Except there are a few stark differences between Johnson and almost every other Republican angling for the White House -- and those differences, more likely than not, will come to define his underdog campaign.

For one, Johnson wants to legalize marijuana, and he likes to talk about it. He first raised the issue as governor, and he makes the fiscal case for drug law reforms with talk about the cost to taxpayers of law enforcement and prisons. He would have signed a bill banning late-term abortions, he told me, but he supports abortion rights until viability of a fetus. He enjoys ripping into hard-line immigration policies, as he has called for more visas for American-educated students and future businesspeople.

Thin and sandy-haired, Johnson talks with a serene focus that seems more Zen-master than politician. He built his own house in Taos, he told me, because the skiing there is great; he climbed Everest in 2003; he injured himself severely in a paragliding accident in 2005. When he talks one on one, he remains wide-eyed, engaged and relaxed.

Johnson is not a typical politician, by any means. He floats above the tensions and constant battles that the big-time GOP 2012 players, for instance, seem caught up in. Perhaps that's because he hasn't attained a status where everything he says is news.

What makes him different will probably keep him from winning the GOP nod in 2012, let alone the White House. His potential candidacy is, without a doubt, a very long-shot.



But his unconventionality is also what makes him fascinating, for this simple reason: Johnson appears poised to inherit swaths of Ron Paul's following -- the campaign-turned-movement that, in many ways, became the story of the 2008 Republican primary.

Of course, that all depends on whether Paul runs for president a second time.

If he does, Johnson's voice will likely echo Paul's onstage at Republican debates throughout the coming year. But if Paul doesn't run, his supporters could very well turn to Johnson, who is the only other GOP presidential candidate offering the same kind of stripped-down libertarianism that has attracted so many supporters to Paul. They share a thoroughgoing commitment to small-government that extends even to social policies and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Johnson vehemently opposes, as Paul did in 2008.

"We're building roads, schools, bridges, highways and hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq both, and we're borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar to do it," Johnson told me. "I just think that [9/11] was 10 years ago, it's not a threat today.... We should be out of Afghanistan tomorrow, and the issues that we will face getting out of Afghanistan tomorrow will be identical to the issues that we'll face 25 years from now, if that's when we decide to get out."

Paul's 2008 supporters were attracted by the Texas congressman's fierce libertarianism, his willingness to buck the pressures imposed by mainstream Republican politics, his radical side, and his unvarnished way of explaining his positions. Johnson checks all those boxes.