Dear “2 Paragraphs” Team Member,
I believe that a majority of voters agree with me when I say that our country is going in the wrong direction and that it needs new leadership. During the 2012 election campaign I told people as often as I could that Governor Gary Johnson is the most qualified person to be President I know of. Now he is contemplating running for President again as a Libertarian in 2016.
With that situation in mind, I am forwarding to you his open letter which is entitled “Why I Would Run for President.” I believe he is the Man for our Times. There have always been people like Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meier and even Nelson Mandela around in times of crisis – theyjust don’t get elected. Gary Johnson is the man for our times. So please join me in encouraging Governor Gary Johnson again to run for President! And spread the word to your social media contacts to do the same.
As I hope you know, we have filed a lawsuit in Washington DC against the Commission on Presidential Debates, as well as the Republican and Democratic National Parties, to require the Commission to open the final Presidential Debates to the candidates of all serious political parties. That means that any political party which is on the ballots in enough states technically to win the presidency should have its candidate in the debates. As of the last election, that would have included the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, which were on the ballots in 48 and 40 states, respectively.
All of this is exciting, and, if successful, will result in a coalition government of representatives from many political parties, as long as they agree with our philosophy of Financial Responsibility and Social Acceptance – which is in the mainstream of American political thought. So please help us help our great country!
Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)
Why I Would Run for President by Governor Gary Johnson
Dear Friends,
When I completed my second term as Governor of New Mexico in 2003, I was done.
I had been elected Governor when everyone said I didn’t have a chance. A businessman who had never sought or held elected office, running as a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, my prospects for success were dismissed by Republicans and Democrats alike.
But I worked hard, financed my own campaign, and told New Mexicans what I would do if elected: Reduce the size of the government, cut taxes and apply business-like common sense to the job of governing. They elected me, I did what I said I would do, and they re-elected me by an even bigger margin. After that second term, I walked away to resume what was — and is — a pretty good life.
I have had the good fortune to have climbed the highest mountain on all of the seven continents, build my dream home, and enjoy the freedom I gained from building a successful business from scratch, making some money, and creating the lifestyle I wanted.
As for being Governor, I did a good job — good government was easy. I worked hard. I did what I said I would do. I told people the truth, and I tried to run the state the same way I ran my business, and my life. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. Deliver what you can on time and under budget. And most of all, don’t waste anyone’s time or money. I vetoed bills we didn’t need nor couldn’t afford, 750 of them. To this day, some call me “Governor Veto”.
I cut the growth of government in half, and reduced the number of state employees by more than 1,000, without any mass firings or layoffs. All it took was good management and a willingness to challenge the status quo. We cut taxes. We shifted Medicaid to a managed care system — similar to the health coverage for state employees — and cut costs by at least 20%. I scrutinized regulations to be sure they were both essential and not unnecessarily burdensome for individuals and businesses.
Dealing with a Democrat-controlled legislature, I certainly wasn’t able to do all that I wanted to do. Year after year, I proposed a full-blown education voucher program. The teachers’ unions and Democrats wouldn’t let it happen. But we put the issue on the front burner — long before it was fashionable.
In addition, I created quite a stir nationally by proposing, in 1999, that marijuana be legalized. I was the highest ranking official in the nation to do so, and at the time — as opposed to now, it was not a popular idea. Everyone recognized, beginning with me, that it would be political suicide. But I didn’t have any further political ambitions, and more importantly, it was the right thing to do.
Enforcing and prosecuting laws against simple marijuana possession were clogging up our courts, overcrowding our jails, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and doing permanent harm to thousands of young lives. All that because we had criminalized a nonviolent behavior that an estimated 140 million Americans have engaged in at some point in their lives. It didn’t make sense, and I said so. It wasn’t about marijuana being good or bad for an individual. It was about a modern-day Prohibition that was not only not working, but doing far more harm than good, at tremendous human and financial cost.
My poll numbers fell through the floor for a couple of months, especially when the national media decided that it was a big deal that a Republican governor would take such a controversial and normally “liberal” stand. However, a funny thing happened. My approval rating recovered, and far more significantly, my political “suicide” helped prompt a national conversation that continues today, with a majority of Americans now supporting marijuana legalization.
I enjoyed being Governor. I didn’t enjoy the politics, but it was undeniably satisfying to make a difference in people’s lives, force debates on issues that needed to be discussed, and put the principles of smaller government and greater freedom into practice. It’s one thing to talk about liberty. It’s another to actually govern with liberty as a guiding policy. I’d like to think I showed that it could be done.
Apparently, some agree that it can be — and was — done. During the presidential campaign of 2012, the decidedly fiscally conservative Club for Growth looked at my record as Governor, and concluded that I would be a “pro-growth” President, citing our reductions in spending growth, the tax cuts we implemented, and the regulatory environment we created. At the same time, the ACLU also looked at my record, and gave me the highest rating on civil liberties of all the candidates, higher than Barack Obama and Ron Paul.
I firmly believe that the majority of Americans are, in fact, “conservative” when it comes to the size and cost of government, while being socially “liberal” when it comes to individuals being free to make their own choices and control their own lives. That’s how I tried to govern, and what I believe today.
After my term-limited service as Governor was finished, I largely stayed away from politics. I don’t like professional politicians, and certainly don’t want to be one. I went home, pursued my passions for skiing and cycling, climbed Mt. Everest, built my dream house and enjoyed my freedom. Sure, I stayed involved in some issues I cared about and in which I could make a contribution, such as drug policy and school choice.
Life was good, and it still is.
In 2009, I helped create the Our America Initiative, a not-for-profit advocacy organization with the mission of adding a needed fiscal conservative, socially liberal voice to America’s policy debates. That provided an opportunity to travel the country, organize at the grassroots and offer a “home” for those who share the notion of restoring freedom and opportunity as the real American values.
And in 2011, I made the decision to run for President. I entered the race as a Republican, believing that America was ready for a different kind of GOP candidate who had a proven record of governing according to what I consider to be real conservatism: Government that is truly limited in size and cost and that stays out of American bedrooms and boardrooms.
We fought hard, but the establishment and its special interest sponsors apparently didn’t want anything to do with a guy who would actually challenge the status quo and upset their apple cart. There was no room for a candidate who was once described as “the most dangerous politician in America”. After all, I wanted to talk about the spending, the wars and the freedom-robbing social policies that have become their bread and butter — literally.
The system is about fitting into their mold, and I didn’t fit. I couldn’t go to Iowa and evangelize about family “values” that are frankly none of the government’s business. I couldn’t go to South Carolina and talk about increasing defense spending at a time when we are broke. And I couldn’t go to Florida without telling the truth about entitlements and the need to reform Medicare and Social Security.
So I left the Republican primary circus and switched to the Libertarian Party. Libertarians, broadly speaking, are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. The principles of less government and more freedom are there, and the experience of running as the candidate who could unapologetically advocate those principles was, well, liberating.
With the help of hundreds and thousands of great volunteers and supporters, I traveled to virtually every state, spoke to hundreds of groups, met with students in colleges and universities all across the country — and was gratified to be able to put our ideas on the national stage to an extent that had never happened before. We didn’t win, but we made the media and the establishment take notice and garnered more votes than any Libertarian candidate in history.
Along the way, I learned a lot about the American people — the most important lesson being a confirmation that the real majority doesn’t “relate” to either the Republicans or the Democrats, and if given the opportunity, will exercise a degree of political independence never before seen in our history. Americans, and especially the Millennials who are rapidly assuming a dominant role in both society and the economy, are fed up with politicians who lie, who don’t really want to change anything, and for whom being elected and reelected are ends in themselves.
Now, those Americans are looking ahead to the 2016 election — and if they are like me, they don’t like what they see. Is there anything about the current field of candidates that even hints at changing the disastrous trends of recent years? We are seeing only slight nibbles around the edge of a tax code that is fundamentally wrong. An $18 trillion debt that threatens the very underpinnings of our economy and, in fact, our national security, is hardly mentioned, all while the politicians are obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s emails and a County Clerk in Kentucky whose 15 minutes of fame have already lingered for too long.
There were great hopes in some libertarian corners for Senator Rand Paul. I endorsed his father in 2008, and in fact, urged my Republican supporters in Iowa to support him in 2012. Unfortunately, Rand, in his quest to have one foot in the libertarian camp and the other in the establishment Republican museum, has emerged with a vague mix of positions that is clearly not compelling. There is a price to be paid for selling out — and he is paying it.
The previously presumed Republican front-runner, Jeb Bush, is fading fast as even “mainstream” Republican voters are increasingly refusing to take their orders from party leaders and funders who think he should be President just because he’s a Bush. Fairly or not, “been there, done that” isn’t working for a country that is absolutely fed up with business-as-usual.
I could go on, but the point is clear: On the Republican side, Americans are seeing, with one glaring exception, a battalion of candidates who look, sound and feel like the same Republican presidential candidates voters have rejected in the past two elections. None are instilling any confidence that government would be smaller, smarter or less costly if they were to be elected than it is today.
And about that exception…the Trump phenomenon. What does it say about the level of discontent that a professional salesman can launch a presidential campaign with a promise to build our very own Great Wall of China and a vague promise to “make America great again” can assemble a coalition of the pissed-off sufficient in size to make him the Republican standard-bearer?
In the other “major” party, the choices are equally alarming. Ms. Clinton, their version of “been there, done that”, is having her own problems claiming the throne she presumes to be rightfully hers. Never mind the unbelievable lack of judgment involved in storing official, sensitive emails in a private server in a bathroom. We’re looking at a “front runner” who, as Secretary of State, presided over a descent into foreign policy chaos that is virtually unmatched in American history.
As with Trump on the Republican side, the Democrats have devolved to the point that the candidate going toe-to-toe with Ms. Clinton, both in the polls and in fundraising, is Bernie Sanders, a self-described Socialist to whom the free market is not just foreign, but evil. His support, which like Trump, is befuddling the establishment, has nothing to do with socialism. He’s just the Democrats’ version of “none of the above” — and if some of the polls can be believed, he’s winning.
What does all this tell me? It tells me that America may finally be ready for a presidential candidate who DOES believe in the free market, but rejects crony capitalism and the subsidies, deals, bailouts and tax breaks that come with it. They may be ready for a candidate who actually governed a border state…and DOESN’T believe that a Great Wall is a substitute for immigration reform that today’s politicians cannot summon the courage to enact.
Those Millennials who will soon be a full one-third of American adults may be ready to become engaged in politics with a candidate who wants to give them a government that will leave them alone, get its finances in order so that they don’t inherit an economic collapse, and stop labeling them as criminals for smoking a joint in the privacy of their own homes.
And Americans who are rightfully and deeply concerned that a feckless foreign policy is allowing the likes of ISIS to not only threaten our safety, but humiliate us, may be ready for a candidate who will put politics aside and engage in reality-based foreign and military policies that actually fulfill government’s most basic responsibility to keep us — and our freedoms — safe.
Maybe, just maybe, America is ready. And maybe that’s why I would want to run for President.
Sincerely,
Gov. Gary Johnson
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There is a great deal of betting that our governments allow in today’s world. And in many ways, not only do governments approve of these “vices,” they actually promote them, like when they advertise for their state-run lotteries! (And the idea that “it’s for the schools” is a diversion!) This legal betting not only includes horse and dog racing, but also complete gambling not only in Nevada, but also in many Native American casinos all around the country. Furthermore, depending upon your point of view, the stock market and other investments are simply another form of legalized gambling. So why should placing wagers on sports events be illegal? (And how, by the way, is fantasy football different than other sports gambling?)
Early nineteenth century humanist English writer William Hazlitt once made a comment that has haunted me ever since I heard it. He said that “The love of Liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.” As a writer myself, and someone who came in third in the 2012 election for Vice President of the United States (although truly a distant third), I know that frequently when people talk about Liberty today others think they sound like something of a kook. And that is really a tragedy, because our great country is actually founded upon the concept of Liberty. In fact, Liberty is literally our country’s soul. So I simply agree with Hazlitt. If people have confidence in themselves and others, Liberty and free choice are best for all. If people want power and domination over others, take that freedom away and exercise control over others.
Last week I wrote that I felt that the American Disabilities Act was probably the best example of governmental “do-gooding” statutes. But now I think I was wrong. Because this past October 1, the Tenth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (otherwise known as the ICD-10) was ordered into effect. This measure increased the number of billing codes from which our country’s healthcare professionals must select to bill insurance companies for services rendered from the lofty number of about 24,000 to a mindboggling 148,000! So now injuries must be earmarked more precisely, literally forcing the billing doctors to draw the distinction between computer codes for being bitten by a cow, chicken, macaw or parrot. Or whether their patients were injured at the opera, the driveway of an orphanage or at a prison swimming pool!
There are so many examples about how “do-gooding” government statutes actually harm people that it is hard to choose the best example. But I think I have a winner in choosing the Americans with Disabilities Act, otherwise known as the “ADA.” When it was passed in 1990, some legislators were quoted as saying things like “No amount of money is too great to safeguard the rights of our disabled.” (Of course, this simply shows what politics can do to a rational discussion.)
I learned three lessons during my training with the Peace Corps that have stayed with me throughout my life, and they apply to situations in which we are all trying to institute programs and responses to address problem areas in our world. The first thing is that a program will only be successful if it addresses what we called a “felt need.” That means that if the people we are trying to help do not feel that there is an important problem to be remedied, the program or response we try to implement will not be successful. And that assuredly is true when we are trying to protect or even maintain our precious Liberties.
Okay, I openly acknowledge that I have a direct interest in this as a potential candidate, but I also believe that everyone else does too. On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 we filed a Complaint in the federal district court in Washington DC against the Commission on Presidential Debates, as well as the Democratic and Republican National Parties. The thrust of the lawsuit is to force the Commission, which is completely controlled by the Republican and Democratic National Parties, to invite the presidential and vice presidential candidates of all serious political parties to participate in the final national debates. Serious political parties is defined as any party that is on the ballots in enough states technically to win the presidency. In 2012 that would have included the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, which were on the ballots in 48 and 40 states, respectively. Liberty demands that all serious voices, and the issues they raise, be heard! And, along the way, help to reduce the stagnation that has occurred during the last decades because of the predominance of only two political parties! (More specific information about the lawsuit is provided below.)
Last week our 2 Paragraphs discussed the failure of the policy of “Tough on Crime,” and put forth realities on how we could have safer and more crime-free communities by being Smart on Crime. What follows are specific things we all can do to achieve those goals:
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