Frank Daniels III

fdanielsiii@tennessean.com

Bad news can bring good tidings, or at least more contributions.

“'Aleppo day’ was our best fundraising day,” Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson told members of The Tennessean editorial board in a telephone interview on Monday, “only to be surpassed by the next day.

“And only to be surpassed again on the day it was announced that we were not going to be included in the first presidential debates.”

Johnson was responding to a question as to whether “screwing up” was actually good for his campaign.

The candidate, appearing on an MSNBC’s Morning Joe interview show with Mike Barnicle and other MSNBC journalists, flubbed Barnicle’s question:

“What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?”

Johnson blanked and asked Barnicle, “And what is Aleppo?”

The question went viral.

“I’d like to think,” Johnson said, “and I’m probably dreaming, that it is also reflective of, well, ‘how do you handle mistakes?’

“And in my case, look, zero excuse, and there is no quicker way to move forward than recognize (mistakes).”

Plans

Opinion engagement editor David Plazas and I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with the candidate talking about a range of issues, from how the campaign is progressing, his strategy for making the second and third presidential debates and what would be his administration’s first priority if elected.

The campaign, Johnson said, was “spending millions of dollars in 20 states” to bring up the polling numbers, and “we’re making progress. The numbers are going up, and I think we have a good chance of getting above the threshold.”

Johnson questioned whether the polling would be different if any of the national polls ever randomized the names to put his name before Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump when pollsters asked voters who they would vote for if the election were held now.

If elected, Johnson, who served two terms as governor of New Mexico, 1995-2003, and his running mate William Weld, who was governor of Massachusetts, 1991-1997, would make their first order of business to submit a balanced budget to Congress.

The governor went into few details, but pointed to the Bowles-Simpson plan as a good template for government spending.

“Listen,” Johnson said, “we are heading to a fiscal cliff, and we have to address it.”

The balanced budget plan would address spending on social security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as military spending, with an emphasis on the costs of the current strategy of “regime change” in areas around the world.

He said that the best way to address Medicaid spending challenges would be to make block grants to the states. “When I was governor of New Mexico, I know we could have done a much better job with a block grant of money than with federal mandates.”

Approachable

The conversation, though short, brought to mind the first time I sat in an editorial board interview of a presidential candidate, and of my first meeting with President-elect Bill Clinton.

In 1976, as a 20-year-old student I was invited to sit in on the interview with Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter. There was no pretension about Carter. He was as relaxed as your next door neighbor, and able to explain himself in a simple, direct manner that engendered trust.

In 1992, I met Clinton at the Renaissance Weekend retreat in Hilton Head, S.C. I was tracking down my six-year-old daughter, who had dashed off to the washroom, and as I walked up to get her she was being held up to a pay phone by the next president. She had to borrow a quarter from him to call her mother, who was sick at home.

Johnson reminds me of those two men, comfortable in his own skin and certain of the path he is walking.

There is a lot more to learn about his plans and policies, but his character appears far different from his principal opponents.

Reach Frank Daniels III:fdanielsiii@tennessean.com, 615-881-7039, or on Twitter @fdanielsiii