By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer

Presidential candidate John Davis, the first person to officially announce his campaign for the 2012 presidential election, stopped briefly in Osceola County Wednesday as part of his 18-month quest to meet voters.

Davis, a self-employed homebuilder from Grand Junction, Colo., said he tossed his hat into the ring in November after “God spoke to my heart” a year ago to run for president.

“I think our leaders have kind of forgotten America,” he said.

While Davis has never previously run for political office, he’s hoping to appeal to “people like our Founding Fathers, just down-to-Earth folks.”

“I don’t look like a president, I don’t talk like a president and I don’t act like a president, but I do have what it takes to be a president,” he said on his website www.JohnDavisforPresident.org. “I will serve my country and its people with integrity and I will do what I say I will do, even when no one is looking.”

He’s running as a Republican on the platforms of “pro-life, pro-God and pro-family.”

He said he wants to revive America by helping small businesses, solving the budget crisis and bringing God back into the country.

“Everybody’s talking about the economy. It’s a matter of jobs. The government doesn’t create jobs but we have to get off the backs of small business with the regulations,” Davis, who lost 70 percent of the builders he previously used due to the economy, said. “We’ve got to untie the hands of small business.”

Davis plans to go to a bare-bones budget to cut spending and reduce debt, even if that means cutting programs and services.

“The government is out of money and we have to stop spending more than we bring in,” he said. “What do you do when your checkbook says you’re out of money? You stop buying things.”

“A common sense, practical approach to solving problems is the easiest way to solve problems,” he added.

Traveling with his wife, Debra, and two of his six children in a large red mobile home with a U.S. map on the back for tracking their journey, Davis stopped at The Loop to pass out fliers and get the word out about his campaign.

They travel 2,500 miles a week and make 10 stops a day. In just three weeks, Davis has visited six states and 192 counties, including the east coast of Florida.

He said he plans to visit the west coast of Florida in May or June and hit the major caucus states, such as Iowa, twice.

“I’m an unknown. We need a full two years to get out and talk to people,” Davis said about his 18-month trek in which he plans to visit 3,400 counties across the country. “What you see is what you get. I’m a blue-collar candidate.”

Davis’ motto — “Let’s fix America” — comes complete with a large red, white and blue, star-spangled pipe wrench he is often photographed with; there is a picture of him and the wrench on the mobile home. He said it gets him noticed and sets him apart from the other candidates.

“Everybody remembers the wrench,” he said. “It’s an icon.”