Retired general from Bigfork ready to help Obama

Don Loranger won't go so far as to call himself a Democrat these days, but he is a self-described "Obamacan."

Loranger, a retired Air Force major general from Bigfork - and a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for a Senate District 5 seat in 2006 - ardently believes Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama is the only one who has the potential to unite Americans and solve the country's problems.

And he's putting his money where his mouth is.

Loranger and his wife, Janet, just bought a recreational vehicle and are ready to hit the road to help Obama's campaign. They've already donated money to the campaign and contacted Obama headquarters to offer help.

"We'd be willing to be of assistance, once I learn how to drive this RV. I've got a stack of owner's manuals five feet high," Loranger said with a laugh during a telephone interview from Fort Huachuca, Ariz.

The Lorangers bought the RV - nicknamed the "Obamamobile" - in Arizona and will spend the next couple of months visiting family and helping out Obama however they can.

"I don't care if it's ringing doorbells," he said.

Right now they're on their way to Florida to welcome their eighth grandchild.

Loranger, 64, switched political parties for the upcoming presidential race because he sees current U.S. policies and the government as "totally dysfunctional."

"We elect office-holders to solve, or at least mitigate, the many problems our society faces," Loranger said, listing illegal immigration, tax reform, health-care costs, Social Security and Medicare funding, natural resource extraction policies, inefficient school systems and national-security vulnerabilities among the most pressing issues facing the United States.

"We've been unable to coalesce as a group and solve problems," he said. "I'm not in favor of all of Obama's ideas, but he's the only person on the horizon with the ability to coalesce and bring us together. He's the most phenomenal politician to hit the face of the planet."

Loranger actually is "more in tune" with Republican presidential candidate John McCain, but this time around he believes building unity among Americans is more important than policy issues.

"I don't think [McCain] has the health, strength or vitality to bring people together," he maintained.

LORANGER, a frequent contributor to the Daily Inter Lake's editorial page, is opinionated and rarely at a loss for words. He has penned a number of letters to the editor about water rights, politics, the Iraq war and most recently about the very thing that drove him to Obama's side of the political fence.

"Successive federal and state governments seem to only nibble at the edges and leave resolution of these pervasive challenges to future generations - more often than not making them even bigger problems in the end," he wrote in a January letter to the editor.

Loranger took a stab at politics himself in 2006 as one of three Republicans vying for the Senate District 5 seat that ultimately went to Verdell Jackson. He contemplated running for a House District 9 seat this year, but passed on the opportunity, opting instead to keep a steady hand in various other Flathead organizations.

"I think I can be influential in other ways" besides politics, he said.

Loranger serves on the Flathead Basin Commission board, the Kalispell Regional Medical Center Foundation board and the Intermountain Children's Home presidential council. He's also on the board of the Bigfork Steering Committee.

HE GREW up in Havre, spending summers in the Flathead's Canyon area where his grandmother lived.

"All my young life I wanted to fly airplanes," he recalled. "I never thought I'd make a career of it, but the next thing I knew I was in Vietnam."

Prior to Loranger's retirement in 1996, he was vice commander of Air Combat Command's 8th Air Force, headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

His military career of more than three decades began when he was commissioned through the Air Force Reserve Office Training Corps program at the University of Montana, where he earned degrees in history and political science.

"There are a lot of advantages to being a young Montanan in the military," he observed. "There's a strong sense of integrity, and lots of good qualities that are bred into Montanans."

The retired major general commanded the 314th Tactical Airlift Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas in the early 1980s, then was deputy commander for operations with the 435th Tactical Airlift Wing based at Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany, where he directed the Provide Promise humanitarian airlift program for Bosnia.

He served as commander of the Joint Task Force, Southwest Asia, in summer 1995 and was responsible for enforcement of the United Nations no-fly zone over Southern Iraq.

With more than 4,600 flying hours and more than 1,000 hours of combat time, Loranger's military service took him around the world.

"It was an incredibly honorable profession. The work was fun," he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com