OCHS
grad plans to run for governor
JOSHUA
COFFMAN
Landmark
News Service
A 1993
graduate of Owen County High School hopes to get on the November
gubernatorial ballot on a platform that he says will benefit working-class
Americans.
Mike Ingram, who now lives in Georgetown and works for a logistics-transportation
company that works with Toyota, has launched a Web site and is
gathering signatures to get on the statewide ballot.
“I feel like the working people of Kentucky are underrepresented,”
said Ingram, who said he believes, “I can do things as an
independent, because I don’t have to go with just one party’s
views.”
Ingram moved to Owen County from Richmond, Ind., as a teen. He
lived in the county near Corinth for much of his life before moving
to Georgetown.
It is his first time running for public office, and he plans to
do so without a large-scale campaign or an astronomically sized
budget.
“Just word of mouth and the Web site,” he said. On
Ingram’s Web site, Kygov2008.com, he describes himself and
his running mate — sister-in-law Kristen Paige Allen, of
Corinth — as being pro-life and pro-traditional marriage.
Other planks in Ingram’s campaign platform include the elimination
of state taxes on overtime pay, requiring drug testing to receive
state aid and the creation of a tougher prison environment.
Ingram, who is also currently studying political science at Georgetown
College, said he needs 5,000 signatures to get on the November
ballot.
He has petition forms on the campaign Web site that he asks supporters
to fill out and mail back.
Neither he nor Allen have been out collecting signatures, he said,
noting that both work fulltime and Allen is also a mother.
But, “we plan on it,” he said. Ingram wants to arrange
an agreement with Wal-Mart that will allow him to ask customers
in store parking lots to sign the petition.
Of his plans for the corrections system, Ingram said he would
eliminate TVs and Internet access for prisoners.
He wants to have prisoners repay the state upon release for housing
costs incurred while serving their sentences.
Of his plans to help the working class people in the state, Ingram
said he can personally relate to their needs.
“I’m one of them, and I know what it’s like
to be in the workforce trying to make ends meet,” he said.
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