Ex-New Mexico governor Gary Johnson declares for president. Who dat, as GOP field grows some more.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
I’m going to tell you right up front: I like Gary Johnson. He’s an ultra-personable, plain-talking, gets-things-done kind of guy. But he’s got a fever — Potomac fever — that’s going to upend his life for the next year and more until the next Republican National Convention in 2012.
You see, Johnson wants to be president of these United States… and so he’s taken his near zero name recognition to Concord, New Hampshire where Thursday, April 21, 2011 he declared his candidacy. God help him…
Gary Johnson’s my kind of guy.
Born January 1, 1953 in Minot, North Dakota (a good place to get out of), he ultimately moved to New Mexico and graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1975. We like that school in our family; my brother went there, too. Johnson and his family now live in Taos, one of the most beautiful places on earth.
In 1976 he had one of those “aha” moments that changes lives. Having graduated he was looking around for something he could do that would enable him to use his undoubted entrepreneurial skills. He decided to create a little business that would do all the fix-ups and home repairs all home owners need but which most of us are all-thumbs at doing. Gary had all the right stuff for business success. He was personable, “can-do” oriented, the man who told you what he would do… and then did it! That unstoppable American formula for success… where a person with a good idea and the determination to succeed helps others and earns big.
His first major break with his new firm — Big J Enterprises — was receiving a large contract from Intel’s expansion in Rio Rancho which increased Big J’s revenues to $38 million. Johnson was now a wealthy man, confronting one of the bedrock problems that all successful people must solve: how to find, train, motivate and keep good employees and do everything else you have to do to succeed. Always practical, Johnson went back to school, enrolling in a time management course. This helped him grow Big J into a big-time business with over 1000 employees. At that point, with all the money he and his family needed for life…he sold the business, so he could get started helping fix-up America, which had a host of home problems…. without the skills to solve them. Big J to the rescue…
“People Before Politics”.
Johnson entered New Mexico politics for the first time in 1994. He approached the state Republican Party with the (to them) absurd idea he should run for governor, wresting the state’s government from the entrenched Democratic establishment. They told him to take a hike and run for the state legislature, the most junior of positions.
But Johnson had what you need for success: an idea he believed in, the money to support his belief…. and a slogan that was more than mere words: “People before Politics”. It was just what New Mexico wanted to hear. Johnson became the giant-killer of New Mexico, defeating former Republican governor David Cargill in the Republican primary and incumbent Democratic governor Bruce King in the general election. New Mexico had itself a straight-talking man who said what he meant and meant what he said. It was a revelation to the home folks of Nuevo Mexico.
Johnson, to everybody’s surprise but his own, set about reshaping and reinventing New Mexico’s government. He evaluated what the state was doing by asking two sensible, “get to the bottom of it” questions: what are we spending our money on… and what are we getting in return?
Legislators from both parties and every bureaucrat in New Mexico did what they are good at doing, protecting themselves and their interests, sabotaging everything they could. They were, after all, the haves who took too much for the little they gave. Johnson was their worst nightmare. Mr. “Can Do” became Mr. “You Won’t”. He used his gubernatorial veto over and over again, vetoing more bills and appropriations than all other 49 U.S. governors combined. Yup, he meant what he said… And the people of New Mexico responded by re-electing him in 1998 with 55 percent of the vote. It was an astonishing bouquet from the people he was always honest to and fair; they realized he was about as good a governor as they could get. Politicians of the pandering ilk take notice.
Johnson was retired because of a two-term limit. (Another indication of what a silly idea that is. Let the people decide when to retire their officials.) This gifted, personable guy, with a resume as long as your arm (for instance he left New Mexico with a huge surplus) was at loose ends… for a couple of minutes.
Johnson’s “Our America Initiative”, Founded 2009.
Forced out of the governor’s chair, he responded by creating in 2009 the “Our America Initiative” , a nonprofit political advocacy committee that promotes common-sense business approaches to governing. Gary Johnson meant to do for the people of suffering, fed-up America what he had already done for the long-suffering people of New Mexico…
… which is why he found himself in chill and breezy Concord, New Hampshire on this April day.
He brought with him what has always distinguished the man: practical common- sense gleaned from proven business and high-level governing experience. More than that, he offers the kind of “let’s roll up our sleeves and solve this problem together” approach that is what people crave. Our problems, we know, are not insoluble so long as we work together. A man like Gary Johnson believes he’s the guy best able to work with Americans this way and so, one problem tackled after another, create the nation we want.
Frankly, this approach ought to play well in New Hampshire. The folks in the Granite State are pragmatic, “let’s get it done together” folks. As Gary Johnson goes door to door doing the retail politics winning the primary requires, he’ll find, I think, folks skeptical of course (they’re that way up north) but friendly, curious, and increasingly receptive. In short, this bright-eyed New Mexico boy, with his unfeigned interest in the people of New Hampshire and America could be the dark horse the GOP has been looking and hoping for in a large field which has so far failed to impress and inspire.
These New Hampshire folks take very seriously their task of scrutinizing each and every candidate, doing what every civic-minded American would do given the opportunity: to look carefully, ask thoughtfully, and come to their judgements independently. That is what they do and what their famous primary is for.
I’ll be surprised if he does not do well enough to take his message to other states. So, he decided to launch his campaign by achieving his first New Hampshire goal. That’s why he left Concord following his announcement and went to climb Tuckerman Ravine, a large glacial bowl on 6,288-foot Mount Washington, the tallest mountain in the Northeast.
Johnson’s climbed Mount Everest; Tuckerman Ravine was a “piece of cake”. He’s hoping this is a good omen for the primary. It could happen. The people of New Hampshire, after all, like astonishing the rest of us. We shall just have to wait and see…
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. , providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.
Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Commission Maniac -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=rb14eOHk

The right stuff. Half of the world’s endangered North Atlantic right whales gather off Provincetown, Massachusetts. April, 2011.

Something wonderful, unprecedented, and magnificent is happening as I write (April 23, 2011) off the holiday beaches of Provincetown and Truro, Massachusetts. It’s a convention… no, not a political convention (though this story has a political aspect). And it’s not strictly business either, though business will most surely be generated.
No, it’s a story about our favorite mammal… the whale, specifically the North Atlantic right whales, who  have gathered in unheard of numbers to gorge themselves on an abundance of the zooplankton they love. It seems this year has produced a bumper crop. And so 200 of these creatures we all champion have come to Massachusetts; just a little less than half their total number. So numerous are they, so close to shore, pilgrims going to see them (and this week-end will be packed with same) will not even have to leave the land. Again, a first.
Dr. Charles “Stormy” Mayo, senior scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, has been paying close attention to this phenomenon. First, he noted the zooplankton has been ample. Second there are the necessary currents which bring the zooplankton to the area; then the local currents which cause them to concentrate in amounts sufficient for hefty whale appetites. Given the fact that right whales can weigh up to 90 tons, you may imagine such appetites are gigantic. It is anticipated the whales will stay and feed for about a week; then go on their peripatetic way, the glories of the wide Atlantic… the more so since they remain on the knife edge of extinction.
The name.
As with so much of maritime history, we first need to be aware that many whale tales are fishy. So it is with right whales. Lore has it that they are called that because whalers thought these the “right” ones to hunt; that’s because most of them float after slaughter. They are also pretty easy to access given that they often swim (as they are swimming in Provincetown today) close to shore. In short, easy pickings… and hunted nearly to extinction during the active years of the whaling industry, described in detail in “Moby Dick” by Herman Melviille (published 1851). It goes without saying that Moby Dick is the most famous right whale in history; perhaps even the most famous whale of all. Local folks will surely tell you so. Then they’ll sell you some trinket or other.
Taxonomy
Right whales are three species of large baleen whales consisting of two genera in the family Balaenidae of order Cetacea. They occupy the genus Eubalaena.
Authorities have repeatedly recategorized the three populations of Eubalaena right whales,in one, two, or three species. In the whaling era there was thought to be a single species. Later, morphological factors such as differences in the skull shape of northern and southern animals indicated that there were at least two species — one in the northern hemisphere, the other in the Southern Ocean.
Right whales do not cross equatorial waters to make contact with other (sub) species and (inter) breed. Thick layers of insulating blubber make it impossible for them to dissipate their internal body heat in tropical waters.
Their look.
Unlike other whales, right whales have distinctive callosities (roughened patches of skin) on their heads, along with a broad back without a dorsal fin, occasionally with white belly patches and a long arching mouth that begins above the eye. The callosities appear white due to large colonies of cyamids (whale lice). They can grow up to 18 m (59 feet); significantly larger than humpbacks or grays, but smaller than blues.
Its predators: orcas and us.
Orcas are bad enough, but over time right whales have developed a community approach to defending themselves. It is quite different with humans who are, by far, the greater enemy. We wanted them, first and foremost, for their oil, but later as preservation technology improved, we slaughtered them for their meat.
While many different peoples hunted right whales (not least because they swim slowly and can the more easily be caught), it was the people of Massachusetts and New York who hunted them most efficiently, to the deadly diminution of the whales. Just what they did and how they did it can be found in no better place than “Moby Dick”, as generations of students have (sadly) discovered.  It is the story of hard-living, young dying men who had employment in the most demanding of industries. Sent to sea at 15 or less, they quickly grew inured to its hardships…  or else suffered the consequences. Such men cared nothing for the majesty of the right whale, or any whale. They saw Yankee greenbacks, pure and simple.
With typical American hard work, imagination and ingenuity, the whale industry went global with a vengeance, establishing whale stations wherever needed, the better to ensure supplies and cater to the burgeoning international markets which clambered for bits and pieces of whales, caring nothing about the mammals themselves.
In due course Yankee efficiency ran the right whales right up to the verge of extinction. The world saw and took notice, but nearly too late as the world has seen with so many other animals found now in scientific collections as specimens only. They banned right whaling in 1937. Japan and Russia (mostly as the Soviet Union) scoffed at the prohibition and advanced the date of extinction. Somebody somewhere always has a good reason for believing their needs transcend the necessity for protection and preservation. All extinct species have learned too late that the human species is adept at special pleading and privilege, to the detriment of all.
Now they gather again.
In 1910, the great monarchies of the world gathered for the coronation of British King George V. Just 4 years later, these self same monarchies took sides in the great war known as World War I. Their 1910 gathering in London was seen as the swan song of the old regime, its last great convocation. Extinction for them followed rapidly.
Is this the fate of the right whale, now gathering in the largest number ever seen together, a group of about 200 in a total population between 400-500? We must not merely hope alone. We must continue to badger our representatives with our unfailing concern and high anxiety about the fate of creatures who never hurt us but whom we have devastated and tormented with near total impunity. This is not acceptable.
Reason for hope.
Fortunately whales, especially right whales, have good reason to hope for the best. Unlike too many extinct animals, whales have captured public imagination and thus a large constituency of good people willing and able to lobby for whales. An important part of this constituency consists of school children. Some of their poems and essays in support of whales appear on their “Save the Whales” website.
Here’s one of the many poems I liked, this one by Victor Tucker, age 8, in 2007, then a third grader from Kansas:
Whales are chubby. Whales are fat. Whales are bigger than a cat.
Whales have two eyes, two ears, and a nose. Whales have everything but toes.
Whales are big. Whales are stout. Whales, they hum, they don’t shout.
Whales have a blowhole on top of their head Whales don’t have to make their bed.
People want to kill the whales. We have to even save their tails.
*
Does anyone else see a budding Ogden Nash (d. 1971) here? May saving whales help give us more whales and more poets, too.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. , providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.
Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com“>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Commission Maniac ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=rb14eOHk