Gary Johnson Profile

Gary Johnson was an interesting New Mexico Governor - a socially-liberal, economically conservative libertarian big-sky hybrid. He wasn't the New Mexico norm - more like someone from Montana or Colorado. I think the times are not in Johnson's favor - this is an era of big government bailouts - but times can change, of course, sometimes quickly. He'd be an improvement over most - no, all - of the current GOP field:

Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico and a likely candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, is talking about hookers.

"It's never been a consideration that I would enlist the services of a prostitute, myself personally," he says. "But if I were to do that, where would I want to enlist that service? Well, it would probably be in Nevada, where it's legal, because it would be safe."

When's the last time Mitt Romney engaged in a hypothetical like that? But Johnson doesn't even blink. It's not like this is the only topic on which he risks offending the GOP's base. He also favors legalizing pot, supports abortion rights, and opposes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh, and he doesn't go to church. "I don't think you'll ever hear me invoking God in anything I do," he tells me.

It is an incongruous foundation from which to seek the mantle of a party whose last president, George W. Bush, famously claimed that his favorite philosopher is Jesus Christ.

Johnson faces other obstacles, too. Aside from his low name-recognition, he has no discernible power base. After eight years on the job in Santa Fe, he was term-limited out of the governorship at the end of 2002 and stepped back from public life thereafter.

...A 57-year-old fitness fanatic who climbed Mt. Everest in 2003, Johnson chooses the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South as the venue for our interview. Besuited and with reading glasses dangling around his neck, he answers almost every question with a smile and, sometimes, an idiosyncratic, wide-eyed expression. The overall effect is of a courtly, mildly eccentric uncle. This, in itself, makes him seem like a misfit in today's aggressively orthodox -- and virulently partisan -- GOP.

Ask Johnson what he thinks of Barack Obama, for instance, and rather than the stream of vitriol that might issue semi-automatically from the lips of some party colleagues, he answers: "You can't help but like him."

...Johnson seems ill at ease with the belligerent icons of modern-day conservatism. What does he think of the idol of the Tea Partiers, Glenn Beck?

"I have not watched Glenn Beck. I don't watch him."

Does he listen to Rush Limbaugh?

"I don't. Not that I haven't [ever]. But I don't tune in to Rush."

...He went to a Tea Party event in South Carolina a couple of weeks ago, he says, and was impressed when one attendee gave him a handout that claimed to identify the movement's top 10 priorities.

"Basically, one through 10, it had to do with the economy and spending and taxes. And I thought, 'This is who I am! This is what I care about!'"

Then he adds: "There was a lot of fringe there."

What does he mean by "fringe"?

"My son had a conversation with somebody who was a birther, [who] described 'birther' to my son. Well, I didn't have that conversation, but --"

Johnson stops abruptly. A full six seconds of silence ensue. Would he like to complete the thought?

"Well, just to get to hear that ... To me, it's just hard to grasp," he says, a little sadly.

On other issues, Johnson doesn't bother to hide his disdain for his party's hard-liners. Take the incendiary new immigration law passed in Arizona, for instance:

"I just don't think it's going to work," he says. "I think it' s going to lead to racial profiling. I don't how you determine one individual from another -- is it color of skin? -- as to whether one is an American citizen or the other is an illegal immigrant."

Johnson favors an expansive guest worker program and is uncomfortable with the idea of mass deportations. What about the idea of increasing security by means of a border wall?

"I have never been supportive of the wall," he replied. "A 10-foot wall [just] requires an 11-foot ladder."

Up until now, Johnson's main national claim to fame has been his effort, while he was New Mexico's governor, to legalize marijuana. The push failed, but Johnson remains committed to the cause.

"I have always seen this as a gigantic issue, when you consider what we spend on law enforcement and the prisons," he says. "The fact that we are arresting 1.8 million people a year -- and to what end? We have had virtually no effect on this in decades of pursuing current policy. I don't know why we can't accept marijuana use similar to alcohol."

All of this raises an obvious question: What is Johnson doing in the Republican Party?

He argues that the GOP is a broader coalition than is commonly portrayed. On the marijuana issue, he contends that there are "as many very conservative Republicans" in favor of legalization as there are "what you might call left-wing Democrats" opposed.

"I haven't found the Republican Party to be exclusive as much as inclusive," he adds.

Still, he concedes that the libertarian strain of Republicanism he embodies is somewhat marginalized in today's GOP. "On the other hand," he is quick to claim, "the rising wing, the heartbeat, really, of the Republican Party right now is this rising libertarian element -- the campaign for liberty."