Someone was missing from last week's Republican presidential debate, and that's too bad. He's an announced candidate who was a two-term governor of New Mexico, and he makes a case for strongly limited government.

Who is he? Gary Johnson. He was left off the platform because the sponsors say he didn't meet their criteria: an average 2 percent showing in at least three opinion polls.

But I grilled him because I think people might want to hear from him.

When he was governor, he vetoed 750 bills and shed a thousand state jobs. That made Republican and Democratic politicians mad, but in a state with a two-to-one Democratic advantage, this Republican was re-elected.

"I got re-elected ... by saying no to the government," he told me. "I was a penny- pincher."