Johnson/Weld -- A Genuine Option

Dear Friends,

I watched the Libertarian Town Hall on CNN with great interest last night.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I'm having real problems supporting either of the major party presidential candidates.

I got a really good look at the Gary Johnson/Bill Weld Libertarian team last night, and I didn't hear one thing from either of them that I disliked or simply couldn't live with.

Basically, the Libertarians are fiscal conservatives who favor smaller government and oppose foreign interventions to effect regime change. They are social liberals who believe that we should completely control the domain of our own bodies. And they would eliminate 'victimless' crimes.

I favor those positions.

They are much weaker on health care and the social safety net than I'd prefer, but I don't believe that two successful former mainstream Republican governors would do anything to really upset the apple cart. These two are far from suggesting any radical changes to our system.

Don't write us off yet. Between the two of us, we have four terms as
Republican governors of  two very blue states. We had to be doing
something right.

Johnson is well known for his support of marijuana legalization and the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education in favor of state control; two of his more controversial stances.

But he startled Town Hall moderator Anderson Cooper, when he made the statement that his opinions on how to fix the world could actually be wrong.

Johnson freely admits he makes mistakes. He said he likes to admit when he's wrong, learn from his mistake, and move on.

Cooper did a noticeable double take and called Johnson's admission to being fallible surprising, refreshing. and not something he was used to hearing from a politician.

Indeed, extreme athlete and former two-term governor of New Mexico, Johnson isn't what you'd expect.

He's a competition mountain biker and has actually climbed the tallest mountain on every continent, including Mount Everest.

Bill Weld, who would be less of a vice president and more of a co-president in a Johnson administration, has an equally impressive resume as a former prosecutor and popular former two-term governor of Massachusetts.

I don't know about any of you, Friends, but I'm going to watch these two more closely.

One poll has them at 12% this morning. Three more points and we'll see them in the national debates this fall. That will change the whole ballgame.