Johnson only reasonable choice for president

Johnson only reasonable choice for president

IN LIGHT OF recent allegations regarding Donald Trump’s past, many Ohioans are looking for an alternative to supporting the Republican nominee for president.

Former New Mexico governor, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, left, stands with his vice presidential running mate, former Massachusetts governor William Weld.

As much as Hillary Clinton is attempting to seize on the sordid allegations, the fact is that for any voter who prioritizes fiscal discipline, limited government, civil liberties, and a less hawkish foreign policy, she is not it. For these Ohio voters, there is only one rational choice for president — former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

Unlike other third-party candidates for president, Mr. Johnson is on the ballot in all 50 states.

He polls especially well in western states, parts of New England and Virginia, and he pulls about evenly from both the Democratic and Republican nominees.

…if voters support him, it will accomplish two things. First, they will have cast their ballots in good conscience for a candidate they do not actively mistrust and dislike. Second, they will — by refusing to support either of the deeply flawed candidates put forward by the major parties — be sending both the Democratic and Republican establishments in Washington a clear message: We will not be taken for granted, you have to work to earn our votes, and never again must you believe it is acceptable to nominate such abjectly awful individuals for the most powerful and important job in the entire world.

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(Gary Johnson) earned excellent ratings from the fiscally conservative Cato Institute for his governance of New Mexico in every year he was assessed, consistently outranking the majority of the other governors.

Unlike Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Governor Johnson does not believe that America is made safer by conducting mass surveillance on hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, and he would not do it as president.

Unlike Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump, Governor Johnson has never operated on the naive presumption that if the U.S. plays nice with Vladimir Putin’s regime, American foreign policy goals or world peace will be furthered.

Mr. Johnson is the only candidate who supports a broad range of criminal justice reforms, including with regard to flawed drug laws, and is of the three candidates the most long-standing supporter of government recognizing same-sex marriages.

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Mr. Johnson never raised taxes as governor — not once — and exercised his veto power repeatedly to quash ill-conceived schemes that would cost taxpayers dearly while delivering up dubious value to the people of his state.

Unlike our leaders in Washington, Governor Johnson balanced the budget every year he was in office — something Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have shown no capacity for doing. The independent fiscal-responsibility group the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Mrs. Clinton would increase the deficit by $200 billion over 10 years, adding to our actual national debt and costing you and me more money.

The group says Mr. Trump would increase the deficit by a full $5.3 trillion over 10 years — a massive debt load to be added to our existing $19 trillion debt. These are not sane or sound proposals, and they do not come from serious people.