LEWISTON — Watching this year’s presidential election, faced with what Heidi Sawyer called “super yucky” candidates, she started paying attention to Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson.
Then she read what Gary Johnson had to say.
“It was like he was saying everything in my brain,” Sawyer said. “For me, Johnson represents fiscal conservatism, small government, not wasteful spending, a government where more money would go to classrooms and where they’d make sense.”
Sawyer, the creator of the popular Lewiston Rocks Facebook page, was intrigued. “Things like that perked my interest,” she said.
Sawyer said she’s fiscally conservative but socially liberal. She’s not opposed to gay marriage. “I don’t care about what people do in their bedrooms,” she said.
The Libertarian Party isn’t about foreign involvement, “fighting wars creating more conflict. I want to make sure we’re not putting our nose where it shouldn’t be.”
So, Sawyer became a Maine state volunteer coordinator for the Libertarian Party, announcing Wednesday that Johnson and vice presidential candidate Bill Weld are coming to Lewiston on Aug. 26.
The Libertarian Party presidential candidate will be on the Maine ballot on Nov. 8.
According to the candidate’s Web page, Johnson and Weld are on November ballots in 40 states.
In Maine, the party’s status is on shaky ground. According to the Maine Secretary of State’s Office, it gained temporary party status when Libertarians collected more than 5,000 enrollment signatures from Maine voters.
To stay an official political party, the Libertarians have to get 10,000 voters in the November election.
“I think we can do it,” said Chris Lyons of Brunswick, director of the Libertarian Party in Maine.
Once the party got temporary approval to be on the ballot, more people enrolled, Lyons said, adding that people like success.
“I’m sure Gary Johnson coming to Maine is going to help us to register people,” Lyons said.
Many people aren’t sure what the Libertarian Party stands for, he said.
“In general we agree on one major point: fiscal conservatism,” smaller government, and personal rights, he said.
“We’re socially accepting: ‘I’ll mind my own business and you mind yours.’ We’re independent thinkers, not afraid to question things.”
Lyons, who works as a contractor and landscaper, said he became a Libertarian last year.
Before that, he spent four years as a Republican. “I didn’t see what I liked,” he said.
More Mainers are considering the Libertarian Party, he said. “They’re disappointed with two choices of Trump and Clinton. They’re not well liked at all.”
National polls show that Johnson, who became the Libertarian Party’s candidate in May, hasn’t got a shot. He needs to be on the ballot in all 50 states, and have 15 percent in national polls to be in the critical presidential debates.
He is polling 10 percent. Still, Lyons is hopeful.
He believes that if Johnson were to become president, in five years the United States would be more prosperous. There would be less foreign intervention, “less endless wars and endless debt,” he said.
“What purpose has blowing up Libya and Syria served? None,” he said.
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