I support Gary Johnson for the LP nomination because I want a candidate who has experience and a solid record of making an impact. I realize he isn’t perfect and I don’t support some of his platform, but he is the best damn choice we have.

Unlike the rest of the LP candidates, Johnson is the only one with a record to criticize. Yes he did increase spending by 7.2% and yes the state debt did double. But, as I noted in my recent article about his record as governor; he was one of New Mexico’s most popular governors, and he left office with $1 billion budget surplus. The Real GDP of New Mexico grew from $64 billion to $74.49 billion in a span of 8 years. In the past twelve years, New Mexico’s real GDP has grown from $74.49 billion to $82.2 billion.

Johnson vetoed 750 bills; more than the other 49 governors combined. He was the first governor to propose a statewide voucher program. In 1999, Johnson threatened a government shutdown and vetoed two budgets. He lost in the end, but he still managed to cut $21 million from the budget, which was 0.5% of the budget.

In 2001, Michael Lynch wrote that Johnson managed to have “no tax increases in six years, a major road building program, shifting Medicaid to managed care, constructing two new private prisons, canning 1,200 state employees, and vetoing a record number of bills.”

Johnson isn’t a perfect libertarian, but he is a realist when it comes to libertarian thought. The most frequent memes you’ll see in libertarian social media groups are about Nazi cakes and Jewish bakers. As Johnson explains in a Facebook post, when you open your doors to the public, you open it to all of the public. Does a Jewish baker have to sell a cake to a Nazi? Yes. Do they have to draw a swastika on the damn thing? No, that is a violation of the 1st Amendment. There’s a great difference.

When you open a business that is open to the public, as Johnson explains, “the owners voluntarily agree to adhere to applicable laws and regulations — whether they like those laws or not.” That is why religious institutions aren’t open to the public and are allowed to discriminate against whomever they want; because they don’t serve the general public. That’s why men’s clubs and women’s clubs are allowed to discriminate on gender — they aren’t open to the general public.

Government is not allowed to discriminate against their citizens, either.

He’s for gay marriage, but not for pastors being forced to marry gay people, which was a silly accusation to throw against him during the LP Nevada debate.

With the state of the economy and so many bigger issues on the table, why are we focused on cakes and weddings?

In the end, he has a solid record as governor and as a Libertarian candidate. He got us 1.2 million votes in 2012 which was double that of Bob Barr and he didn’t go back to the Republican Party.

Johnson has always been pragmatic in his ideals. He’s the best bet we’ve got when it comes to bringing libertarianism into the mainstream and for getting that magic 5% in order to become a major party. Libertarians have always been hurt by infighting and debates about who is more pure. We all have our own definitions of what a libertarian is.

But in the end, no matter which of the three wins the LP nomination, they will have my support and my vote.