Mountain Party hopeful disdains campaign contributions

In a meeting Wednesday with Daily Mail editors, Johnson said he is not accepting contributions either from special interest groups or individual donors. His position is meant to make a point about the role of money in today's political world.

"I don't aspire to be a politician," said Johnson, a Charleston resident who is also an actor and filmmaker. "I'm more of a statesman and patriot.

"We're trying to grow another choice in West Virginia other than the bifurcated single choice we have."

He is running against Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, a political legend, and Republican businessman John Raese, a millionaire.

Like Byrd, Johnson is carrying a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. But unlike either of the other two candidates, he's barely spending any money to get elected.

With limited campaign funds, Johnson said he is spending the campaign season speaking where he is invited and encouraging official information sources about the election to recognize that he's really a candidate on the ballot -- "trying to correct the errors of a two-party system."

He proposes public funding of campaigns to help level the playing field.

He's also advocating Mountain Party positions on several other issues including:

Coal. He calls current mining methods an extremely inefficient way of creating energy. He suggests rather than being used directly as an energy source, coal could still be an important part of the economy through its use in manufacturing as many as 5,000 products. Rather than depending on coal, he suggests solar power should be better harnessed to create energy.

The food supply. He commented that, "Our future is small, sustainable farming." He also noted that people with their own small farms probably weren't too worried about the recent spinach scare.

Foreign policy. He said it's time to get out of Iraq. He added that the continued presence of American troops there might encourage violence among children. "Assuming that the mission is accomplished, it's time to redeploy back home."

Health care. He said he is not for universal healthcare the way it has been presented. "I don't want to see it in the hands of the giant pharmaceutical complex," he said. He added that he would like to see the use of more alternative medicines, which he saw as having kept previous generations quite healthy.

"We're remembering the wisdom of our grandparents," he said.

He has a personal opinion about wind turbines, an alternative energy source that has divided environmentalists. He said he considers the turbines a lesser evil than mountaintop removal coal mining. The Mountain Party, he said, has not yet taken a position.

Johnson described himself as an old-fashioned conservative.

"I grew up in a Republican household and was a Republican for 26 years," he said. "I'm a Theodore Roosevelt conservative, a Dwight Eisenhower conservative -- but not a George W. Bush conservative."

He said he got 20,000 votes running for governor last year. He hopes this campaign is another step forward for the Mountain Party as it tries to catch up to the Republicans and Democrats.

"People are willing to take a chance on something that isn't shirts or skins but in the middle ground -- a candidate who shares their values," he said.

Contact staff writer Brad McElhinny at 348-5129.

October 26, 2006

Mountain Party hopeful disdains campaign contributions

Brad McElhinny Daily Mail staff

Brad McElhinny
Daily Mail staff