Entrepreneur John McAfee says this year’s tumultuous and unpredictable presidential contest, which has buoyed unconventional candidates, offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Libertarian Party presidential nominee to win, or at least come close. And he believes he has the message and personality to make it happen. McAfee, well-known for the antivirus software company that bore his name for two decades, made many appearances on cable TV this week to discuss phone encryption and says his flair for self-promotion will go a long way toward landing a spot on general election debate stages. “If I can’t win in a year when we have dissatisfaction and children on stage, well then the Libertarians should just give up,” he says. “This is the only chance we have, this opportunity to enter a clown show dressed as and acting like the people who are actually suffering in this country. Trust me, I’ll have no problem whatsoever winning this election.” The eccentric 70-year-old speaks with the candor of GOP front-runner Donald Trump and with the clarity of libertarian hero Ron Paul, a former congressman.

“When I travel, I’m constantly stopped by people asking for photos,” he says. “I’m not tooting my own horn, but I have the ability to reach the people. They will listen because I have a checkered background and I may say something interesting.”

Among McAfee’s proposals are a voluntary month in jail for politicians in favor of new criminal penalties and abolition of drug testing for federal employees. But his primary campaign issue is a patriotic appeal for self-defense from cyber attacks from countries like China or Russia.

He says enormous hacks of federal worker data and FBI contact information show the technological incompetence of the government to protect against potentially catastrophic cyber warfare, which he says could destroy the entire U.S. power grid and kill many Americans.

Time will tell if he's sufficiently mainstream to attract Republicans disillusioned with Trump and liberals who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – should he lose to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

McAfee insists he will make no personal attacks on other candidates and sometimes catches himself mid-sentence making an unkind observation. But he has no problem characterizing the major-party nominating contests as “kindergarten politics” and accusing name-callers of masking their ineptitude and superficial differences.

“This personalization of politics has become absurd, and you realize what a farce and a laughingstock America has made of itself. Do you think the Russians are respecting us now? No, they’re rolling on the floor laughing,” he says.

“We should be ashamed of ourselves to the core as Americans that this political charade has reached the level that it has reached. Ashamed! Truly Ashamed.”

Before facing off against major-party candidates, McAfee first must defeat former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson at the Libertarian convention in May. He feels good about his chances against Johnson – the party's 2012 nominee, now a pot company CEO – and is looking toward the general election.

In many ways, McAfee is an even more unconventional candidate than Trump, who appears set for the GOP nomination after winning 10 of the first 15 state nomination votes. He openly acknowledges being jailed several times – all but one, a driving under the influence charge involving Xanax, he characterizes as acts of civil disobedience.

By his count, McAfee has helped start 17 companies, 11 of which he says made money. Intel agreed to buy his anti-virus software company McAfee Associates for $7.7 billion in 2010, more than a decade after McAfee sold his stake of the company for more than $100 million. Tribal Voice, a messaging app company he founded, sold for $17 million in 1999.

But he won’t say if he’s currently a millionaire – a private matter, he says, for so long as election law allows. (The New York Times reported in 2009 his net worth had fallen to $4 million during the financial crisis.)



As McAfee’s profile again rises, some readers are sure to recall his dramatic flight from police in Guatemala, where he hunkered down in 2012 after leaving Belize when his neighbor was murdered.

He faced no criminal charges in the neighbor’s death and says the experience had a deep impact on his foreign policy views. The murder and his flight happened months after Belize gang-suppression police – trained and armed by the U.S., McAfee says -- raided his home and antibiotic factory and shot his dog when he refused a $2 million extortion attempt from a local politician, he says.

“You tell me I don’t know something about foreign affairs and what happens when we interfere with the internal affairs of corrupt nations,” he says. “The government murdered my neighbor and came to question me, but I was not about to be questioned where they string you up by your heels, put a football helmet on your head and beat the helmet until your brains turn to mush.”

He says he would like to ask Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, “'for what purpose did you train these brutal, criminal people?' Because I want to know what sick, twisted webs you people have woven to allow this to happen.”

As with any candidate looking for an electoral footing, McAfee has some positions that set him apart. Whistleblower Edward Snowden, he says, is a hero and would get his pardon. And he believes the government should not try to regulate what people do with their own bodies, such as take drugs, though he says he hasn’t personally used an illegal substance in 30 years.

McAfee says he already is thinking about his running mate and promises to keep things interesting.