Since CNN decided to exclude former two term New Mexico governor Gary Johnson from the debate last night based on his record poll percentages, I thought it might be prudent to put up his interview earlier yesterday with Judge Napolitano on FreedomWatch.  For those that don’t know anything about Gov. Johnson, he is the republican businessman who was highly successful (like Herman Cain but with political acumen and no connection to the Federal Reserve), cut New Mexico’s state budget by 10%, and was elected and re-elected in a predominately democratic state because of his record.  Besides being a former governor and businessman, Mr. Johnson is a triathlete, has climbed Mt. Everest, and left the State of New Mexico with a $1 billion surplus due to his record of vetoing based on cost-benefit analysis.  CNN definitely cannot have a young, robust, limited government type up on the stage showing up Hermain Cain and Mitt Romney.

Gov. Gary Johnson, CPAC, 2.11.2011:

A few tidbits:

While in college, Johnson earned money as a door-to-door handyman.^[19] His success in that arena encouraged him to start his own business, Big J Enterprises, which was founded in 1976. When he started the business, Johnson was its only employee.^[20] His major break with the firm was receiving a large contract from Intel‘s expansion in Rio Rancho, which increased Big J’s revenue to $38million.^[16]

Over-stretched by his success, Johnson enrolled in a time management course at night school, which made him heavily goal-driven.^[16] He eventually grew Big J into a multi-million dollar corporation with over 1,000 employees.^[21] By the time he sold the company, in 1999, it was one of New Mexico’s leading construction companies.^[22]

…break…

In an interview in Reason Magazine in January 2001, Johnson’s accomplishments in office were described as follows: “no tax increases in six years, a major road building program, shifting Medicaid to managed care, constructing two new private prisons, canning 1,200 state employees, and vetoing a record number of bills.”^[23]

Andrew Sullivan claimed that Johnson “is highly regarded in the state for his outstanding leadership during two terms as governor. He slashed the size of state government during his term and left the state with a large budget surplus.”^[37] According to one New Mexico paper, “Johnson left the state fiscally solid,” and was “arguably the most popular governor of the decade . . . leaving the state with a $1 billion budget surplus.”^[38] The Washington Times has reported that when Johnson left office, “the size of state government had been substantially reduced and New Mexico was enjoying a large budget surplus.”^[25]

According to a profile of Johnson in the National Review, “During his tenure, he vetoed more bills than the other 49 governors combined — 750 in total, one third of which had been introduced by Republican legislators. Johnson also used his line-item-veto power thousands of times. He credits his heavy veto pen for eliminating New Mexico’s budget deficit and cutting the growth rate of New Mexico’s government in half.”^[39] Johnson has “said his numerous vetoes, only two of which were overridden, stemmed from his philosophy of looking at all things for their cost-benefit ratio and his axe fell on Republicans as well as Democrats.”^[20]