For more years

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I’m a little conflicted about this week’s cover story. I’m conflicted because I think Gary Johnson would be a good president. But I don’t want or expect to see him elected this time, although I probably won’t know how I’m going to cast my vote until I hit the polls.

He, like Romney, would sign legislation that would undermine the Affordable Care Act. Obama is the only option who would veto any attempt to wreck the half-step toward real health care reform. We need four more years so that the most important aspects of Obamacare go into effect because once that train’s out of the station, there’ll be no going back. Nobody will be able to take away an entitlement once it’s given to the senior class of baby-boomer voters.

And I’ll be honest, if I do vote for Obama, I’m going to be holding my nose. While I’ve had presidents through bad luck or poor management of Congress, who’ve had a negative impact on my life, I’ve never had one who, by lying, tried to destroy the company that feeds my child. And when Obama went after the legal medical marijuana trade in California—after stating categorically that he would not—that’s exactly what he did. He killed a big form of advertising for this company. He might as well have personally robbed me with a gun.

I’ve got a lot to forgive this guy for. No real immigration reform. Guantanamo Bay still open. Legalizing indefinite detention without charge of Americans. Drone murders of American citizens abroad. Wall Street still essentially unregulated. Banksters not prosecuted for the fraud that destroyed the economy, my retirement and my home’s value. Corporate bailouts. “Too big to fail” still not broken into smaller companies.

But I can feel which way the wind’s blowing, and in four years—if I’m still around—there will likely be no incumbent Democratic vice president running, and we can already guess what the majority of the Republican field is going to look like. And in four years, Libertarian Gary Johnson may just permanently alter both the Republican and Democratic parties.