymoron, but like I say, I'm not a moron.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Definitely not. Uh that that's that's a good way to add you know, I'm not a moron. But uh, you're definitely not, Fred. You're a friend, you're an inspiration, you're a role model, always have been, uh, aspiring political uh uh you know political operative. Um, but thank you for everything and thank you for doing the podcast. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Real pleasure. Thanks, Duke.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

See you soon. Thank you for joining me today on Duke's Download. This podcast is part of Pridehouse Media, hosted by me, Duke Mason, and produced and edited by Josh Rosen's Wike. Original music composed by Nel Balaban. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. While you're there, leave us a rating and review. It really helps others to discover the show. I'd love to stay connected with you, so join the conversation by following me at James Duke Mason on Instagram and X, or by emailing me at questions at Dukesdownload.com.