Johnson makes his pitch for presidency

The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on July 20. It was edited for space.

The board met Tuesday with the Libertarian Party candidate for president, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, and his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld. Could these outsiders climb enough in the polls to earn the right to participate in the fall presidential debates?

Yes, Johnson and Weld appear capable of making waves. Johnson hit 13 percent in a new CNN presidential poll. He likely needs to reach 15 percent in future polls to qualify for the debates. That’s doable. What earns their disarming buddy routine a minute of your time is their intriguing mix of government experience and mad chef political thinking.

Each is a former two-term Republican governor in a Democratic state who got the local economy moving. Governing across party lines means each is comfortable at compromise, a spirit at the heart of their quixotic campaign. Johnson and Weld aren’t running as anti-government-free-will Libertarians with a capital L. They are agile, practical-minded thinkers with a few quirks: Conservative on money issues, socially liberal, skeptical of government power and military entanglements. Not so scary, right? “Most people are Libertarian,” Johnson told us. “It’s just that they don’t know it.”

That pithy line is a grabber, especially since they come across as decent fellows. What makes them worth a serious look? Many voters don’t want politics as usual. Republican primary and caucus voters rejected traditional candidates and messaging in favor of Trump. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders, a “democratic socialist,” came reasonably close to upsetting Hillary Clinton.

And today? A majority of the electorate (58 percent!) is dissatisfied with the major party candidates for president, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Now how do a couple of no-nonsense ex-governors sound?

Our time with Johnson and Weld only scratched the surface of their views. The federal government is an obstacle to prosperity and an inefficient problem-solver, Johnson posited. He’s inclined to shut down or pare back agencies such as education and commerce and direct that money to the states. He wants a balanced budget. To preserve Social Security, he’d raise the retirement age and apply a means test. That’s sensible advice, especially since Johnson says he could compromise with Congress.

The most radical notion Johnson floated is legalizing marijuana, noting that it’s happening already. Concerning the war on terror, Johnson sounded cautious, fretting about the “unintended consequences” of trying to save the world. Said Weld about American troops in Afghanistan: “When should they come home – never? We have to leave 8,400 troops there because we decided to do what the British Empire and Russian empire decided to do and failed miserably?”

Obviously this is a long-shot candidacy. The most likely scenario that propels Gary Johnson to the presidency is a frankly impossible bank shot: If no candidate claims an Electoral College victory, the deadlocked race would be thrown to the House of Representatives.