Financial expert Douglas Schulz hoping to re-define the nation’s Neo-Republicanism

It is a well-accepted axiom that American leaders often come from small town roots, so it should be no surprise to anyone Westcliffe is already fielding a presidential candidate for the 2012 election. That person is local resident Doug Schulz.

Schulz will be announcing his candidacy on the steps of the Custer County courthouse Tuesday, Jan. 20, which is Inauguration Day for president-elect Barack Obama.

Schulz and his wife Tracy Pride Stoneman have been Colorado residents since 1997, but Schulz has lived and worked all over the United States. He has never run for elective office before, because he doesn’t have a very high opinion of politicians and as he says, “I didn’t want that on my resume.”

Still, he is worried about the state of “this great nation,” and has decided to try for the highest office in the land in order to set it back on a right path.

Schulz has an extensive website, www.PathtoPresidency.com, which explains his opinions about illegal aliens, the environment, energy, social security, education and other important areas where the federal government has a role. He also has two YouTube videos explaining his position on the role of the president in different aspects of national life. Access to the main website is possible through Yahoo.com.

Schulz is the son of a highly decorated military father and a mother who worked as a nurse. He has held various jobs since his days as a paper boy for the Washington Post in suburban Washington, D.C. He attended Denver University, University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University and American University in Washington, D. C. before graduating magna cum laude in “administration of justice.”

Degree in hand, Schulz continued to jump from enthusiasm to enthusiasm, accompanying a friend on an archeological dig in Central America and leading a bike team (halfway) across the United States before settling down to a job in the district attorney’s office in Dallas, Texas.

He climbed his way up the ladder of success working for Pizza Inn, Proctor and Gamble, and Merrill Lynch before landing as a vice president at Bear Stearns. He left that position to start an agriculture commodities hedge fund. Next, he started a company, Invest Securities Consulting, Inc. doing due diligence and investigations as a registered investment adviser.

It was his work as an expert witness in securities fraud cases that brought him his wife, attorney Tracy Pride Stoneman. Together they became a “powerful team,” according to his website, traversing the country ferreting out wrongdoing for deceived investors. In 2002 the couple published a book, “Brokerage Fraud, What Wall Street Doesn’t Want You to Know,” which was rated by the magazine Business Week as one of the top investment books of the year.

With the current economic atmosphere, publishers are considering re-releasing the book in paperback.

Before Schulz “semi-retired” in 2007 he had garnered the coveted certification, Certified Regulatory Compliance Professional. Schulz is currently publishing a novel he has written. It is set on the U.S./Mexican border and Schulz did extensive research on illegal immigration and its effect on the United States and Mexico in order to write it.

Schulz is aware his approach to running for president is unorthodox. He is very adamant that his real life experiences make him better qualified to lead the country than those of typical politicos who go from law school to politics without ever running a business or working construction to put food on the table.

“I want to show a person without rich, powerful friends and connections can run for the presidency.”

“I have flipped burgers, washed cars, delivered papers, crushed rock with heavy equipment and built buildings,” Schulz explained.

He believes his experience in the financial world is especially in need of change. “The FEC is one of the most inept departments in Washington. I know Mary Schapiro (Obama appointee to head the FEC) and she will not be doing what needs to be done. I am not against big business, but we need to clean up Wall Street.”

While Schulz plans to run as a Republican, his views on energy and the environment fall into what are more typically Democratic views. Schulz is a strong environmentalist with ties to the Sierra Club and other organizations. He has worked hard since coming to the Wet Mountain Valley to reforest his own property and to fight beetle species plaguing local forests. He promises his administration will make unprecedented inroads to alternative energy, instead of “passing the problem off to future generations with short term Band-Aid type solutions.”

He favors a sliding tax which will raise gasoline prices when they are low, which will be taken off when prices rise. A minor part of the tax will improve roads and bridges, but the largest part of the tax will go to support research and development of alternative resources.

The size of government is another subject which Schulz finds vitally important. “I will shrink the federal government. If it is the last thing I do, it will be smaller when I leave. It is a dinosaur.”

If elected president, he would require each executive branch department to cut personnel ten percent. While he says he hates giving out “pink slips,” he believes the American people are paying a tremendous amount of their earnings supporting a bloated government, and that the savings in the government expense would serve to create more jobs outside government.

“The largest hurdle will be to turn us down the right path. So far in the Obama administration, 31 of the 41 appointments he has made are from the Clinton administration. Where is the ‘change?’”

Can he win?

Schulz thinks he can. “I have been very successful in many different areas of my life. Why not this?” He plans to run a significantly different campaign, sidestepping the “bad behavior” of the “liberal media,” and running a very honest, straightforward campaign where all his positions on all subjects are set before the voters well in advance of the election.

Another reason Schulz believes he can win is his motto: It is surprising how lucky you can be when you work very hard.

He plans to announce key appointments in advance of the elections, also. He believes by using alternative media, he can cut campaign expenses drastically.

“Even if I don’t make it the whole way, I will have broken ground for others to show you don’t have to be a career politician to run for president.”

Schulz believes most people who hold public office spend most of their energy and focus on being re-elected, which is wrong. He stated he will not set his sights on re-election, but upon what can be done to make the country better.

History will be made in Westcliffe, Colorado as well as in Washington, D.C. January 20. Only the future will tell how large a chapter Custer County will contribute that day.

– Joanne Canda