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New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson wins Libertarian nomination for President.
I don't know much about Gary Johnson, other then he wants to legalize marijuana. I won't support him unless he wants to legalize ALL drugs. I suspect Gary Johnson is just a Republican who wants to get publicity for himself by running for President on the Libertarian ticket. But that is based on my limited knowledge of him. Let's hope I am wrong and Gary Johnson is a real Libertarian. Libertarians nominate ex-Governor Gary Johnson for president By Timothy Pratt LAS VEGAS | Sat May 5, 2012 11:20pm EDT (Reuters) - The U.S. Libertarian Party on Saturday chose former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who was once a Republican White House hopeful, as its presidential candidate in the November 6 election. Johnson, who announced in December he would run for president as a Libertarian after mounting a long-shot candidacy for the Republican nomination, won 70 percent of the votes cast by 632 delegates at the party's convention in Las Vegas, Libertarian Party spokesman Stephen Gordon said. Johnson, who became the front-runner after winning straw polls at 12 previous state debates, beat Air Force veteran R. Lee Wrights, after the field narrowed to two candidates from six at the start of the convention on Thursday. "I am very humbled. This is just the start," Johnson told Reuters after securing the nomination of the Libertarian Party, whose philosophy is "minimum government, maximum freedom." Third parties have traditionally fared poorly in the two-party U.S. political system long dominated by Republicans and Democrats. The Libertarians' best presidential showing came in 1980 when nominee Ed Clark won 921,128 votes or 1.1 percent. In the 2008 election, party nominee Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman, got 523,686 votes or 0.4 percent. Johnson, 59, is running on a platform that includes slashing government spending to balance the federal budget by 2013, as well as ending the war on drugs, beginning with the legalization of marijuana. Delegates said their preference for Johnson stemmed from his experience as Republican New Mexico governor from 1995 to 2003, which they said gave him a greater chance of success in a national election. Wrights had no prior political experience. Democratic President Barack Obama is seeking re-election in the November election. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican nominee. APPEAL TO RON PAUL SUPPORTERS? Party officials hope they can count on supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul for votes in the general election. Paul's campaign has focused on issues favored by Libertarians like small government and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Paul, who ran for president as a Libertarian in 1988, is the last remaining Republican challenger to Romney. The Texas congressman is far behind in the polls and has not won a single nominating contest. As New Mexico governor, Johnson vetoed so many bills - some 750 - that he was later nicknamed "Governor Veto" - a record he referred to in a debate on Friday as evidence of his strong character. Wrights, 53, avoided complex policy proposals. Asked about gun control, he said, "I don't know about the rest of y'all, but you don't want to be crawling into my window after midnight." On foreign policy, he said, "Stop being a nosy neighbor and start being a good neighbor." Both spoke of abolishing multiple federal agencies. The crowd's favorite target was the Internal Revenue Service, but proposals to curb the Departments of Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Education were also greeted by applause.
Comparing Gary Johnson to Past Libertarian Party Nominees By Conor Friedersdorf May 7 2012, 8:30 AM ET 5 He has the most executive experience and the potential to win votes from conservatives and liberals. Over the weekend the Libertarian Party decided that Gary Johnson would be its presidential nominee. He's likely to appear on the ballot in all 50 states. And he's arguably the strongest candidate they've ever run. A quick history: The Libertarian Party first ran a presidential candidate in 1972. John Hospers, a philosophy professor, appeared on the ballot in only two states, but managed to win one electoral vote thanks to a Republican delegate who parted ways with Richard Nixon and backed the Libertarian ticket. In so doing, Roger McBride became a Libertarian Party hero -- and its presidential candidate in 1976. A Harvard trained lawyer, he made the ballot in 32 states, but won no electoral votes. Ed Clark was the Libertarian Party nominee in 1980. With his running mate, billionaire Charles Koch, he won 1 percent of the popular vote nationwide -- the best a candidate from that party has ever done. Four years later, David Bergland received just .3 percent of the popular vote. And in 1988, Ron Paul was the Libertarian nominee for president. With 9 years in the U.S. House of Representatives on his resume, he was easily the most experienced candidate the Libertarian Party had run. Around the same time, the racist newsletters most recently raised during the present campaign were going out under Paul's name. In 1992, Paul endorsed Republican Pat Buchanan for president, while the Libertarian Party ran Andre Marrou, who'd served one term in the Alaska House of Representatives, and won just .28 percent of the popular vote. Harry Browne headed up the Libertarian Party ticket in 1996 and 2000. An advertising executive turned entrepreneur and politician, he authored the 1970 book How You Can Profit From The Coming Devaluation. "Who will bail out the United States of America when it collapses, as it must, because of the deficit spending that keeps increasing?" the promotional copy asked. "The Collapse MUST come. It is inevitable. Our fondest hope has to be that it does not come during our lifetimes, so that only our children and grandchildren will suffer because of it." Browne died in 2006. Well played, sir. In 2004, Michael J. Badnarik, a software engineer and politician, won a close race for the Libertarian Party nomination only to earn even fewer votes in the general election than Ralph Nader, who had declined in popularity after the 2000 election debacle. In 2008, the Libertarian Party nominated former congressman Bob Barr despite certain heresies: a former drug warrior, he voted for the USA Patriot Act, backed the invasion of Iraq, and authored the Defense of Marriage Act. In a December 2003 profile, Jesse Walker traced the beginning of his conversion. "In his eight years in Congress, Barr was one of Washington's loudest critics of the federal government's abuses of power, taking the lead in investigating the raid on Waco and in opposing Bill Clinton's efforts to undermine due process in terrorism cases," he wrote in Reason magazine. "Since leaving Congress, Barr has taken an advisory post with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and started writing a column for Atlanta's alternative weekly Creative Loafing -- neither ordinarily a haven for Republicans. While many on the right have fallen behind the Bush administration even as it betrays their purported principles, Barr represents another set of conservatives' growing discomfort with the administration's erosion of individual liberty." Barr won .4 percent of the vote in his presidential run. And that brings us back to Gary Johnson. A former governor of New Mexico, he was re-elected by that state's voters, left office popular after two terms, and therefore has the most executive experience of any Libertarian Party presidential nominee. He can also cite the state he ran as evidence that nothing radical happens when he's put in charge. An economic conservative and social liberal, he represents a new direction for a party that has long wrestled with its paleo-libertarian wing. And yet he too is certain to lose on Election Day, as third-party candidates in American presidential elections do. The question is whether he can match his party's 1980 high-water mark and win 1 percent or more of the vote, and whether he might win even more in the key swing state of New Mexico, where voters already know and have cast ballots for him. |