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The petition requirement, Munger says, ensures that third parties are "gasping at the starting line" -- and that, he believes, has been bad for the state.

Because Republicans have been so ineffectual, he says, North Carolina is a one-party state.

The people in power, he says, "are not Democrats, they're autocrats. They're people who have run the state government and done so for a long time."

A plan for the schools

Some of Munger's positions, however, buck Libertarian orthodoxy, especially his views on education.

"A lot of Libertarians think, and they're entitled to this view, that any educational system in which the government is involved at all is equally bad," Munger says.

"Well, it seems to me anytime you have a goal, you should try to achieve what you can. Trying to achieve more than you can means you achieve nothing."

So Munger is an incrementalist.

He wants to freeze per pupil funding at its current level. Then he would steer all the state lottery proceeds to a program that gives families vouchers worth $2,000 a child, to be applied toward attending the school of their choice -- whether a private school or just a different public school.

Munger also favors pay raises for teachers and other state employees he views as essential. He'd pay for those raises by cutting many administrative jobs.

Munger says he would need to lead a full-scale audit of state departments as a whole to see what should get the ax.

He says he would start from scratch in at least one department: the Division of Motor Vehicles.

"The DMV has become the private fiefdom of people who pay off cronies," Munger says. "Their job is not service. There, I think I would just fire a lot of people and start all over."

Munger also favors a constitutional amendment to tighten the rules for when cities can annex properties or use eminent domain to acquire them.

He says the system is abused now, with some cities annexing affluent areas to increase their tax bases, while passing over lower income areas.

Ellis Hankins, executive director of the N.C. League of Municipalities, dismissed Munger's criticisms of annexation by saying that because Libertarians "oppose government in general, it's not surprising that he would oppose annexation."

Munger hopes voters won't pigeonhole him this way. He says he's running as a reformer, as a check against a concentration of power in Raleigh.

His model is Jesse Ventura, the former professional wrestler who shocked the political world by winning the Minnesota governor's office in 1998.

"When [Ventura] was first elected, everybody thought it was a joke," Munger says.

"But he was a pretty successful governor in a difficult state. In some ways that would be the model I would use. I would be Michael 'The Body' Munger."

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