By MICHAEL D. SHEAR Gary E. Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, offering a quirky style and a platform — legalization of marijuana! — that seemed out of sync with voters.
But despite dropping out of the Republican race a week before the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Johnson has not given up his hopes of competing for the White House in November.
In fact, he’s got a much better shot now that he’s the favorite to receive the Libertarian Party’s endorsement for president this weekend. Having switched to the third party, Mr. Johnson says he is confident that he will be one of three people to compete in all 50 states in the fall. (President Obama and Mitt Romney would be the other two.)
The Libertarian Party is holding its national convention in Las Vegas beginning Thursday and will pick a presidential and vice presidential nominee. Mr. Johnson said on Monday he intends to run with Jim Gray, a former California judge, as the party’s vice presidential nominee.
Here’s an edited and condensed version of an interview The Caucus conducted with Mr. Johnson while he was in Washington last week.
Q. How confident are you that you will get the Libertarian Party nomination for president?
A. I should get the nomination. I’ve been to 11 state conventions where there has been a debate among presidential candidates followed by a straw poll. And the worst I’ve done is 75 percent of the vote. So I’ve been vetted by the Libertarian Party.
Q. Do you think running first for the Republican nomination helped give you name recognition?
A. Yes. No, I do. The message is unchanged. It’s always been about the message. I think what I’m saying is similar to Ron Paul‘s. For all of what’s said about Ron Paul, support for Ron Paul has doubled from 2008. I don’t think that’s been really well recognized. When his candidacy comes to an end — and I’m believing he’s not going to be the nominee — then where does this message go from there? Well, in the context of being a messenger, I think he and I are saying the same thing. It’s better that he sticks in this and continues to talk about this up until the convention. I think that’s beneficial.
Q. How are you going to demonstrate that you are different from the two major party candidates, Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney?
A. By embracing the best from the Democrats, which, arguably, has historically been about civil liberties. And then embracing the best of what historically has been the best of the Republican Party, which is dollars and cents. Speaking with a broad brushstroke, the notion that the majority of Americans are fiscally conservative and socially tolerant — I’m in that group. That said, O.K., what are the problems facing the country? What are the solutions? I guess you could be homeless and still talk about the problems facing the country and the solutions. I’m going argue, though, that to run for president, you have to have a résumé to actually suggest that you could be successful in bringing about resolutions to the problems that we have.
Q. Assess the process of running for president as a Republican.
A. The process was terribly unfair for me. They excluded me from their first debate and that really set the stage for everything. What they said was I had to be at 2 percent in A, B and C poll. Well, I wasn’t in A, B and C poll. So if I’m not in the poll, how could I be in the debate? It’s exclusion in a way that goes completely unnoticed by anybody. Really, nobody could tell you what I just told you. I asked the Republican Party to stand up for having me in the polls that determine who gets in the debates. Don’t stand up and say I have to be in the debate. Stand up and say I have to be included in the poll that determines who gets in the debate. And they didn’t.
Q. What do you think of Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama?
A. The only issue I have with Mitt Romney is I have no idea where he stands on any issues. Other than he’s going to cut the budget but he’s going to increase military spending. He’s going to cut the budget, but he’s going to save Medicare? Two sides of the mouth that really don’t end up talking about real solutions.
Q. And Mr. Obama?
A. To me, Obama’s been a real disappointment on civil liberties: marriage equality, getting out of the wars, getting out of Afghanistan — he doubled down on Afghanistan — drug reform, signing the National Defense Authorization Act with the caveat that now you and I as U.S. citizens can now be detained without being charged.
Q. Assuming you don’t win, whom do you think your candidacy will hurt the most?
A. You should vote for who you think is really going to best represent you and what you think. I’ve always believed that, so this isn’t a step out from that. Probably, it’s going to end up helping Romney. I’m probably going to take more Democrat votes — the whole civil liberties side of this. And I couple the civil liberties with, I think, the majority of Democrats — the majority of registered Democrats, not politicians, but just Democrats as a whole — understanding that monetarily, what we are doing is not sustainable.
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