His political party just nine months old and one city wide, Larry Leininger announced his intent to bring the upstart group’s ideas to the political arena in a bid for Minneapolis mayor.

At the heart of Leininger’s campaign is the White Working Man’s Party’s ultimate goal: to reverse the growth of minorities and promote that of the white population the world over.

A Minneapolis citizen for most of his life, Leininger, 50, is running for political office for the first time.

One of Leininger’s priorities is to repeal programs such as affordable housing initiatives which he said give preferential treatment to minorities.

“We want to abolish programs which gives non-whites advantages over whites, such as HUD and MCDA and welfare,” Leininger said.

He added he doesn’t think the government should interfere with property development except for environmental reasons or to control population levels.

“I think (government interference) is usually to the detriment of the community,” Leininger said.

Rescinding welfare would force people to take financial responsibility for their children, Leininger said. He added that he doesn’t think the government should be “subsidizing people’s reproductive efforts.”

“People can go out and work and support the children that they have. If they didn’t have that subsidy, they wouldn’t be having the children,” he said.

Leininger wants to limit population growth for two main reasons. The first is to ebb the growing minority population.

“I’m a white man,” Leininger said, “and I don’t want to see my people become extinct.”

The second reason Leininger cited for limiting population is to protect the environment.

Among the objectives of the WWMP are several initiatives to clean and preserve lakes, rivers, groundwater and air.

“I think these things have all deteriorated over the years,” Leininger said. “Even though we’ve been working on making them better, we haven’t been successful yet.”

Leininger also said he supports conservation efforts and the development of self-renewing resources, specifically energy resources.

But without population constraints, Leininger said, these efforts would be fruitless.

Leininger said he would impose a one-child limit on non-white families, and a two-child limit on white families.

Leininger also promised tax breaks to nuclear families in which only the husband is working and said he would enact laws prohibiting interracial marriages.

Additionally he would like to repeal NAFTA “because it’s bringing a lot of non-whites into the country.”

Leininger said he wants to eliminate immigration into the United States, except for a reciprocal exchange with European citizens.

“The United States was built by white people,” Leininger said. “I don’t see why they should be giving their country away to non-whites.”

Hate crime laws, he said, should be repealed because they infringe on the First Amendment right to the freedom of speech and are usually used against whites in favor of nonwhites.

“You’re holding somebody responsible for their feelings – and a lot of them are natural – and I don’t think that’s right,” Leininger said.

Current Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton declined to comment on Leininger’s platform.

The primary mayoral election will take place Sept. 11. The general election will be Nov. 6.

Shira Kantor welcomes comments at [email protected]