Monday Profile: N.M. Gov. Gary Johnson By Jim Hughes

Denver Post Staff Writer May 15 - LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - It was hard to hear Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt as he addressed reporters on the edge of Los Alamos Canyon on Friday, even for the Albuquerque television reporter squatting on the ground a couple of feet away. There were helicopters overhead, lugging 200-gallon buckets of water, and spotter planes circling the Cerro Grande Fire, which by then had nearly encircled the town, and there was too much wind, really, for an outdoor press conference. So when the unshaven guy in the blue sweatshirt standing next to the reporter began digging around in the bottom of his bag of cheese crackers right by the reporter's microphone it was too much. The reporter looked up as if to raise a withering eyebrow of annoyance. But the brow never got there. This wasn't just any jerk spoiling his broadcast. This was the governor of New Mexico. The reporter turned back to Babbitt. He held his microphone higher, away from the governor and his crackling bag. Gary Johnson, a Republican who has run New Mexico's executive branch since January 1995 was all over the Cerro Grande Fire last week. He helped reporters understand where the fire was headed when low-level Forest Service officials couldn't, ran herd over the bureaucratic process of getting state and federal agencies and the National Guard involved, and even helped put out some of the fire with his feet. On a tour of Los Alamos last Wednesday, when he saw small flames spreading across a lawn, he had his driver stop his car. He jumped out and stomped on the flames, as did his wife and some of his staffers. "You want to do something about this kind of thing. Then we realized there was a wall of fire in back of the house," he said Sunday, remembering the day the Cerro Grande Fire stormed Los Alamos. "The next thing you knew, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face." Earlier that day, before the fire had entered the town and the adjacent campus of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Johnson tried to leave. He'd been told the town was OK. But now an evacuation was being ordered. "In 12 minutes, the fire jumped both lines," he said. "I knew I was going to stay until Los Alamos was secure." That day came Saturday, so Johnson left for the Scott Able Fire, which so far has destroyed 25 homes in the southern New Mexican town of Cloudcroft. On Sunday, he was back in Los Alamos to declare a victory over the southern branch of the Cerro Grande Fire, which has burned nearly 7,800 acres of the nuclear weapons lab grounds. The northern branch continues to burn uncontrolled but is not expected to affect any structures. Before the prescribed fire set by the National Park Service in nearby Bandelier National Monument went out of control, Johnson's main claim to fame was as the first U.S. governor to espouse the legalization of drugs. He admits he smoked marijuana in college: "I didn't experiment with marijuana, I smoked it," he told a student drug-legalization group at American University in Washington, D.C., in October. Such statements have drawn considerable heat. Three days after that speech, for example, Clinton Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey joked to reporters in Albuquerque that he'd heard Johnson was known as "Puff Daddy Johnson." In response, Johnson thanked McCaffrey for coming to New Mexico to bring more attention to the theory that legalizing drugs may be the only way to stop the runaway rate of drug-related crime. "That's an issue he and I have disagreed on," said Rep. Tom Udall, R-N.M., who also has been in Los Alamos this weekend for the fire. "But I think the real test of leadership is when you have circumstances like this. He's called on his reserves of energy and has just been a really excellent leader under very difficult circumstances here." The 47-year-old Johnson, who said he's a health nut who doesn't "do" sugar, caffeine, alcohol or any other drugs, said he's glad to have had the chance to bring the druglegalization argument from the fringes to the center of politics in New Mexico and beyond. "What we've got is prohibition, which in my opinion is 99 percent of the problem," he said. "It absolutely needs to be talked about." He'd like to see drugs legalized, regulated and taxed. Short of that, he'd like to see an increase in pub lic-health initiatives like methadone clinics and needle-exchange programs. But he won't be seeking another elected office when he steps down as governor at the end of 2001 thanks to a two-term limit, he said. Instead, he wants to increase the number of triathlons and Nordic ski races he enters - he's competed in the famous Ironman event in Hawaii three times. And, having already climbed Mount McKinley in Alaska, he wants to tackle Mount Everest. "The issue of drugs itself is a term limit," he said. "It is. I'm not naive, here. The first one who goes over the hill gets shot. Nobody that's elected has supported me on this. And I respect that. This is political suicide." And when told of his near miss with a TV reporter's scolding, Johnson, surprised, apologized. "I was trying to be quiet," he said. "I really was." Copyright 1999-2000 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.

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