Who is Gary Johnson?

You may want to read up on the former governor of New Mexico, as there are rumors of a 2012 run. Think of him as Ron Paul minus the crazy and about 20 years. Of course, that means he will be rejected by the partisan elites, but politics can be so much more fun when there is a fly in the ointment. A few excerpts from a 2001 Reason interview:

Politics is a herd mentality. Politicians don’t really lead. Politicians reflect what they think is consensus opinion.

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Any movement at all [on drug policy] that reduces disease, that reduces overdoses, that reduces property crime, that reduces violent crime is good.

I’m a cost-benefit analysis person: What are we spending and what are we getting? My premise is the war in drugs is a miserable failure. I don’t know of a bigger problem in every single state, or a bigger expense that might actually have alternative solutions. Drugs account for half of law enforcement spending, half of prison spending, half of court spending. What are we getting for it? We are arresting 1.6 million people a year in this country on drug-related charges, and it’s a failure.

Go down the list of the main criticisms [against school choice vouchers]: Vouchers only favor the rich. Baloney! People with money live in good neighborhoods that have good schools. Give me a break. Vouchers are for the poor. Vouchers are for those that don’t have money, who live in the worst neighborhoods, go to the worst schools, and can’t get away from them.

Keep going down the list: Vouchers are unconstitutional because you’re giving money to private schools. No. If you want to start calling vouchers unconstitutional, then every single state has got a lot of unconstitutional programs. We give low-income parents money so they can go take their child to child care. We don’t tell them where to take their child. The examples go on and on.

Since I have been governor, K–12 educational spending has gone from $1.1 billion a year to $1.6 billion a year. By all measurements, students are doing just a little bit worse from year to year. For all that money, shouldn’t we be doing just a little bit better? All I suggest is to make K–12 like higher education. Higher education in the United States is the best in the world because these institutions compete with each other for your tuition dollar. Let’s just bring competition to public education. This is not about getting rid of public education; it is about providing alternatives that public schools very, very quickly will react to. Public schools will get better if they are subject to competition.

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Economic growth occurs only if you are connected with a four-lane highway. A lot of New Mexico is rural, and building 500 miles of four-lane highway is going to make a huge economic difference to all those communities.

To save money, we looked at private alternatives in building the roads. The highway project on Highway 44, which is Albuquerque to Farmington, is designed, financed, built, and guaranteed by a private company. This is completely unique. We are actually the first state in the United States to adopt an innovative financing program for Highway 44, by bonding federal revenues. As a result, other states are copying it, and Wall Street is embracing it.

He has also voiced anti-war positions on foreign policy, and hinted at equal recognition of gay and heterosexual relationships. I have learned not to put too much hope in politicians, but here's hoping he can make 2012 a little more interesting. A lot can happen with respect to voter opinion of Obama's first term, but the awful list of re-treads and hopefuls the Republican are putting forth may create some opportunity, at least in the primaries. That is (SARCASM ALERT), of course, only if Biblical prophecy is wrong and Colin Powell doesn't run and become President.