Gary Johnson's Bid For the Presidency: Will He Make One?

Written by Derek Thomas Tuesday, 12 April 2011 11:40

New Mexico's ex governor just may be getting ready to run for president in 2012. There have been plenty of rumors due to the launch of his recent 501(c)(3) organization called Our America Initiative and his new book titled, "7 Principles of Good Government". However he has mentioned that he can not make an official statement due to the development of non-profit which restricts his ability to make statements on political campaigns. Johnson, as of recent, has been doing a lot of traveling around America and engaging in speaking events which has led many people to believe he might indeed run this election cycle.

New Mexico's ex governor just may be getting ready to run for president in 2012. There have been plenty of rumors due to the launch of his recent 501(c)(3) organization called Our America Initiative and his new book titled, "7 Principles of Good Government". However he has mentioned that he can not make an official statement due to the development of non-profit which restricts his ability to make statements on political campaigns. Johnson, as of recent, has been doing a lot of traveling around America and engaging in speaking events which has led many people to believe he might indeed run this election cycle.

While recently Johnson has been avoiding the questions of a 2012 presidential run, he have been giving speeches across country about his non-profit campaign. So far he has been to over thirty different states including key primary states such as Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire. It is estimated he has spoken with over 450 different groups at many American Universities

Some argue Johnson's appearance on the Colbert Report back in May helped boost his popularity, what Colbert himself would call the "Colbert bump", and thus further helping a 2012 campaign run. The support group, Johnson for America, has recently sprung up in an attempt to persuade the governor to run.

Johnson has been addressing many issues through his travels across the country. For example, he has publicly said that the national debt is America's number one threat to keeping a strong dollar. Some of his suggestions to reduce the deficit are cuts primarily in defense spending where we have spent trillions of tax payers dollars thus far. In a recent statement Johnson compared our operations in Afghanistan to the Russian-Afghan war. He points out that the occupation had bankrupted the Russians in the 1980's and issues a word of warning to America.

Johnson says we can improve America's economic status by focusing on three major components. Initially, he says, we need to stop spending so much money. He proposes that we make major cuts to programs of entitlement that have to do with medicaid, social security and medicare. The second thing we can do is create a flat tax on income and eliminate the investment & savings tax. The last component is to stop funding major corporations with tax dollars and take away the federal reserve's grip on the economy.

The legalization of marijuana is something Johnson is advocating for saying we can tax and regulate it like we do with tobacco products. This is a more controversial idea, but he defends the idea well by arguing its health risks are no more dangerous than that of alcohol. If we implement the same laws we have for alcohol then marijuana can be used in a legal and safe manner. Moreover, he wants serious drug reform by placing serious drug users into treatment programs that tackle the issue of addiction. Criminalization doesn't address the core issue of addiction and is wasting tax payer dollars by creating revolving prison doors for health problems that could be fixed through rehabilitation.