William Westhoven

@WWesthoven

While one major presidential candidate waffles on the possibility of a third-party run, another established White House hopeful is prepping for the kind of outsider campaign that at least one poll expert believes could be viable in 2016.

Fresh off a surprisingly strong showing in a recent Monmouth University poll — showing him with an 11 percent share of the vote in a hypothetical run against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — former two-term New Mexico governor and Libertarian party front-runner Gary Johnson spoke exclusively with Gannett New Jersey about his chances for victory in November.

"I’m a former governor, I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life, so perhaps I have a resume that people might look and say, gee, this guy could be president," Johnson said.

The Monmouth poll, which contacted 1,008 adults in the United States between March 17 and 20, tested a potential three-way race involving Clinton, Trump, and Johnson. In that hypothetical contest, Clinton received 42 of the vote, while Trump polled at 34 percent. Johnson, who won twice as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in a Democrat-leaning state, received his highest vote share (15 percent) in the red states.

"I am aware of the poll," Johnson said.

Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, referred to Johnson as "largely an unknown commodity," and speculated that Johnson's name in the poll "seems to be more of a placeholder for voters who are not particularly thrilled with either major party choice right now.”

But noting the high levels of voters disapproving of both the Republican and Democratic front-runners, Murray said “A vigorous third party campaign is a very real possibility this year, but it is not yet clear what the impact could be."

"I think that’s fair," Johnson said of Murray's "placeholder" remark. "But the significance is that this is the first time my name has appeared in a national poll. And this year, the Libertarian Party is going to be on the ballot in all 50 states. That’s a claim that, because of time, no other third party will be able to lay claim to."

Johnson added that the Monmouth poll also could help him gain a podium at the general-election debates, something that has not occurred since H. Ross Perot's independent run in 1992.

"It’s a Catch-22," he said. "The media says if you're not at X-level in the polls, we're not going to cover you. And the polls say if you’re not being covered by the media, we’re not going to include you in the polls. How do you ever overcome that? This would be the year to potentially overcome that. There’s no way a third-party candidate wins the presidency without being in the general election debate, but the presidential debate commission has said if you’re at 15 percent in polling, you will be in the presidential debate. I happen to think that if my name would be appearing in more national polls that I would achieve 15 percent."

But first, he has to formally nail down the Libertarian Party nomination. As the party's chosen candidate in 2012 (earning just 1 percent, but with 1.3 million votes setting a party record), however, he is the presumptive favorite in a field that includes computer tech and antivirus software pioneer John McAfee and Libertarian Republic magazine founder Austin Petersen. Those three candidates participated last week in the first nationally televised Libertarian presidential debate on the Fox Business Channel.

"I'm the guy with the resume," said Johnson, who is 63.

While the Johnson and the Libertarian Party are gaining attention, funding remains an issue.

"Breakthrough money is tens of millions of dollars, and no, we’re not there," Johnson said. "But if people actually think you have a chance of winning, we could get there in a nanosecond."

The message he hopes to deliver is, at least on one one level, similar to that of another so-called outsider.

"I made the same pitch to New Mexicans that Donald Trump is making to America," Johnson said. "My pitch was hey, I’ve never been in politics before. I ran as a Republican in a state that is 2:1 Democrat. I was promising to bring my common-sense business approach to state government. I’ve got a successful business. I’m going to apply the same business principles to state government and watch how well things run."

Johnson said that's where the Trump comparisons end.

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"You know, I never said anything as stupid as deporting 11 million immigrants," Johnson said. "I never said anything as stupid as building a wall across the border. I never said anything as stupid as I’m going to kill the families of Islamic terrorists. I never said anything as stupid as I’m for free market, then I’m going to force Apple to make their iPads and IPhones in the United States. And now he’s talking about women’s rights and abortion. I realize he backtracked on it immediately. But I’ve never had to backtrack on anything that I said like that because I never said anything as stupid as that."

He's no fan of the Democratic front-runner, either.

"Hillary is about as establishment as you get," Johnson said. "What changes if Hillary gets elected? I don’t think anything changes. It’s just treading water. Hillary is really in the camp that bigger government is better because bigger government knows better than you or I. That’s the opposite of what a Libertarian thinks. You and I know what’s best. Get government out of the way."

Bernie Sanders?

"Interestingly there’s a website called isidewith.com, you answer 36 questions and you get paired up with the presidential candidate most aligned with your views," Johnson said. "I took it a couple of weeks ago and they kind-of screwed it up a bit because I only sided with myself 90 percent of the time. But interestingly, the second candidate I most closely aligned with was Bernie Sanders. Well, obviously, Bernie and I are opposites when it comes to economics. I’m not socialist in any way whatsoever. But on the social side, I’m a social liberal. You talk about the Republican candidates, they’re all conservative. I think the majority of people in this country are socially liberal, and I think the majority of people in this country are fiscally responsible. And that in a nutshell, and speaking with a broad brushstroke, is what it means to be a Libertarian in America."

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Johnson says he also has to combat public misconceptions about Libertarians in general.

"The biggest misconception, and not that there aren’t Libertarians in this camp, but to me, the biggest misconception is survival of the fittest," he said. "You hear they are all about no welfare, no government. I think government exists to protects us against individuals, groups, corporations or foreign governments that would do us harm. In that context, I think is the biggest problem facing us today is that government is too big, government tries to accomplish too much. It taxes too much, it spends too much, and ultimately that takes freedom away from you and I. That’s the misconception, the baggage that Libertarians have, that they are all about anarchy, no government."

Johnson says philosophically, he always has been a Libertarian, but as a first-time candidate, he ran as a Republican in New Mexico because there was no viable path to victory other than representing a major party.

"I recognized that Libertarian Party candidates haven’t won races, even if they're the most reasoned," he said.

Johnson hopes if the polls qualify him for the debates, then he can get his views out to the general public, including how to balance the budget, cut spending and reduce government.

"I would balance the budget," he said. "I realize it's Congress that has to balance the budget, but you would have president advocating for a balanced budget. I’m advocating for eliminating income tax, corporate tax, abolishing the IRS and replacing it with one federal-consumption tax. You could look at the fair tax — and I say fair tax even though there are no fair taxes — you could look at the fair-tax proposal as a template for how to dot the I's and cross the T's on how you accomplish one federal consumption tax. I think if we had zero corporate taxes in this country, we would have tens of millions of jobs created in this country, because why would you locate or start up your business anywhere in the world other than the United States, given a zero corporate tax rate?"

He would not, as the Gov. Chris Christie administration has, hand out millions of dollars in tax incentives to keep corporations like UPS and Honeywell in New Jersey.

"There’s this rightful outrage about lobbyists in Washington, and in this case you’re talking about a $40 million incentive to stay in New Jersey," Johnson said. "Well, if you had zero corporate tax, if you had no income tax, if you did not have an IRS, you would literally issue pink slips to 80 percent of Washington lobbyists because that’s why they are there, to garner tax favor."

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He also differs with Christie on enforcement of marijuana and drug laws.

"He’s a drug warrior, he’s a prosecutor and wants to lock everybody up," Johnson said of Christie. "I happen to think we should end the war on drugs. We should legalize marijuana, and he wants to continue criminalize that and a bunch of other things. That’s where he and I part ways."

He would no doubt find opposing views in Washington as well, but has a plan to bring Democrats and Republicans together.

"First of all, the way it is now, there’s really no difference between the two parties," Johnson said. "There's much ado about nothing when it comes to the two. They are both about bigger government. One is traveling at 100 miles an hour, and the other party you can argue is going 80 miles an hour, but they are both going down that path. How about a Libertarian president that challenges both sides? That challenges Democrats on the social side to be more inclusive? And how about challenging the Republicans to genuinely be about smaller government.?

"When I met Gary Johnson, he struck me as earnest and sincere," said Ken Kaplan, a Parsippany resident who has run for New Jersey governor on the Libertarian Party line three times. "He built a one man handyman business into a company that employed over a thousand people. He wants everyone to have their chance at the American dream, and he sees less government interference as the key to enabling small businesses to start up and grow."

"It really does sound sensible, doesn't it?" Johnson said.

Staff Writer William Westhoven: 973-917-9242; wwesthoven@GannettNJ.com.