Video: Fred Who? Laguna Beach's Karger is Running for President

Fred Karger, longtime Republican strategist, would-be savior of the late, lamented Boom Boom Room, and now openly gay presidential candidate—yep, as a Republican—held a campaign fundraiser Saturday at his Laguna Beach home.

The attendees were in a celebratory mood, many of whom were simply excited to see Laguna Beach making political history again, following Bob Gentry, who in 1982 became the first gay mayor of a U.S. city. Karger claims to be the first-ever gay U.S. presidential candidate.

Guests included Mayor Toni Iseman, TV personality/Versace model Rib Hillis (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Ugly Betty, CSI: Miami), Hillis' girlfriend Elena Grinenko (veteran of seasons 2 and 3 of Dancing with the Stars), OC Weekly's R. Scott Moxley, who penned this recent cover story on Karger, and about 30 other friends and supporters of Karger's long-shot effort.

Well, it's a longshot effort only if Karger's ultimate goal is to actually win the White House. (Karger says he's been spending $30,000 of his own money per month on the campaign; he should probably hold these fundraisers more often.) As he explained, a couple of his other, more realistic aims involve moving the GOP from a far-right position back to the center—more along the lines of the fiscally conservative, socially progressive Republican party Karger grew up and worked in for years. (Karger's resume has the names Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush on it.)

Karger also wants to send a message to younger, college-age gay and lesbian voters on the campaign trail (he's visited Iowa seven times since declaring his candidacy in March; he's been to New Hampshire 14 times), letting them know they can do anything they want—even run for president.

"I got into this debate with people on my Facebook page," said Hillis. "People were wondering if Republicans would ever vote for a gay candidate, and I said that's not the point. Fred's point is to get people to learn about what he stands for on the issues, then whether he's gay or not shouldn't matter."

We'll let the video from Saturday night explain the rest, which you can check out on this page as well as videos and photos from Karger's New Hampshire appearances via several other Patch sites.

For more Karger stories from the campaign trail, and . To get to Karger's website, click here.