Libertarian, paraglider pilot (took a hang glider tandem from
Sandia when I was there)

The
article in the New Republic.

Yet talk to former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the
unorthodox 2012 GOP hopeful, and those rules go out the window. Ask about
church, and he says he doesn’t go. “Do you believe in Jesus?” I ask. “I believe
he lived,” he replies with a smile. Ask about shifts in position, and he owns up
to one. “I changed my mind on the death penalty,” he tells me. “Naïvely, I
really didn’t think the government made mistakes.” Ask about his voting history,
and he volunteers (without regrets) that he cast his first presidential ballot
for George McGovern (“because of the war”). Ask about his longstanding support
for marijuana legalization, and he recalls the joy of his pot-smoking days. “I
never exhaled,” he says. (An avid athlete, Johnson forswore marijuana and
alcohol decades ago when he realized they were hurting his ski times and
rock-climbing ability.)

...

Instead, he spent most days biking and skiing, taking the odd trip to Nepal for
a trek up Mount Everest, to France for a gas-balloon competition, to Maui for a
paragliding run, and to the emergency room for the occasional life-threatening
injury. (“I haven’t paraglided since,” he says of his most serious brush with
death. “But I’m going to. I’ll do it in Salt Lake, where there aren’t any
trees.”).