This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, November 10th, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Former New Mexico Governor, Republican Gary Johnson has been called the boldest governor in America,

and that was before he advocated for the legalization of

marijuana. His wide-ranging policy prescriptions do have implications for the

federal government. Johnson discussed many of the looming problems faced by

the United States and his ideas for

solving them when he spoke at the Cato Institute November 1st.

First and foremost I'm an entrepreneur I started a one-man handyman business in Albuquerque in 1974, me and in 1994 actually had a thousand

employees, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, pipe fitting.

Really, the American dream come true.

It was just based on the simplest of notions, showing up on time, doing what I said I would do,

doing a little bit more than what I said I would do for people.

I sold that business in 1999.

Nobody lost their job and business is doing better than ever.

I view my venture into politics as entrepreneurial.

I had never been involved in politics prior to running for governor of New Mexico.

I went and I introduced myself to the Republican Party a couple of weeks

before I announced and what they said was, hey, we like you, we like what you've got to say, but you need to know that you'll never get elected, that it's not possible to come from completely outside of politics and get elected in a state that was 2 to 1 Democrat. Well, I got elected and I'd like to think it was

based on what I had to say, which was I was going to bring a common sense business

approach to state government that it was going to be

about issues first, politics last, and that I was going to put the issues that

...