John Cox - The Citizen Of Laconia

Monday June 11, 2007
Republican candidate struggles for recognition
From The Citizen Of Laconia
By JOHN KOZIOL
jkoziol@citizen.com

LACONIA - John Cox is the first to admit he's got a bit of a challenge in front of him as he seeks the Republican nomination for president.

"I'm not a governor, I'm not a senator, I'm not a celebrity," said the Chicago businessman during a meeting with the editorial board of The Citizen, but Cox added that he's got the fire in the belly to make a run for the highest office in the land as a virtual unknown.

"I've seen a lot of things in Washington that I really don't like," said Cox, including what until the November 2006 election had been a nominally conservative Congress presided over by a nominally conservative and Republican president who together, however, have been spending money like liberals.

Then there is the "horribly managed" war in Iraq, Cox said, which he believes can be won "by making the Iraqis prosperous."

"You can't just be the bully of the world" and throw your weight around militarily like some of his GOP challengers would seem to support, said Cox, but "everybody wants prosperity," to wit the Kurdish area of northern Iraq which is doing quite well whereas the rest of that country has an economy that's "a million times worse" than before the 2003 U.S. invasion.

"People are suffering" and as a direct result, they are supporting the anti-American insurgency, said Cox, who as president "would focus a laser beam to get oil production up."

A long-time conservative, Cox is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago where he earned a degree in accounting and political science. He went on to ITT/Chicago Kent College of Law and received his law degree. He opened a law and accounting firm in 1981 and later began an investment advisory firm, a real estate management company and a venture capital business, according to his biography at www.cox2008.com.

He led an investment group that purchased Jays Foods, a regional potato chip manufacturer, thus helping save over 600 local jobs, putting the business $3 million into the black where just 12 months earlier it had lost $17 million.

Cox served as president of the Cook County Republican Party and was on the state steering committee for former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp's presidential run in 1988.

He ran unsuccessfully for both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, which Cox sees as a positive in his quest for the GOP nomination.

"Anybody who comes out of Washington has problems," he said during last Tuesday's interview, "therefore, they don't deserve a promotion."

Cox said he is a true conservative, not a libertarian and that unlike Mitt Romney, he has actually run a business.

"I make no bones about the fact that I'm a conservative," he said, later adding "I don't believe government is the answer for everything."

The government does have some vital roles to play, foremost among them, national security.

Cox supports increasing the size of the military and offering veterans vouchers so they can choose the hospital where they are treated. He also supports vouchers for school choice and health care.

As an investment adviser, Cox supports private investment accounts instead of the current Social Security system and as president would try to bring down the national deficit by reducing bureaucracy, including axing several federal departments, and "entitlement spending."

He thinks supply-and-demand will improve the health care crisis in America but at the same time, feels some recent corporate mergers have harmed competition in other areas of the economy.

Cox is thrilled that he's broken the one-percent barrier in recent polling in Iowa, but laments that it's a chicken-and-the-egg dilemma in terms of getting national recognition.

"You can't raise money unless you're known," he said, and unless you're known you can't always get an invitation to a high-profile event like last Tuesday's Republican presidential debate at St. Anselm College.

But Granite Staters, whom Cox has visited with on his 16 trips through the state, have a different approach to politics, he said.

"I believe the people in New Hampshire who said it's the message not the money in New Hampshire."