Presidential Candidate: Roque De La Fuente

One of the presidential candidates is a businessman with populist tendencies who wants to shake up Washington DC — and he isn’t named Donald Trump.

Roque De La Fuente is running for the presidency as the nominee for the Reform Party and the American Delta Party. Although the American Delta Party was created during this election cycle as his support vehicle, the Reform Party harkens back to 1995, and was founded by Ross Perot. Perot won nearly 20% of the popular vote in the 1992 general election as an independent.

Rocky, as he prefers, has quite a unique background. Born in 1954, he has spent much of his life between life in southern California and Mexico. After earning degrees in mathematics, physics, business administration and accounting in American and Mexican universities, he went into the car dealership business. Within four years in the industry, he owned one location, and after twenty, he owned 28. Eight years into his career, he became the Chairman of the National Dealer Council.

However, he ultimately sold all but his Cadillac dealership, and then spent the next nine years in court fighting to build the largest flagpole in the United States for an equally gigantic flag. De La Fuente also diversified his business; he opened currency exchanges in 1982 to deal with the nationalization of the Mexican banks, traded large areas of land with the State of California and went into real estate.

During primary season, De La Fuente campaigned as a Progressive Democrat. Although he came in fourth place, he won no delegates. Thus, he was prompted to form his own party to continue into the general election.

His key issue is election reform. He sees three major problems: access, manipulation and fraud. De La Fuente believes in the creation of a single national policy for ballot access, and that all candidates be held to the same standard. He also looks to put all candidates on the same playing field in terms of how their financing is viewed legally. Finally, De La Fuente believes in the use of statistical tools to better formulate how to fight fraud at the polls.

He also holds nuanced views on a variety of issues. To increase government revenue, he believes in cutting down on waste and fraud. He supports pro business policies, but also the continuation of the Affordable Care Act and the use of government support as a way of shaping the economy. Additionally, as a Mexican-American, he is heavily against the sort of border restrictions Donald Trump has suggested and believes in a rational and compassionate policy toward illegal immigrants.

Currently, De La Fuente has access to 147 electoral votes in 20 states. However, he has outlined a way to bring a third party candidate to the presidency, through victory across states within the Rocky Mountains and Alaska, pushing the election to the House. Doubtful as this is, De La Fuente has used his campaign to bring up serious issues and bring question to the wider party system as a representative of rational policy.  https://www.rocky2016.com/