Bishop, Cooney, Gianforte on the ballot for governor: Lyman Bishop

This year's race for Montana governor has Libertarian candidate Lyman Bishop facing Democratic Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney and Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., who is making his second bid for the seat instead of running for re-election to the U.S. House.

Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock cannot run for re-election due to term limits and is challenging Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., in Daines bid for a second term.

Bishop said he brings a different attitude to the race.

"For me, (as a Libertarian) I latch onto more of the constitutional aspect of things, and I try to interpret things in the light of the same viewpoint that the Founding Fathers held," Bishop said. "A lot of people who call themselves Libertarians hold to some views that, in my opinion, are a bit radical in the sense that maybe they're not truly considering the intent of the Founding Fathers with regards to some of these issues."

For example, he said he did an ask and answer anything online post and people were asking people about legalization of drugs.

They followed that up with legalization of certain weapons, he said, and he understands their logic and what they are trying to ask him in essence is he says, "Do I think meth addicts should have bazookas?"

He said he responded, absolutely not, adding that these people determined in their opinion that he is not a Libertarian.

"I think, again in light of what the Founding Fathers believed, liberty without a moral compass leads to destruction and again it depends on who you ask - big L Libertarian and lower case l libertarian are two different things," Bishop said. "I think the capital L Libertarians are the ones who just want to run completely free without any oversight whatsoever, or perhaps the lowercase l libertarians try to take a more realistic view and assessment on things, which is ... the point of view I come from. Without some logic-based moral compass you are asking for trouble."

He said he has an economic plan that would completely change how business is done as a state.

He said he is looking for a solution that frees people up from the financial manipulation of the federal government.

"At every turn, when the state of Montana attempts to do something that the federal government doesn't agree, with the first thing they do is they threaten us withholding funding, so therein lies the concern," Bishop said. "In addition to, I really think one of the biggest issues we as a nation and as a state are going to face over the next couple of years, perhaps longer is going to be issues related to the economy as a result of the economic shutdown.

"At this point, the concern that I see is the economic well-being of our people and financial manipulation of the federal government," he added. "Couple those with the inevitable - ... growth and development are inevitable for Montana. We can either control that growth or we can be controlled by it."

Those three issues are what gave birth to the ideas that are laid out in his economic plan, he said, laid out on his website at https://www.lyman2020.com .

He said he is a big believer in the Montana State Constitution, in particular Article 2 Section 2, which says "that we have the right to operate Montana as a free, sovereign and independent state."

"That does not mean secession necessarily, by my estimation, but it does mean that we should have the ability to make certain decisions outside of federal oversight," Bishop said. "I think all of the issues whether it's faced as a state or whether faced individually as it may be viewed from any elected office is going to be connected to the issue I just outlined - the economy will be the single biggest issue that we need to deal with individually and collectively.

"I'm under the impression, and I'm no financial expert, but I ... do believe we are going to face a situation as bad, if not considerably worse, than the Great Depression, and any other questions people might want to bring up or issues to be discussed I think pale in comparison to the hard cold reality of what I'm talking about," he added.

He said he had this view before the COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemic only escalated the concerns.

"I really think it comes down to this: It's an inevitability," he said, adding that the federal debt alone will bring the nation to its knees.

The people who are going to pay the price for that are not the politicians that created the problem, he said, they are sitting on mountains of cash and a lot of them have property in remote areas where they have prepared for the inevitable eventuality.

He said the people that are going to pay the price, the ones that are going to suffer the most, are average people, in particular the most vulnerable people of society - elderly, disabled, single mothers and more.

He said the nation is on the threshold of losing the stability Americans have come to know and expect.

"I hesitate to use words like revolution or civil war, but that's what I see," he said

He said he can't say whether the state handled COVID-19 well or to the contrary. 

The state has been spared a lot of trouble other states have because of the state's sparse population, he said.

"There's some issues that I see like (Gov. Steve) Bullock trying to make masks mandatory ... having county sheriffs come up and say 'we're not going to enforce that, it's unconstitutional,' so that was all a bunch of hot air that served no purpose," Bishop said. "I heard Bullock talk about mandatory vaccines and that he felt that he had the right to force those on or that he had the authority to force that on people - I would disagree with that entirely. That's a big concern of mine, the idea of forced vaccinations, especially in light of some of the other evidence that we are beginning to see that COVID is not as dangerous or as deadly as we've been led to believe, and by no means based on the evidence I see now, by no means should we have shut down the economy as a result.

"Asking people to stay home is one thing, telling people they have to stay home is something else entirely," he added. "I think what I would've done in the end it wouldn't have played out much differently than what did. I wouldn't have tried to make masks mandatory, I would've encouraged people to wear masks if they felt so inclined, I would've encouraged people to wash their hands frequently or take standard normal proactive actions to prevent themselves from getting sick in the first place."

Bullock has never said he would require mandatory vaccinations, and has left enforcement of directives to local governments, but never ordered them to enforce the directives.

Bishop said he thinks the heavy-handed approach is just not something that is going to work.

He thinks most Montanans have a great deal of disdain for that sort of authoritarian action and by telling people they have to do something, more often than not, people are going to decide they don't want to, simply to draw a line in the sand.

"What I would have done is make recommendations, but not attempted to force anyone to do anything," Bishop said.

He said he met with Gianforte the week of Sept. 7 and he sat down with him, and told him "by every worldly standard you are the best candidate, you have the most experience in dealing with large organizations and large amounts of money," but he told him "God looks at the heart and I believe God's called me to do this, maybe he hasn't called me to win, but he's called me to run."

"Under normal circumstances, I would tell you Greg Gianforte is probably your best(candidate)," Bishop said. "Given the difficulties that we face, I believe I am in a position to do the most amount of good for the people of Montana."