click to enlarge

On the first Friday morning in August, in the University Club some 38 floors above downtown Tampa, a former Republican governor with presidential aspirations is speaking to a modest group of lawyers and lawmakers, lamenting the Obama administration’s spending and calling for major tax cuts to reboot the economy.

But unlike Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin, this possible 2012 candidate isn’t solely focused on such bread-and-butter issues, but also possesses unorthodox positions on drugs, illegal immigration and the war on terror.

Meet Gary Johnson, who served as New Mexico’s governor from 1994 to 2002, and became known nationally a decade ago as an iconoclastic Republican for his outspoken criticism on the war on drugs, and in particular, marijuana.

Although the term “Libertarian” gets thrown around frequently, Johnson seems to fully qualify under that ideology.  While his concerns on the economy sound like those of any garden-variety Republican or Tea Party member, he also wants government to do less when it comes to international affairs.

Regarding the economy, Johnson sounds almost like GOP gubernatorial insurgent Rick Scott, saying he evaluates everything on a cost-benefit analysis.  “What are we spending, what are we getting?” he says is the question he always asked himself on any issue when he was governor, such as securing the borders.  As for the idea of putting the National Guard across 1,600 miles of the border with Mexico, he says “the cost of that would absolutely dwarf the benefit.”

Johnson can speak with some real cred about illegal immigration, having led one of only four states that actually sit on the Mexican border.  He says he would have vetoed SB1070, Arizona's illegal immigration bill, claiming it will lead to racial profiling.

“I think that 75% of the problem goes away overnight if you just make it easy for immigrants to get a work visa,” he says, emphasizing, “it’s a work visa.  It’s not a pathway to citizenship.”

His idea of legalizing pot ties into the illegal immigration issue; he believes that legalization alone would make 75% of border issues go away.

It was his stance on marijuana a decade ago that first propelled Johnson from New Mexico onto the national stage.  With California citizens in November about to vote on legalizing the weed, he considers the moment to be a tipping point for the rest of the country.  “Legalize it.  Control it.  Regulate it.  Tax it,” he says, stressing that it won’t be legal for kids to smoke pot.

The Tampa law firm of GrayRobinson sponsored Johnson’s speech. In a brief interview with CL before his address, Johnson stressed that he wasn’t running for office, but that’s because legally he can’t.  That’s because he’s part of a 501(c) (4) called OUR America Initiative whose primary focus by law cannot be political campaigning.

Johnson was invited to speak in Tampa by Jason Unger, an attorney in GrayRobinson’s Tallahassee office, who said he got to know Johnson when he lived in New Mexico.  He likes Johnson’s positions on being fiscally disciplined and his support for legal immigration. And he says he hopes he’ll run for president.

Most pundits don’t think he has a chance unless he forms a coalition of Libertarians and moderate Republicans. In a blog post written on the Atlantic magazine’s website, "Why Gary Johnson Isn’t Taken Seriously," journalist Marc Ambinder wrote that it “is within Gary Johnson’s power to become a top-tier presidential candidate. Statements and press releases won’t do.”

Ambinder also writes that the one thing that Johnson is best known for – legalizing weed – could be a stigma that will be hard for him to transcend.

But at a time when the country seems to be screaming for something different in their leaders, Johnson brings proven government experience with an out-of-the-box approach on some critical issues, and perhaps shouldn’t be written off just yet.