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Candidate for governor visits fair

Submitted Photo Larry Sharpe is hoping he will succeed in his run for governor in November.

Larry Sharpe is running for New York State Governor under the Libertarian Party ticket. On Tuesday, he visited the Chautauqua County Fair to meet one-on-one with potential voters and supporters alike, hoping to win their votes come the November elections.

The Libertarian Party he is representing promotes civil liberties and non-interventionism, and Sharpe says he embodies these beliefs. A native New Yorker, he is a Marine Corps veteran, a teacher and guest instructor who taught business management, career transition and leadership at institutions such as Yale, Columbia, Baruch and John Jay. He also is a strategic consultant for leaders in government, finance, law, technology and health care.

“The argument I get is the same argument I get all the time: ‘You can’t vote for Larry Sharpe because he won’t win.’ But no one is saying Larry Sharpe’s ideas are wrong. No one’s saying it doesn’t make sense, no one’s saying he’s not a realist,” Sharpe passionately shared.

“I am a realist. People want New York state to not be a sanctuary state. I can make it not be a sanctuary state, but I can do that while making New York City a sanctuary city; anything else is simply not going to happen. I’m not going to lie to you and say ‘we’ll get New York City to change’, because that is never going to happen. It’s not realistic,” he said.

Individuals lined up and stated their concerns and opinions about various issues from schools to gun laws. Diversity was a discussion point he wished to make clear, the importance of respecting the individual.

submitted Photo Larry Sharpe, Libertarian Party candidate for New York governor, meets with potential voters at the Chautauqua County Fair Tuesday.

“I don’t want to crush the diversity that is New York. I’m going to make sure to embrace the diversity. If I’m going to enjoy the diversity though, I have to respect it too and know that people don’t all think the same, and that’s fine,” he went on.

“My focus is about changing what government’s about. Government right now is out policing our state and making sure that everyone is doing what the majority says. That’s a bad way of being governed. Government should be like a firefighter, when you’re in trouble, call me. What I’m going to be doing in Albany is making sure I support the rights of the individual,” he said.

“If I actually win, it will change what it means to be a New Yorker,” Sharpe stated as he rounded out his platform. “We can actually all live free together. That’s not how we live right now. We live in a divided state. We will have things like no income tax in four years, ending licensing in two years, ending of the SAFE act within a year and a half. These things will all go away if I win. Real reform to the criminal justice system with correction officers included in the actual repair.”

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