Senate candidate gets a jump on 2012 March 10, 2011
U.S. Senate candidate Eric LaMont Gregory was in Tiffin Wednesday to introduce himself as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in the 2012 election.
He spoke at the Seneca County Republicans monthly luncheon at Fort Ball Pizza.
During an afternoon interview, Gregory gave an overview of his ideas on the federal government's role in domestic and world affairs.
"One of the good things about America that makes it all worthwhile," he said. "There's still that basic fundamental belief that things will work out.
"It's just that we nap so much sometimes," he said. "People slept for almost 20 years. Things were rolling along and then the Great Recession hits. A depression by any other name is still a depression."
Gregory said the key to getting the economy moving is to allow small businesses to start and grow or fail without government interference.
"That's the attitude we should take to new business startups," he said. "I hope that is what this governor is doing. That's what he says he's doing.
Gregory said new and expanding business is the key to ending the recession.
"We're going to have to come together to solve these problems," he said. "When times aren't good, this is the time for us to pull together. It's not about us. It's about all those kids coming out of school and needing jobs.
"I think this is a message for today. We work. We save. We invest," he said. "If we're not investing, where are the jobs for the next generation. Today, it seems like we're concerned about everything except the next generation."
Innovation is needed to get out of the recession, he said. For example, he suggested manufacturing electric car batteries and finding a way to reuse the oil in used tires.
Regarding the unrest on collective bargaining issues and reducing deficit levels, Gregory said spending cuts are needed.
"Most of the money that can be saved in this state is county by county," he said.
Instead of running young people through the court system at $10,000 per case, he suggested the problem be taken care of at home for first-time offenders.
"Sit down in the living room and the parent gets to take control again," he said. "Our criminal justice system is not the place to go with this. I see community service coming, but I don't see tying up the court system."
In other cases, he said minor offenders are kept in jail for $80-$100 a day because they can't afford the $50 or $100 is takes to get bailed out. Changing that process would save $7 billion a year, he said.
Gregory said he was overseas for 25 years, amid uprisings in many countries such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Afghanistan.
"I was in most of the hot spots," he said. "Either trying to prevent them or healing in the aftermath."
According to his online biography, he served in the 1980s as a consultant to the Maternal and Newborn Care Unit of the World Health Organization based in Geneva, Switzerland.
He has been a member of the Faculty Board of Clinical Medicine, Green College, Oxford University, where he received his master's degree in 1988. He served as a clinical physiologist in the care of critically ill preterm babies in the Department of Paediatrics at John Radcliffe Hospital in Europe. He also has collaborated in research with hospitals and universities in Sweden, Finland, The Netherlands, Germany and Turkey.
He was one of the lead researchers in a global effort by the WHO to reduce neonatal mortality in the developing world, which involved him in the Far East, Central and South Asia, Africa, Europe and throughout the Americas.
Gregory also has worked for National Health Service of England and its universal health care system.
He has been the subject of documentaries concerning his research at Oxford University as well as his work in medicine and post-war and post-disaster reconstruction initiatives.
Gregory's book, "An End to War," is to be released soon.
6:39 PM, Feb. 17, 2011 | CHILLICOTHE — A Middletown native on Thursday announced his intentions to run for U.S. Senate in 2012 at Grinders.
Eric LaMont Gregory, 61, has spent the past two years touring the state, talking to people as an independent to garner steam needed to be a serious Republican contender for the seat in the 2012 race.
“I knew it would take four years to run for this,” he said.
After spending 25 years in Oxford, England, Gregory said he returned to an America much different from the one he remembered from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Key to the differences have been the policy changes which he said aren’t always well-thought out.
For example, when looking at welfare programs, differentiating between those that are “hand outs” versus those that are “hands up,” such as the Job Corps.
“If we replace jobs at a half million a month, we still got five years before we recover the jobs we’ve lost … We’re going to have to innovate our way out of this, but we’re America, that’s what we do … When it comes to getting things done, we know how to do it. We just need the will,” Gregory said.
Gregory, a clinical physiologist who earned his master’s degree from Oxford University, said he has spent a lot of his life in policy development, which has given him good experience to serve in the Senate. Among his varied experience, Gregory has been a consultant with the World Health Organization and collaborated on research with hospitals and universities in several countries. In 2002, he was part of discussions in the Presidential Palace in Afghanistan while working in association with the Political Section of the American Embassy in London.
Being an academic outside the United States also gave him a different perspective when looking at American policy, which he also sees as a key factor in why he would make a good senator.
“I understand the role of the United States in the world … I have a good understanding of the people of this state,” he said, adding he thinks he will be able to win the Republican nomination during the primary and then the actual seat, currently held by Democrat Sherrod Brown, of Cleveland.
More than 20 people gathered to meet Gregory at his formal announcement.
Gregory was raised in Middletown, between Cincinnati and Dayton, where he was one of seven children. He selected Chillicothe for his announcement because of its history as the state’s first capital and inspiration for the state seal.
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2/14/2011 1:52:00 PM ERIC LaMONT GREGORY Announces U.S. Senate Candidacy
Eric LaMont Gregory has announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate.
Gregory, 61, ran briefly as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2009, before withdrawing from a race eventually won by Rob Portman.
Gregory, a Middletown native and a 1988 graduate of Oxford University in England, is now running as a Republican for the 2012 senatorial election, for a seat currently held by Sen. Sherrod Brown.
According to his website, in addition to living in Ohio and England, Gregory has lived in the Middle East and traveled extensively, working with several U.S. administrations. He served as a consultant to the Maternal and Newborn Care Unit of the World Health Organization. From there he went on to the Faculty Board of Clinical Medicine, Green College, Oxford University, where he received his master's degree in 1988. He served as a clinical physiologist in the care of critically ill preterm babies in the Department of Pediatrics at the John Radcliffe Hospital. He collaborated in research with other European hospitals and universities in Sweden, Finland, The Netherlands, Germany and Turkey.
"I am running for the U.S. Senate, as John Adams proclaimed, to lay upon myself the most solemn obligation to uphold the Constitution of the United States – that constitution, our constitution, that created a government exercised by ordinary citizens, elected at regular intervals by their neighbors, to make and execute laws for the general good," Gregory said in a news release this week to The Highland County Press.
"My candidacy is based on the fact that I share that vision, and the firm conviction that I can win both the nomination and the election to work to achieve it," Gregory said. "I believe that the Republican Party, the party of personal responsibility, family, hard work, and enterprise, is the only party with the strength of purpose to build an America in which economic security can be a reality for all."
Gregory listed several issues for next year's Senate race, including:
• How do we achieve a sense of balance between conflicting interests at home and abroad?
• How do we secure the homeland and, at the same time, remain that beacon of freedom and liberty which those living under tyranny wish to emulate?
• How do we remain true to our own sense of moral purpose when opposed by those who believe that they have a monopoly on morals?
• How do we expand economic growth to benefit all without furthering our debt and without the twin pitfalls of inflation and unemployment?
• How do we maintain a vibrant agricultural and rural economy and renew our cities as centers of education, science and industry?
• How do we in the midst of troubled times awaken in every American a determination to find the best way forward and to regard every proposed solution on its own merits?
"We do so by putting our belief in people first," he said. "We do so by putting country first, we do so by putting America first. In the past two years I have talked to individuals and groups in all 88 counties of this state, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, representing every aspect of our economic and social life, and it is clear that the people of this state have a vision for the future of this country."
Gregory says he makes "the following solemn promise: to do justice at all times and to all persons to the utmost of my power."