Middletown native and Senate candidate Eric LaMont Gregory stopped by Sinclair Community College as part of his statewide tour to promote his candidacy.
Gregory said the recent changes in national health care helped influence him to run for office.
“Health is politics,” he said.
Gregory was a physiologist who specialized in newborn care. He spent many years working with the World Health Organization, sometimes acting as a liaison between fighting groups within a country. He also worked at Oxford University in England before coming back to his home country.
“I come back to an America 25 years later that is unrecognizable,” Gregory said. “How did we get to the point in this country where our young don’t believe that there’s actual opportunities out there for them?”
Gregory is running as an independent candidate for a U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. George Voinovich. Gregory believes the Republican and Democratic parties have opposed each other for political gain, not because of the ideas each side has.
“There are a lot of good ideas in America, and no one party has a monopoly on good ideas,” he said.
One of Gregory’s ideas include establishing a flat rate 11 percent income tax for a family of four making $34,000 or more. He also wants to create a flat rate one percent tax to fund public schools instead of using property tax money.
Gregory said voters he meets accept him because of his independent status.
“I think this is the year of the independent,” Gregory said. “For too long we’ve been electing parties. Parties don’t vote. Individuals vote.”