Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is a prominent advocate of limited government and personal freedom. He backed Ron Paul for President in 2008 and spoke at the Rally for the Republic in Minneapolis.
Mitchell Lambert interviewed Gov. Johnson for Republican Liberty Caucus @ http://www.rlc.org/2010/01/19/interview-with-governor-gary-earl-johnson/
“Fifty-eight percent of those polled by The Washington Post recently claimed they preferred smaller government with fewer services, with only 38 percent favoring a larger government with more services (and, yes, it is a terrific struggle not to place ironic quotations marks around the word “services”).”
“This is the highest number for the “smaller government” category since 2002. And a full year into President Barack Obama’s term, most polls and state elections tell us that the electorate is walking—maybe sprinting?—back from the progressive economic policies that now dominate Washington.”
David Harsanyi looks at How the Democrats misjudged the American People @ http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/20/the-idea-is-the-problem
“Happy anniversary, Mr. President. Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts is a rude ending to a year marked by falling poll ratings and growing opposition to his signature policy initiatives.”
“President Obama took office on a wave of good feeling. The country was glad to be rid of George W. Bush and appreciated Obama’s promise to move beyond old battles. But Obama and his team overinterpreted their victory. A desire for change didn’t translate into support for a sweeping statist agenda. Beginning with his February 24 speech to Congress, Obama began to overreach.”
“His administration sought to use the financial crisis to implement an agenda that wouldn’t have been plausible in calmer times. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” was Rahm Emanuel’s keynote. Robert Higgs in Crisis and Leviathan and Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine had examined how crises often lead to dramatic changes in policy, but never before had senior officials declared the shock doctrine as their strategy.”
David Boaz of The Cato Institute on President Obama’s anniversary @ http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11150
“Scott Brown’s stunning upset in the Massachusetts special election may have done what the best policy arguments could not – defeat the Democrats’ plans for a massive government takeover of the U.S. health care system.”
“Democrats will undoubtedly offer a variety of excuses for Brown’s win. The Democratic nominee, Attorney General Martha Coakley, was a poor candidate. The “political climate” was bad. The dog ate their ballots. But in reality, there can be no denying that this election was a clear cut rejection of the Democratic health care bills.”
“There were no blurred differences on this issue. Scott Brown made his opposition to the bill a centerpiece of his campaign. He promised to be the 41st vote to sustain a filibuster and kill the bill, even signing autographs as “Scott41.” Coakley, on the other hand, pledged to vote for the bill.”
Michael Tanner on Massachusetts voters rejecting Obamacare @ http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11151