Alaskans don\u2019t like Hillary Clinton. They didn\u2019t pick Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson believes Alaskans want him \u2014 if they simply get to know him.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven just how polarizing Clinton and Trump are \u2026 I think we occupy a big, six-lane down the highway that 60 percent of Americans occupy and I\u2019m willing to bet 60 percent of Alaskans occupy,\u201d Johnson said by phone on Friday.<\/p>\n
During a campaign swing through the Rocky Mountains, Johnson spoke with the Juneau Empire\u2019s editorial board for 30 minutes, offering his stance on Alaskan issues in a pitch to voters who already appear open to his ideas.<\/p>\n
In June, the Alaska Dispatch News commissioned a poll from Alaska Survey and Research, a firm operated by Ivan Moore of Anchorage.<\/p>\n
The results of that poll were never published by the ADN. In a four-way race among Republican Donald Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton, Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Moore found 39.4 percent of registered Alaska voters supporting Donald Trump. For Clinton, the support was 30.4 percent. Johnson was a strong third at 15.6 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised Johnson was as high as he was,\u201d Moore said by phone. \u201cAt the time we did the survey, I think Johnson\u2019s national polling average in a four-way (race) was about 7 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statewide, there are just 7,064 registered Libertarian voters \u2014 fewer than 10 percent of the state\u2019s number of registered Democrats, and about 2 percent of the state\u2019s registered Republicans.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Alaska\u2019s Libertarians have enjoyed strong support from the state\u2019s stock of independent and nonpartisan voters.<\/p>\n
Of the state\u2019s 516,000 registered voters, 53 percent are not tied to a specific political party, and the state\u2019s reputation for independent thought and action seems to align with the Libertarians\u2019 belief in small government and social freedom.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of the Last Frontier, the pioneer spirit, with the stress on liberty … that\u2019s real close to Libertarianism,\u201d explained pollster Mark Hellenthal of Anchorage. <\/p>\n
Johnson himself said his desire is to see a \u201cfiscally conservative, socially inclusive\u201d government that disdains foreign military intervention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we intervene and try to … get on the side of regime change,\u201d he said, \u201cin my lifetime, I can\u2019t think of a single example where that\u2019s worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nLand issues and oil drilling<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked about some of Alaska\u2019s biggest persistent issues with the federal government, Johnson varied between straightforward answers and plain acknowledgement that as president, he\u2019d have to learn more.<\/p>\n With regard to oil drilling on federal land in the North Slope and offshore in federal waters, he said he\u2019d attempt to seek compromise but tend to side with Alaskans.<\/p>\n \u201cWho best determines, who best understands Alaska other than you living in Alaska?\u201d he asked rhetorically. \u201cI don\u2019t want to say any categorical yes or no, because I\u2019m not as familiar with these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson served as governor of New Mexico between 1995 and 2003, when he was forced out of office by term limits. During that time, he frequently addressed land-use conflicts between the federal government and both state and private interests.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to preserve this land, but yes, there seems to be some real, practical situations where there is mutual benefit to both sides,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Based on his experience, \u201con a lot of these (land use) issues, if you manage to piss off both sides, you\u2019re doing something right.\u201d<\/p>\n In a late-July interview with the Los Angeles Times editorial board, Johnson said he doesn\u2019t support turning over Forest Service or wilderness lands to states, \u201cbut the BLM (Bureau of Land Management),\u201d that\u2019s a whole other topic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWouldn\u2019t it make a lot more sense, when it comes to BLM land, to sell those lands and make them part of the property tax roll?\u201d he told the Empire.<\/p>\n Climate change and health care<\/strong><\/p>\n Johnson has been to Alaska several times, including a trip where he summitted Denali. (He\u2019s reached the top of the highest mountain on each continent and is an Ironman triathlete.) He campaigned in Anchorage during his 2012 run for president, holding a rally on the Delaney Park Strip.<\/p>\n \u201cI envy all of you,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s the most beautiful state in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Climate change and a warming world might threaten that.<\/p>\n \u201cI do believe that climate change is occurring. I do believe that it is man-caused,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n To address climate change, Johnson said he believes \u201cthat there can be and is a free-market approach to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n That would include a fee \u2014 not a tax, he said \u2014 placed on carbon. Such a fee would make pollutants bear a market cost.<\/p>\n \u201cWe as human beings want to see carbon emissions reduced significantly,\u201d but at the same time, he says the United States is only \u201c16 percent of the (global) load\u201d of carbon, and \u201cI don\u2019t want to do anything that harms jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe rest of the world has to catch up with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As with climate change, Johnson believes in a market-based, competition-minded approach to rising health care costs. Alaska now has the highest medical costs in the United States, but Johnson said he believes that can be addressed through \u201ca genuine free-market approach,\u201d something that would lower barriers for clinics and agencies to sell medical care at something approaching its true cost.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we would have \u2018Gallbladders-R-Us\u2019 … and \u2018X-rays-R-Us\u2019 … we would have advertised pricing, we would have advertised outcomes,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Congress and compromise<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe are looking to be elected president and vice president, not king or dictator,\u201d Johnson said of his role and that of his vice president, former Massachusetts governor William \u201cBill\u201d Weld. <\/p>\n If Congress can come up with a better fix for health care, \u201cWe\u2019re going to sign on to anything coming out of Congress that makes better health,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n On matters other than health care, Johnson believes that he and Weld \u2014 two former Republican governors from Democrat-leaning states \u2014 are better positioned to negotiate compromises between Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Trump or Clinton is elected, nothing is going to come together in the middle,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n In Alaska, the polling seems to agree.<\/p>\n \u201cLike anywhere else in the country \u2026 the reason Johnson does as well as he does is because so many people dislike both Trump and Clinton,\u201d Moore said. <\/p>\n In his June poll, Moore found that just under 29 percent of Alaskans dislike both the Republican and Democratic candidates.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty rich vein for Johnson,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a limit on that kind of support, however. In order for Gary Johnson to gain ground in the polls, Alaskans need to be convinced to vote for him, not just against the candidate they dislike least.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the difficulty of being Gary Johnson, is that you\u2019ve almost got to rely on them disliking both and essentially throwing away their vote \u2014 and that\u2019s harsh \u2014 but until he has a reasonable shot at winning, somebody is essentially throwing away their vote,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n Johnson believes he has that reasonable shot.<\/p>\n \u201cBill Weld and myself would not be doing this ourselves if we didn\u2019t think we couldn\u2019t win this thing outright,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n If that happens, Johnson said, he\u2019s willing to follow through on a pledge: He\u2019ll visit Alaska in his first term.<\/p>\n \u201cI will make that pledge,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cI would want to come up there in the winter and ski Talkeetna.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact Empire reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or 523-2258.<\/p>\n To listen to the Empire\u2019s full interview with Johnson and learn his thoughts on executive orders, personal privacy, tribal sovereignty and more, visit https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-541328371\/gary-johnson-interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alaskans don\u2019t like Hillary Clinton. They didn\u2019t pick Donald Trump. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson believes Alaskans want him \u2014 if they simply get to know him. \u201cGiven just how polarizing Clinton and Trump are \u2026 I think we occupy a big, six-lane down the highway that 60 percent of Americans occupy and I\u2019m willing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":16900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16899"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}