Race 4 2012 will be devoted to covering what will be the most exciting political race of a generation.

We are a group blog composed of several writers, each with their own distinct views and preferences regarding 2012. We are a partisan site as we will covering the 2012 race from a conservative viewpoint. Race 4 2012 does not endorse any particular candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination for President.

Staff Directory

Kavon W. Nikrad is the Founder and Managing Editor of Race 4 2012. Kavon wanted to create a forum for conservatives of different stripes to share their opinions and preferences regarding the race for the 2012 Republican nomination and ultimately the 2012 general election. He can be reached at kavon_w_nikrad@yahoo.com.

DaveG is Race 4 2012’s Senior Editor. He is a former congressional staffer who currently resides inside the beltway and works in the legal and policy fields. Dave’s roots are in the upper midwest, a region whose politics he knows well and which he believes is vital to the sustainability of any long-term Republican majority. In addition to his work on this blog, Dave maintains a personal political blog, Political Prognostications.

Senior Editor Kristofer Lorelli is a former political organizer and fundraiser, residing in suburban Toronto, Ontario. As an American living abroad, he brings a unique perspective to U.S. politics and international affairs. In the blogosphere, Kristofer is best known for his work with the ‘Palin for VP’ grassroots internet movement, where he led the efforts on the guerilla marketing campaign, including producing the first Palin for Vice President web-ad. His web ad and Palin for VP web site have been featured on all three national cable news networks. He is a self-described ‘Goldwater Conservative’, dedicated to an interventionist approach to foreign policy, laissez-faire capitalism, individual rights, and changes to the constitutional that will enable the legislative supremacy of Congress over the executive and judicial branches. Kristofer is an avid fan of imported beer, soccer, live theatre, foreign-language cinema and the BBC world service. He can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com.

Contributing Editor Adam Graham is the host of the Truth and Hope Report Podcast on Talkshoe.com and a 2007 Podcast Award Nominee for Best Political Podcaster. He is a columnist for RenewAmerica.us, and a former State Coordinator for Two Presidential Campaigns. In 2004, Adam was a Republican Candidate for the Idaho State House of Representatives. He and his wife live in Boise, Idaho. His personal blog is at http://www.adamsweb.us/blog.

Contributing Editor Alex Knepper is an undergraduate at American University. Aside from his work with Race, he is a contributor to the Independent Gay Forum and David Frum’s NewMajority.com, and writes a bi-weekly column for his college newspaper, the American University Eagle. His work has been featured in the online editions of The New York Times, C-SPAN, CBS News, Real Clear Politics, and other sites, and his local newspaper, the Herald-Mail, has profiled him for his political activism. He is a classical liberal, dedicated to a hawkish foreign policy, laissez-faire capitalism, and individual rights. He can be contacted at apkkib@aol.com

Contributing Editor Aron Goldman is a 36-year-old owner of an international Miami-based computer company. Goldman has been a leading wholesale supplier of retail computer and consumer electronic businesses in the Caribbean, Central & South America, and Africa since 1996. Although he started out as a journalism major at the University of Maryland, Aron graduated from the university in 1993 with a degree in psychology. Growing up 10 miles outside New York City in affluent Bergen County, New Jersey, Goldman’s political philosophy was built on a socially liberal but fiscally conservative foundation. In 2004, Goldman successfully negotiated with the British Foreign Office the re-opening of the previously evacuated southwestern part of the Caribbean island of Montserrat, a UK colony which has been plagued by volcanic activity since 1995. Goldman has also had some unique opportunities the past few years working for a major news network, reporting from Miami during Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, and in February 2007, he covered Super Bowl XLI as a reporter; writing segments and conducting interviews. Most recently, four of Goldman’s questions that were submitted for the MSNBC/Politico GOP debate were asked of the Republican presidential candidates, including the controversial evolution question. If you would like to contact Mr. Goldman, he can be reached at aronscott@msn.com.

Contributing Editor Matthew E. Miller is a 21 year old currently working at a marina, during a year long hiatus from Williams College. He’s never been involved in politics at any level and feels awfully intimidated by the impressive resumes of his fellow contributors. Matt lives in light blue New Jersey, but spent his early childhood as a military brat. In 2004, he couldn’t bring himself to vote for George Bush (he stayed home), and feels Bush’s Big Government tendencies, combined with his incompetence, have deeply harmed the conservative brand. He hopes to become a political advisor, a history professor, or a federal judge.

Senior News Editor Robbie Borchik is a 22 year old college senior double majoring in Political Science and Communications at Charleston Southern University in Charleston, SC. His political experience ranges from campaigning during the 2004 election cycle to working for a regional think-tank based in Charleston. He currently works for a news service providing information to high-profile political and business leaders throughout the state of South Carolina. He considers himself something of a pragmatist on domestic issues and a realist in terms of international affairs. He is an avid fan of the Auburn Tigers, the Colorado Rockies, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Fender Guitars.

News Editor Anthony Dalke is a junior at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, double majoring in supply chain management and marketing. He has had the misfortune of living his entire life in solid blue Illinois (even worse, Chicagoland). He prides himself on refusing to vote for Rod Blagojevich in 2006. A recovering victim of pervasive Democratic bias in public schools, he received a healthy dose of liberal indoctrination in his high school government and U.S. history classes. Since those days, he has taken refuge in self-educating himself about functioning policy, leading him away from the left side of the political spectrum and toward the right. He has authored an opinion article for his school newspaper, the Daily Illini, and served as as contributing writer for the now-defunct sports website ForeverRivals.com. A die-hard Chicago Blackhawks and White Sox fan, he looks forward to rebuilding and strengthening the conservative movement, with an optimistic eye turned toward America’s future.

Adam Brickley is best known for his blog “Draft Sarah Palin for Vice President“, launched in February 2007. His efforts helped launch a grassroots internet movement which has been credited as one of the factors in Governor Palin’s swift rise to national prominence. Some Race42008 readers will remember him as “Palin for VP!” from the comments section. In addition to his blogging ventures, Adam has interned with The Heritage Foundation and Townhall.com, and in 2006 he topped the Phillips Foundation’s “Top 100 Conservative Student Activists” list.

Benjamin Hodge is a life-long Kansan. He grew up in northeast Johnson County, where he attended and graduated from Prairie Village-based Shawnee Mission East High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University. Hodge was elected to the board of trustees of Johnson County Community College in April 2005.

In early 2006, Hodge was appointed as chairman of a county committee that studied eminent domain and individual property rights. Hodge was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in November 2006. Hodge’s public policy record has been recognized by Americans for Prosperity, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, the Kansas Taxpayers Network, Kansans for Life, the National Rifle Association, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He and others have formed an independent, local online news journal, The Kansas Progress, which promotes conservative and libertarian policies. He also writes at RedCounty.com. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter and Facebook.

Bob Hovic is a marketing consultant with an international practice, based in the metro Chicago area. He has had three books published dealing with his area of specialization. Bob is a widower with two adult children. Though raised in a thoroughly Republican family, Bob began his political activism as a left-wing Democrat in the Vietnam era, before becoming disenchanted with the authoritarian tendencies of the left and joining the Libertarian Party. “I might still be a Libertarian,” Bob says, “if they were simply more realistic and more focused on accomplishing things, rather than fighting lost causes.” Bob considers himself a conservative with libertarian leanings, but above all a pragmatist, often quoting Otto von Bismarck: “Politics is the art of the possible.”

Gamecock (aka Mike Devine), a civil and criminal trial and appellate lawyer for the last two decades in federal and state courts throughout the South, is presently vice-president of a multi-state real estate investment firm headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., a blogger/diarist at Redstate.com and his personal blog Gamecock, and the Legal Editor for The (Decatur, GA) Champion, the legal organ for DeKalb County in the Metro Atlanta. He is also a long time participant in South Carolina party politics, mostly when formerly a democrat county party official in the 1980-90’s until his June 2001 conservative epiphany soon after moving to Atlanta. He was one of the first columnists in the country to refer to the perpetrators of terrorism as illegal enemy combatants, as opposed to POW’s soon after September 11, 2001 and is currently working on a book about events that led to his conservative epiphany, separation from the Democratic Party, and present identification with the GOP.

Jason Bonham lives in the Chicagoland area. Aside from blogging at Race42012, Jason is co-founder and co-director of www.MyManMitt.com and is the Illinois state director for Legacy Law Foundation. Jason is also a member of the Romney Campaign’s Faith and Values Steering Committee. Jason also loves hotdogs.

Matt C. (aka HeavyM) is a 27 year old who hails from Wyoming, the second-most conservative state in the country based on recent Presidential election results. He became interested in politics during the 2000 election while in college and ended up sorting out his personal beliefs to the point where he voted for George W. Bush – and did the same more enthusiastically in 2004, though he is a lot less enamored with Bush now. HeavyM is currently on staff with a church overseeing the development of spiritual community and small group ministries and follows politics on the side as a hobby, though he believes the two should rarely overlap one another.

Max Twain is a graphic designer and contemporary artist who resides in unfortunately still-blue New Jersey. Max is a life-long fiscal conservative and was a member of the few but proud College Republicans, and the even fewer and prouder college republican art students. Max has been a constant observer of the national political scene since the 2000 Florida recount and particularly the September 11th attacks.

Michael Stubel is a freshman at American University in Washington, D.C., where he is Political Science major with other academic interests in United States foreign policy and journalism. He is a native of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, an increasingly purple-shaded suburban Philadelphia county that recently saw Democratic registration inch by Republican figures for the first time. A political junkie since the 2000 election, Michael was a student leader for the Rudy Giuliani campaign before the Mayor exited the race and is now volunteering when he can for John McCain at his Crystal City headquarters. Fully committed to the ideals of smaller government and a robust national defense, Michael – PARepublican from the comments section – hopes to expand the Republican brand on one of the country’s most liberal campuses.

Richard Murray is a disciple of President Ronald Reagan and an admirer of his ability to help Americans make themselves great again. His passion for politics was kindled through Rush Limbaugh, and that passion led to action after the Gingrich Revolution of 1994. Richard is a strong, yet pragmatic, fiscal and economic conservative, national defense hawk, and has social conservative leanings liberally peppered with libertarianism. He was proudly a Republican until 2000, when the party’s change in course disenchanted him. Richard left the Republican party, but maintained his predisposition to support them. He is currently a registered independent who supports and works towards a reawakening of the Gingrich Revolution within the Republican Party. After conservative policy, Richard’s second fascination with politics is the ebb and flow of poll numbers, and does shade tree analysis of them in his spare time.

Tommy Oliver is a founding member of draftfredthompson.com team, where he still works with the administrators and has helped contribute to the online Thompson research encyclopedia, the “Fredipedia”. He is a regular contributor to MO Speaker Pro Tem Carl Bearden’s blog, Fred Thompson-N-Mo and the national grassroots Thompson news blog, Blogsforthompson. He also is the founder of Fred Thompson Presidency, a site cataloging Thompson’s accomplishments while in the Senate. Tommy currently produces a radio program for ESPN and Kickoffzone.

Featured Archive – Deroy Murdock

Race 4 2008 is honored to feature selected articles by Deroy Murdock, a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and Contributing Editor with National Review Online. Mr. Murdock has written much of the seminal commentary regarding Rudolph W. Giuliani’s tenure as Mayor of New York City, as well as his nascent presidential campaign. Please be sure to follow the link to read all of Mr. Murdock’s truly essential 2008-related work contained in our archive.

Distinguished Alumni

Billy Valentine is a Junior at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he is concentrating in Legal Studies and Human Life Studies. He comes from a family deeply committed to political activism, especially when it comes to protecting the unborn. Billy was the chairman of the College Republicans during the 2006 election cycle and worked on the Blackwell, Dewine, and Santorum campaigns. He is currently the National Chairman of Students for Brownback, the Vice President of Students for Life of America, and is a candidate for Vice Chairman of the Ohio College Republican Federation. Billy was named Iowa Director of Youth Outreach and Communications Aide for Sen. Brownback, and wad the Managing Editor of The Daily Brownbacker.

Brett Passmore is an experienced Technology Professional with a passion for American History and Politics. Brett has a long history of success and innovation with 2 patents and several hundred completed projects to his name. Brett has served on several boards and was the Houston Area Grassroots coordinator and the Director of the HuckabeeHouston PAC. He is currently the Executive Director of The F3 Coalition, a non-profit educational and advocacy group whose mission is to inspire, educate, motivate and empower individuals to become values-voters so that they can become active in the political process. F3 Stands for Faith, Family, and Freedom.

Clarence Claus is a Republican activist from New Hampshire, home of the first in the nation primary. He volunteered for President Bush’s New Hampshire campaign in the 2000 general election and assisted the primary campaign of Gubernatorial candidate Gordon Humphrey in 2002. He has also been involved in several state senate and state representative campaigns. Clarence is currently undecided in the 2008 primary race and does not see himself making up his mind until close to primary day.

Doug Forrester is an economics graduate student and frequent volunteer for Republican campaigns across the nation. Doug has volunteered for the 2002 Ehrlich, 2004 Bush, 2006 Talent, and 2007 Northup campaigns among many others. He’s currently employed teaching introductory economics to frightened freshmen at a small Southern college.

Gary Matthew Miller has been fascinated with politics ever since someone gave him one of Teddy White’s Making of the President books nearly 23 years ago. A former mind-numbed liberal, he was “mugged by reality” when a friend explained to him the folly of the Nuclear Freeze movement. Gary was the first full-time employee of Center of the American Experiment, Minnesota’s conservative think tank, where he spent several years after college before coming to the realization that public policy wasn’t going to pay the mortgage. With more than a decade in technology and software sales, today Gary makes his home in Minneapolis with his wife and 3 young sons. For the last 2 years he chronicled the 2006 Minnesota U.S. Senate race at the nationally-recognized blog Kennedy vs. The Machine.

Greg Alterton works in public policy in Sacramento, Calif. He’s had over thirty years experience working for the California Legislature, the Governor’s office, professional and business associations, the private sector, and regional government. His experience ranges from health care, to criminal justice, to environmental regulations, to general business issues. Greg is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, where he not only received a degree in political science, but also came to personal faith in Jesus Christ. He considers himself a “social conservative,” and writes from that perspective. Greg also blogs at his personal site Value Voters for Rudy.

Justin D. Smith is a first-year law student at the University of Missouri. At the age of nine, he volunteered for John Ashcroft’s 1994 United States Senate campaign. Since that first taste of politics, he has volunteered on almost 50 different campaigns and has served as the campaign manager for many local races. He is heavily involved in the College Republicans, in Missouri and at the national level. Justin can be contacted by e-mail at JDSmithGOP@sbcglobal.net

LJ has been fascinated with politics for much of his life, but particularly since the September 11th terrorist attacks. He’s currently an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee working towards a double major in Political Science and International Studies, with a focus on the Middle East and Arabic. He follows the 2008 Presidential race with great interest and thinks that it will be a crucial test in which road the country chooses to go down during these historic times. He ran a now-defunct blog entitled The Urban Empire. You can reach him at urbanempire@gmail.com.

Michael Lawrence is a native central Pennsylvanian, and practices criminal defense in northern Virginia with special emphasis on indigent clients. Initially a liberal due to his influences growing up in an ethnic, lower-middle class, rust-belt area, Lawrence later embraced more conservative viewpoints on government. Although Lawrence has always been an avid follower of all things political, his primary interest is public policy. He considers himself to be a federalist of the Goldwater stripe.

Ory Rinat is a Junior at Columbia University, majoring in economics and political science. He previously served as the National Chairman of Students for Rudy. In that capacity he built almost 200 chapters of the coalition on campuses around the country, and designed high school and college outreach programs. He posts will be focusing on the youth involvement in the 2008 race for the White House.

Rudyblogger was the founder/editor of the excellent Rudy Giuliani for President site Giuliani Blog. RB made a name for himself as one of the best bloggers out there, and we were quite pleased to have him join us here.

Sean Oxendine is a Virginia attorney who has worked in Washington DC as a bartender, congressional staffer, research assistant at a think tank (AEI) and attorney (the only DC job he hasn’t had is lobbyist, and they don’t get cool stuff anymore). Sean’s introduction to blogging came at the site MyElectionAnalysis.com. In the 2004 election, Sean correctly predicted all 50 states, and predicted Bush’s percentage in 45 states within 2% of the actual results (curse you, AL, MS, ND, RI, and VT!). His prized possession is his complete set of Almanacs of American Politics (1972-2006). He is a former libertarian who now considers himself more of a “South Park Conservative.”

Woodrow J. Eisenhower, who also goes by “Woody” or “Ike” or both, is a political enthusiast with a Political Science degree from the University of New Hampshire. As a resident of New Hampshire (the site of the nation’s first presidential primaries), he has the advantage of meeting all of the big name politicians and presidential candidates regularly. Before coming to New Hampshire, coincidentally, Woody grew up in rural Northwest Iowa (the site of the nation’s first presidential caucuses), in a small town called Mallard (”home of the friendly ducks”), so Woody’s been exposed to presidential races all his life. To top it all off, his great grandfather was not only an Iowan farmer/pilot, but also a proud state senator, so an interest in politics and government has been bred into his blood for generations. He is now earning a degree in law at the Franklin Pierce Law Center, with the eventual goal in mind of becoming a politician himself one day (Who knows? Maybe we’ll be voting Eisenhower for President again before we know it.) Woody maintains his own personal blog on the 2008 race at GOP 2008 Blog.