Profiles: Declarations of Independence for the Congress

At Independent Political Report, Darcy G. Richardson profiles Richard B. Iott's recently declared independent candidacy for the US Congress:

The latest independent to announce his candidacy for Congress is Richard B. Iott, the former president and CEO of Seaway Food Town, Inc., a 73-unit regional supermarket chain that enjoyed annual sales of more than $559 million before being acquired by Michigan-based Spartan Stores nearly a decade ago. The 58-year-old Iott declared his candidacy yesterday for the seat held by Democrat Marcy Kaptur, a fourteen-term member of the House.

A ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and the longest-serving woman in the U.S. House, Kaptur was first elected to Congress in 1982 when she upset freshman Republican lawmaker Edward F. Weber after being outspent by a three-to-one margin. She garnered approximately 73 percent of the vote in 2008 and arguably hasn’t had a truly competitive contest since 1984, two years after initially winning her seat.

Iott, who appears poised to run a Perot-style campaign and whose independent candidacy is already generating considerable buzz in the heavily-Democratic district, was quick to point to this growing dissatisfaction in his declaration, saying that he sensed “a great deal of resentment” in the area — widespread discontentment that extends into the district’s small town and rural regions.

In declaring his candidacy in Ohio’s ninth congressional district — a seat once held by Frazier Reams, the only independent elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1950’s — Iott said that his campaign will be focused on sound fiscal policy and a common sense approach to government. He also favors term limits and wants to restrict the federal government’s reach into the private lives of its citizens and the activities of small businesses.