'You Cut Spending': Former New Mexico Governor and Possible Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson Talks About Obamanomics, Ending the Drug War, And Climbing the Highest Mountains (Interview‪)‬

IN 1999, a year after winning a second and final term as Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson became the most prominent politician in the United States to call for legalizing marijuana. He also said straightforwardly that he had used pot himself in the past. As he explained in a reason interview the following year, the admission was a reaction to Bill Clinton's infamous statement about never inhaling. "Come on!" Johnson said. "I needed to be honest about this, so it was something that I volunteered." In 2010 Johnson is hoping to gain notoriety for a different, though related, reason. At a time of deep and convulsive popular discontent with the economy and the politicians attempting to manage it, Johnson has launched a profile-raising 501(c)4 nonprofit organization called the Our America Initiative, pushing limited-government solutions to economic, environmental, social, and international issues. If in the process he happens to tap into the growing Tea Party sentiment and palpable Republican hunger for new leadership, well, Johnson won't complain. As Politico reported in December 2009, the former governor "is doing little to knock down the idea that he may be looking toward a 2012 presidential run." While ending the drug war remains a central concern (Johnson was a featured speaker at the Marijuana Policy Project's annual dinner in January), the tanned triathlete is hoping to deliver the kind of broad-based critique of big government that proved such an unlikely success in 2008 for the less telegenic Ron Paul