(Gov.) Gary Johnson for President!

An interview with former Governor Gary Johnson-- by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch-- in Reason...

In 1999, a year after winning a second and final term as Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson became the most prominent politician in the United States to call for legalizing marijuana. He also said straightforwardly that he had used pot himself in the past....

In 2010 Johnson is hoping to gain notoriety for a different, though related, reason. At a time of deep and convulsive popular discontent with the economy and the politicians attempting to manage it, Johnson has launched a profile-raising 501(c)4 nonprofit organization called the Our America Initiative, pushing limited-government solutions to economic, environmental, social, and international issues....While ending the drug war remains a central concern, the tanned triathlete is hoping to deliver the kind of broad-based critique of big government that proved such an unlikely success in 2008 for the less telegenic Ron Paul....

reason: What were your big accomplishments as governor of New Mexico?

Gary Johnson: I think I really did a good job when it came to controlling the growth of state government. I vetoed 750 bills while I was governor of New Mexico. I vetoed thousands of line items as governor of New Mexico, almost more than the other 49 governors in the country combined.

I cut the annual rate of growth in spending in half, from 10 percent to 5 percent. I would have liked to have cut actual spending, but that wasn’t going to happen.

New Mexico is 2-to-1 Democrat. I got elected as a Republican....

reason: What’s your message on economic policy?

Johnson: Well, stop the spending. Deficits are out of control...

reason: So do you keep taxes where they are, and then you just cut spending?

Johnson: You cut spending. You cut spending.

reason: What would you cut first?

Johnson: My experience was never about targeting any area of government to reduce. It was looking at every single line item in the state budget and making a determination of whether or not it was really making a difference....