Ex-N.M. governor was lucky, not good

David Klamann, Las Vegas

Tuesday, July 24, 2012 | 2 a.m.

I’m always glad to see a third-party candidate get press, minor as it is, but Glenn Garvin’s column about former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson’s Libertarian Party bid for president sounds more like a copy of the candidate’s press release rather than real reporting.

Johnson was a below-average governor for the state of New Mexico who was comparatively clean in a state with dirty politics and he was popular for that fact. New Mexicans aren’t better off after his tenure; they still rank in the bottom five states for math and science education. Health care and state infrastructure is below average, and the average New Mexican is near the bottom of every state standard. Leaving New Mexico with a billion-dollar surplus while education and social services were left wanting isn’t something to be proud of. New Mexico’s job creation was due to massive federal government infusions of money to the military and the national labs there; not Johnson’s blocking of state spending. Private enterprise didn’t create jobs that Johnson crows about; the federal government did.

I like that Johnson is in the presidential race, it gives voters another choice; I like several of his brave political stands. He seems clean, so he may yet get my vote, but columnist Garvin needs to understand that Johnson was lucky enough to have the federal government dump truckloads of money into his state while he was governor.