Jim Gray

Jim Gray

Judge Jim Gray email.png

Briefly tell us about yourself and why you’re running for president.

Our country needs a Libertarian with my wide-ranging background and abilities to take on President Trump and Vice President Biden. My background includes: Awarded a Combat Action Ribbon in Vietnam while in the Navy; Peace Corps Volunteer in Palmar Norte, Costa Rica (I’m still fairly fluent in Spanish); led a Peace March from USC to the steps of Los Angeles City Hall in May of 1970, where we sent 20,000 letters to President Nixon demanding he withdraw our troops from Cambodia; federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, eventually heading a unit prosecuting frauds against the VA and FHA; trial court judge for 25 years, where I held a press conference in 1992 stating forcibly that our nation’s policy of Drug Prohibition had failed; 2004 Libertarian candidate for US Senate, with the strong assistance of David Nolan, one of our Founders; and 2012 Libertarian nominee for Vice President, along with Governor Gary Johnson, where more than 1.2 million people “pulled the handle” for us. With this diverse background, and with my great running mate Larry Sharpe from New York, we will be able to make Libertarian principles, values and approaches accessible to everyone in America, thus beneficially changing the culture for many Libertarian candidates present and future. In fact, I have undoubtedly gone on record more about political issues than any other Presidential candidate in history, including James Madison, with my four books, two musicals, a five-page essay entitled “One Man’s Libertarian Whitepaper” (see
www.JudgeJimGray.com) and an international podcast on the VoiceAmerica network entitled “All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray.” So I am completely comfortable discussing our Libertarian issues in the media and at all levels of society.


What are the top three issues your campaign will focus on?
First, calling attention to the fact that governments do not really address, innovate and fix problems, if only as shown by the current pandemic. Politicians reacted by protecting themselves politically under the guise of “keeping us healthy,” all the while inflicting damages upon us all by the unnecessary closure of hundreds of thousands of businesses – many which will never reopen – and the loss of tens of millions of jobs! Then governments mostly arbitrarily gave huge amounts of money they didn’t have to many of their cronies. As an example, the Kennedy Center received bailouts of millions of dollars. Why? Because it was harmed by being closed. But what about all of the other theaters in the country who received nothing? Libertarians are the only political party that does not wish or want to profit from being involved in government. And that is what the US of A now desperately needs: a party of principle as well as reality.
Second, and this is related, the deficit is a time bomb that will damage us, our children and our grandchildren. In fact, it is probably the biggest security threat to our country today, and no one is talking about it, much less addressing it, except us Libertarians.
Third, we must show our country that every time the government gets involved in the marketplace that prices go up and the quality of the goods and services goes down. The prime examples are healthcare and education. Our country’s services in these areas were the best in the world in the 1950s and early ‘60s, and then the government started interfering. Where are we going today with our nation’s healthcare services? If we want the equivalent of the department of motor vehicles to run our healthcare, we are well on our way! As to education, empower parents to choose where the government’s money will be spent to educate their children, and they will choose excellence! Just ask Milwaukee, Wisconsin and many other places in Indiana, Florida and New Orleans.

What would your pitch be to a lifelong Republican who is unhappy with Trump? What would your pitch be to a lifelong Democrat who is unhappy with Biden?
To people of all political parties, we will put in a coalition government made up not only of Libertarians, but also Republicans and Democrats, as long as they agree with our philosophy of Responsibility at ALL levels of society, including personal, group, corporate and governmental, “Live and Let Live,” and “Don’t Tread on Anybody!” So we will base our choices upon merit – amazing as that sounds. In addition, all would benefit by not placing our troops into battle zones for more than 60 days without a Declaration of War from Congress. Furthermore, the Gray Sharpe Administration will provide all of the good results that the Trump Administration has provided and more, including the repeal of so many unnecessary and even harmful regulations, reducing taxes for everyone by strongly pairing down the inefficiencies and unnecessary intrusions of government, and promoting School Choice in education and free trade. Biden supporters would be happy to see that work visas to immigrants who wish to pursue the American Dream would be issued liberally, after background checks for such things as criminal and mental health issues and possible terrorist sympathies, and seeing that the government was treating all people equally, regardless of their place of birth, race, gender or sexual orientation. That is a given because that is who we Libertarians are.

What skills or lessons have you acquired from past campaigns or other involvement in politics?

Due to my coming out so forcefully against our nation’s policy of Drug Prohibition, I have been on hundreds of national and local radio and television shows, including ABC News Specials with Catherine Cryer and John Stossel as well as “The O’Reilly Factor” (twice), and George Noory’s “Coast to Coast” radio show (three times). In running as a Libertarian both for the US Senate and for Vice President, not only did I receive a maximum campaign contribution from Milton Friedman (a copy of which I framed), I also learned how to discuss issues from a Libertarian perspective that the audiences would understand and agree with. In addition, as a judge I was trained to listen, which in many ways is a lost art in today’s world.


Tell us about your campaign organization.

In just under three weeks, our Team has put together a campaign manager, Boomer Shannon, who ran Jeff Hewitt’s successful campaign for Supervisor of Riverside County; Michael Pickens, who is a force in the Libertarian Party in the State of Washington and formerly the campaign chairman for candidate Mark Whitney, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Gray/Sharpe; Seth Levy from Colorado, who will be our assistant campaign manager; Chris Dock from Minnesota as our Treasurer; Erin Adams from Oklahoma, who will lead our fundraising team; Jo Vaccarino from Florida, who is brilliant at social media; as well
as state captains from almost every state in the country. Our website is up and running at www.GraySharpe2020.com, and our social media lines are humming with numbers of volunteers, including 12-year-old Ryan Jenkins from Tennessee. And all of this is in addition to a person that many people refer to as Mr. Libertarian, Larry Sharpe.


How will nominating you impact Libertarians running viable campaigns for lower office?

One of the strongest features of GraySharpe2020 is that we will be able to change the culture in our country as to who Libertarians are, and what a Libertarian world would look like: just like our Founders wanted it to be. And by making Libertarianism accessible to all Americans, this will tremendously help all down-ballot Libertarian candidates both in 2020 and beyond!


The Libertarian Party’s 2016 ticket received 4,489,341 votes, 3.3%. Will you improve on this in 2020, and how? Please be specific.
Of course, we cannot guarantee any results, except that Judge Jim Gray and Larry Sharpe will campaign tirelessly through the general election. But we plan on spending a great deal of time in five independent small states, where we will go to town hall meetings, Rotary Club functions, grocery stores and county fairs, where we will shake hands with those voters, look them in the eye and tell them that their votes will change history. How is that? Because if we win two or three of those states, the likelihood is that neither Trump nor Biden will have enough Electoral College votes to get a majority. So then the election will go to
Congress, where no Republican in Congress will vote for Biden, and no Democrat will vote for Trump. But, since the choice would be limited to the top three candidates, we would win the election! And I believe that we have a good solid 4 1/2 percent chance of that happening! But think of the political revolution if we were to win even one state! That alone makes this
exciting!