Steve Laffey, the former Republican mayor of Cranston, announced on Thursday a long shot run for president.
According to his website, “Steve Laffey is running for President because we must directly confront our problems. Elected leaders of both parties have avoided major issues far too long and now a financial crisis is upon us. Steve’s unique background in finance, education and in directly solving problems, makes him the right candidate for these times. He will change the very nature of the debate.”
The candidate did not return a phone message ahead of his announcement.
Laffey streaked like a comet across Rhode Island’s political landscape after returning to his native state more than 20 years ago.
But the native Cranstonian faces highly uncertain prospects in a GOP presidential field expected to include Donald Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other potential candidates with better name recognition, greater institutional support and more campaign money.
Laffey won election as mayor of Cranston in 2002 and built a statewide profile with his gift for gab and a showdown with unionized municipal crossing guards — seen as emblematic of the quintessential local sweetheart deal, since they were paid $45 an hour and received free family health coverage.
Laffey proved a polarizing figure, seen by supporters as a folk hero/public servant and by critics as a shrewdly self-involved headline-grabber.
He graduated from Bowdoin College and Harvard Business School and climbed the ladder at a Tennessee investment firm before returning to Rhode Island.
Amid expectations of a run for higher office, Laffey served two terms but in 2006 lost the Republican U.S. Senate primary to then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee. (Chafee, who lost the general election to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, made quixotic presidential runs, as a Democrat in 2016 and as a Libertarian in 2020.)
Laffey then moved to Colorado, where in 2014 he placed fourth in a four-way GOP primary for a U.S. House seat. He has run a ranch and made a film, called “Fixing America,” since moving to the West.
On his website, Laffey touts himself as a problem-solver: “Steve Laffey can’t sleep. The nation he loves has gone to hell in a handbasket. The politicians of both parties have destroyed the infrastructure and the finances of the greatest superpower the world has ever known and by doing so, have put this great republic’s whole shooting match at risk of survival.”
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis@ripr.org
