Does former Cranston mayor have a shot at the White House?

Former Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey is running for US President. The current Colorado resident and Republican candidate spent a brief, but memorable, time in local politics and announced his bid via video Thursday. He is running on the platform of fixing America.

Growing up in Edgewood, Laffey graduated from Cranston East and pursued post-secondary degrees at Bowdoin College and Harvard Business School. His career led him to being a stockbroker and president of a Tennessee investment banking firm before returning to his native city and running for mayor. According to local historian and RI GOP National Committeeman Steve Frias’s book, “Cranston and its Mayors,” Laffey felt that God called him to run for the position.

Laffey served as mayor from 2003 to 2007 and, according to Frias’ book, reached his peak in 2005. Frias noted that while Laffey did not hold a state office, he made a statewide impact.

In his first election, Laffey won with 52 percent of the vote against Democratic candidate Aram Garabedian. When he entered office, the city faced an $11.9 million deficit, was spending down the pension fund and had only about a month to pay back $18 million in short-term loans.

“As a result, Laffey first stopped draining the pension fund, which was down to about $10 million. Second, Laffey pursued legislation to allow Cranston to borrow money backed by the state aid it received. However, in order to win passage, legislators indicated that Cranston needed to pass a supplemental tax,” reads Frias’ work.

In the end, Laffey proposed a 12.8 percent supplemental property tax increase which eliminated the city’s prior deficits.

Laffey went on to serve a second two-year term where he won 64 percent of the vote in the General Election.

“To his supporters, he was the “savior of Cranston” who was “brilliant, decisive and a courageous friend of the taxpayer,” but to his detractors, he had a “massive ego” with a “lust for the limelight” and was “power-mad” with a messianic complex,” Frias wrote in his book.

After his time as mayor, Laffey made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 2010, losing in the Republican primary to Lincoln Chafee.

Now running for president, some of Laffey’s top issues, according to his website, including the following: fixing Social Security, stopping the transfer of wealth to China, fixing the Federal Reserve ​Protectors of bankers and enablers of Congress, stopping corruption in the federal government, making the tax system simple and fair and fixing the educational system.

According to his website, 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.”

While Laffey has put his hat in the ring for the elected position, former President  Donald Trump and  Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina have announced their candidacies.