GOP presidential candidate Gary Johnson says he is seriously considering running as the Libertarian Party candidate for president next year. The former New Mexico governor, who has been excluded from 15 of the 17 televised debates so far this year, says if the opportunity were to present itself he would do it, because it would allow him to spread his somewhat unconventional message.
"I've been excluded from the process I think unfairly, and here's an opportunity to continue to talk about the message, and not to change the message in any way whatsoever," Johnson told CL Monday afternoon, speaking in the lobby of the Hampton Inn off of Ulmerton Road in Clearwater, where he was scheduled to give a speech in the evening at the Datex Business Center.
Johnson says he isn't upset at being shut out of the debates per se, but at being excluded from the list of Republican candidates in statewide or national polls. "In the last debate I was in [Orlando on September 22], Fox chose to interpret the rules as the last five national polls where my name appeared, which I thought was eminently fair." (The Republican Party of Florida actually took issue with Fox News for including him in that debate.)
Unlike most of the other Republican candidates running for president, Johnson praises President Obama for withdrawing all combat troops from Iraq by the end of this month. "We shouldn't have gone in the first place," he's quick to say.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2011.