Three candidates for president were in the metropolitan area in the past few days, including one who made a stop in Rio Rancho.

Democratic nominee John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, stopped in Albuquerque over the weekend as part of a train trip through the state that also included appearances in Las Vegas and Gallup before moving on to Arizona.

President George Bush appeared in Albuquerque with Arizona Sen. John McCain on Wednesday, which followed a visit by his running mate, Vice President Dick Cheney, on July 31. Meanwhile, Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik attempted to gain votes in Rio Rancho, making the first of five scheduled New Mexico appearances. He made a stop at the Chamber of Commerce's "Business After Hours" event Tuesday evening.

Later, in a private interview with The Observer, Badnarik espoused the Libertarian Party views on certain issues.

"Our platform is based on individual rights and personal responsibility," he said. "Basically, we think you should be able to make all the decisions in your life as long as you're not interfering with someone else's life or property - basically, a strict interpretation of the Constitution. You can do whatever you want to do, but you have to take responsibility for your actions.

"The Tenth Amendment says that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the states or to the people. We want to make the federal government small, the way the Founding Fathers intended it to be, and let the state governments control it or, more importantly, let the people make decisions about their own lives."

Badnarik said he would bring troops home from Iraq "as safely and quickly as possible.

"George Bush wants to be your war president; John Kerry has promised 40,000 more troops in Iraq," he said. "Libertarians believe the war in Iraq is not justified. They haven't attacked us.

"We are non-interventionists. Those people who say that Libertarians are pacifists - that's a ridiculous statement. We're the ones who think that 20,000 gun laws are unconstitutional. We think that everyone should be able to carry either a concealed or openly carry a weapon to protect themselves and their property. We don't think that gives them a right to go into a bank and withdraw your money.

"We have a right to life, and we certainly have a right to protect that life. And if someone's climbing through a window at 2 a.m. with a bloody machete trying to attack my children, I have a responsibility to protect my children."

Badnarik said Libertarians are not isolationists "who want to cut the United States off from other countries. We're trying to follow George Washington's advice. During his farewell address, he recommended that we have 'economic ties with all countries and entangling alliances with none.'

"Today that means leveling excises taxes on foreign countries. Right now we punish certain countries by raising the excise taxes to 100 or 200 percent of the product, while other countries can bring that same product in basically for free. A legitimate excise tax would be a certain percent for all countries. We would provide our goods and services to them, which would improve our economy, raise their standard of living and dramatically reduce the chance that they would bite the hand that feeds them.

"Furthermore, we have military in 135 countries around the world. We're using our military to influence other governments, influence other economies and politically poke these other countries in the eye with a sharp stick. George Bush is occasionally talking about an exit plan for Iraq. That's ridiculous. We don't have an exit plan for Germany and Japan. That's 60 years now (since the end of World War II) and we still have military there? It's about time for those countries to defend themselves."

At home, Badnarik and Libertarians are calling for the elimination of the Internal Revenue Service.

"We want to allow people to keep all the money they work so hard for," he said. "They will literally, at the beginning, have more money than they know what to do with. You will have small businesses springing up like dandelions to provide goods and services to take advantage of all that money, and the economy is going to explode. Furthermore, we're going to eliminate many departments of the federal government that are unconstitutional and unnecessary.

"Almost everybody in the United States hates the IRS. If everybody in the United States who hates the IRS voted for me, I would win by a landslide.

One department Badnarik would eliminate is the Department of Education.

"It's unconstitutional and it's inefficient," he said. "In 1953, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare started, and American students were No. 1 in math and science. We've suffered through 50 years of government control, we spend over 10 times as much per student, and American students are now 29th in math and science. So if this is the Department of Education, it's doing a really lousy job, because our students are dumber than they used to be."

. Here are some more of Badnarik's views:

* On funding national programs without the IRS: "The Constitution was ratified in 1789. The IRS didn't come into existence until 1913, which means there was well over 100 years with no income tax and the American government had more money than it knew what to do with. That was because the federal government was small, and we had more than enough money coming in from excise taxes. The economy was wonderful. In 1913 the Federal Reserve started printing worthless fiat paper. We are now several trillion dollars in debt, the economy is lousy and we're moving manufacturing jobs offshore. You don't have to be an economics PhD to figure out life was better before the IRS and before the government got so bloated. Every time we create a new office, a new bureaucracy, you have to pay for that. We literally cannot afford the government that we have. The government is basically a parasite on the productivity of this country. The sooner we whittle the size of government down, the more money everybody is going to have, the better the economy is going to be and the more powerful the United States is going to be internationally."

* On Social Security and other government assistance programs: "People need to understand that welfare is theft. If you come to my house and take $100 out of may wallet for your health care or your benefit, that is theft. If you allow the government to take the money for you, that's government theft, and we're opposed to government theft. The purpose of the Constitution is to protect your life, your liberty and your property, not to steal your money and give it to someone else. Social Security specifically is a really terrible problem because we have elderly people who have invested their money and expect some level of an ability to live. However, the government they gave that money to has squandered it. They have stolen the money from Social Security and used it to pay off portions of the national debt and the money's not there. I heard John Kerry say in his acceptance speech that he loves the elderly people of America, and he wants to make sure they stay on Social Security. Social Security is $7 trillion under funded. How does that represent loving the old people? And if we force young people to start paying their money into Social Security knowing damned well there's not going to be a penny for them, that's even worse. We have to let the young people out of it. We're not going to take away Social Security that people are holding on to. If the Titanic is sinking and people are holding on to the stern rail, you can't take that stern rail away from them because that's the only thing they've got. But if you provide them with a better option, like a boat that floats, do you know how quickly they're going to leave the Titanic? That's precisely what the country of Chile did several years ago. They provided an option - you can either stay with the government retirement or you can go to a privatized retirement plan. Within two years, 98 percent of the people had left the government plan. The possibility of doing this already exists; all we have to do is follow their lead and we can get ourselves out of this mess. You own your own body. You are responsible for putting food in your mouth. You are responsible for putting shelter over your own head and you are responsible for saving for your own retirement. When you give that responsibility to the government, and the government squanders your money and you have no retirement funds, that's your fault because you let someone else take care of it. Why anybody would support the Social Security system is beyond me, because nobody who is on Social Security feels secure. It is a terrible, terrible thing and all these politicians, especially our Congressmen, are talking about how they want to protect Social Security. If Social Security is such a damned good thing, why aren't they using Social Security? Every member of Congress has a special plan. They work for three or four years and they automatically get a lifetime annuity. Whatever they were getting paid they get for the rest of their lives. This is ludicrous. This is criminal. People ask me if I believe in capital punishment. I say, 'Absolutely. I think everybody at the Capitol ought to be punished.'"

* On the 9-11 Commission Report: "I am appalled. Benjamin Franklin said that you cannot give up liberty in exchange for security because you end up with neither one. The Bill of Rights is not negotiable. You cannot cross off the ones that you don't think that you need, because you'll never get them back. Which one of the Bill of Rights do you think we can live without. Freedom of religion? Freedom of speech? How about freedom of privacy in the Fourth Amendment? This whole idea of homeland security and total information awareness and the Patriot Act - the Patriot Act is the most unconstitutional piece of paper to come out of Congress since the Alien and Sedition Act. It is patently unconstitutional. There are 317 cities and four states that have passed resolutions declaring the Patriot Act unconstitutional and null and void in their respective jurisdictions. That ought to make people stand up and take notice. And the people in Congress signed it into law without even reading it. They take an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. Does that mean they take a day at the National Archives to make sure that we don't get any smudge marks on the parchment? Are they protecting the actual Constitution? No. They take an oath of office to protect your life, your liberty and your property. They have a fiduciary responsibility to protect your rights, and when they sign off on something that violates your rights without even reading it, they are guilty at the very least of gross negligence. And the sad part is that we the people continue to reelect these idiots to office."

* On the prisoners captured in Afghanistan who are being detained at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba without being given legal counsel: "The United States has this idea that you are innocent until proven guilty. That is what the American judicial system is based on. When the government can label you a terrorist, throw you in jail without an indictment for an indefinite amount of time with no phone call and no assistance of counsel, that flies in the face of what we stand for. You cannot be labeled a terrorist until after the trial. If you are guilty - if you really are a terrorist - there is no danger whatsoever to letting you have your phone call or your attorney, because if you are a terrorist we're going to prove it and we're going to put you away in jail. If you are not a terrorist, and you are denied due process - if they can do that someone in Guantanamo, they can do it to you. And Americans should be terrified that the American government is even attempting to do that."

* On the viability of a third political party: "Our liberty depends on it. The Democrats and Republicans right now are running this country into the ground. They're creating hostility around the world. I don't know that there has ever been a time when that many people around the world have hated the United States. We have not been a good neighbor. Our economy is failing. And the rights of our own citizens are being violated on a regular basis.

* On the campaign: "Running for president is not a matter of life and death. It's more important than that. We have television commercials out now and we're showing progress. We had 5 percent (in the polls) before our stop, and I'm fairly confident we can get 15 percent by the time I'm done at the end of the week. If we can demonstrate that with a little bit of time and a little bit of money I can make significant progress for the Libertarian Party, we can take that to other states and bring in some significant cash. We are already making significant progress. Because of my five percent George Bush changed his campaign strategy and is coming to New Mexico. I have already altered the course of the Republican Party, and I'm just getting started."

* On why he targeted New Mexico: "New Mexico was balanced precariously at 50-50 between Bush and Kerry, so any changes to that can be attributed to us. Ninety percent of the population of NM is centered around three cities, and that makes it easier to broadcast our television commercials and target that audience.

* On voting Libertarian: "My parents always taught me to do the right thing, no matter what. And if you think that the right thing is voting Libertarian, who cares what your friends do? At least you'll be able to look at yourselves in the mirror in the morning and know that you voted for freedom."

* On convincing voters they aren't wasting their vote by voting Libertarian: "The only wasted vote is when you vote for somebody you don't respect. If you want lower taxes, you can't vote for the Democrats or the Republicans because they're going to raise your taxes. If you want to bring our troops home from around the world, you can't vote for the Democrats or Republicans because they're in favor of foreign intervention. If you really want liberty, you can't vote for Democrats or Republicans because they don't know the Constitution, they don't respect the Constitution and they will do whatever they want. Imagine that you are in prison and you have a 50 percent chance of lethal injection, a 45 percent chance of the electric chair and a 5 percent chance of the governor's reprieve. Are you going to vote for lethal injection because that's the most likely outcome? No, of course not. Even though it's only a 5 percent chance, you're going to be looking for a reprieve. You want the governor to come through to stay the execution. So if you vote for the Democrats or Republicans, you're basically committing political suicide, because they are going to raise your taxes, pass laws that violate your rights and make your life miserable in any number of ways. If you genuinely believe in liberty, if you believe you are smart enough to make your own decisions in life, then your only chance, your only option, is to vote Libertarian, even if we only get 5 percent of the vote. I talk to people all the time. They say, 'Michael, you're a great guy. You're a wonderful candidate. We love your message, but I can't vote for you because you're only going to get 2 or 3 percent of the vote. If you're on the Titanic, do you want to be the last person in the lifeboat? Do you want to wait until everyone else gets in and tests it first, or do you want to be the first person in the lifeboat? Why do you want to be the person to vote for liberty? You want to let everybody else do all the hard work and then after the Libertarians have already won then raise your hands and say, 'Yeah, me too.' If you really are upset at the way government works, then be the first person on your block to vote Libertarian. Tell your friends and neighbors that you are sick to death of the status quo, and I'm doing something different. If you tell your friends that you are going to vote, then they are more likely to vote."