Jo Jorgensen makes a campaign stop Saturday afternoon in Lewiston at Simard Payne Memorial Park. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Buy this Photo

LEWISTON – The Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate, Jo Jorgensen, said Saturday that if she’s elected, she will take steps to bring home American military personnel from around the world as quickly as possible.

“I want to turn American into one giant Switzerland, armed and neutral,” she told a crowd of about 100 people at Simard-Payne Memorial Park.

Jorgensen, 63, is one of four candidates angling to unseat Republican President Donald Trump who will appear on Maine’s ballot in the Nov. 3 election. The others are Democrat Joe Biden, Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins and the Alliance Party’s Rocky De La Fuente.

Jorgensen, who teaches at Clemson University, ran as her party’s vice presidential pick in 1996, making her the first woman in American history to appear on the ballot in all 50 states more than once.

Jorgensen said she expects that Trump will recover quickly from COVID-19.

“The man’s a fighter,” she said.

She said, though, that she doesn’t like “anything he’s done with the coronavirus” since it showed up in the country last winter.

What should have been from the start, Jorgensen said, was to throw open the doors to as much testing as possible and to let people make up their own minds about whether to wear masks or go to work.

Jo Jorgensen, second from the left, poses for a selfie with supporters Brandi Leighton, left, and Leighton’s husband, Devin, son Clyde, and daughter Harper, during a campaign stop Saturday afternoon at Lewiston’s Simard Payne Memorial Park. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Buy this Photo

She called shutting down the economy nonsense and relying on a “one size fits all” approach ridiculous.

That doesn’t mean Jorgensen doesn’t see how serious the public health crisis is, she said. Her mother quarantined for many months, she said, and “the last I gave her a hug was last December.”

But most of the people attending her rally did not wear masks, despite signs urging them to do so.

“We’re fiercely independent people. We don’t want outsiders interfering in our lives,” said Jim Bouchard of Brunswick, who ran unsuccessfully as a write-in candidate for Congress in the 1st District in 2016.

Jorgensen said she knows that if she wins, Congress could be an obstacle to her plans.

But, she said, “I am a teacher. I know how to handle problem students.”

Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen addresses a crowd Saturday in Lewiston about the need for smaller government and lower taxes. Steve Collins/Sun Journal

Besides, for her to win, the national mood would have had to change, bringing newcomers to Capitol Hill along with it, she said.

She said she wants to pare government sharply, allow people to opt out of the Social Security program, stop the cozy connection between corporations and politics, decriminalize all drugs and make dramatic changes to health care by turning to free market solutions.

Jorgensen said she would drop all tariffs and lower taxes on the assumption that people should be able to buy what they want and have more money in their pockets to do it.

Nor would she maintain international alliances.

“I would not help an ally,” she said. “I want allies through trade. I want allies through peace.”

She said countries that trade together have no incentive to go to war.

“Japan’s not going to bomb us” again like it did in 1941, Jorgensen said, “because we buy so many Toyotas and Hondas.”