I received an email from Gary Johnson’s campaign this morning. Looks like he may be ditching the GOP.
“Now, Johnson is considering making a run for president on the Libertarian Party ticket... To date in this campaign, voters haven’t been able to hear enough of Gary Johnson’s positions to decide what they think of his views. By running as a Libertarian, perhaps the former governor could gain, if not support, at least a wider airing of his positions.”
Mistake.
I agree that the Republican Party hasn’t been fair to former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. I have mentioned on Twitter, Facebook and my YouTube channel that Gary Johnson should be included in all of the GOP debates. I don’t agree with Gary Johnson on every single issue (there’s never been a perfect candidate), but he has long been my second choice for president. I wish he would reconsider his support for the Fair Tax, some humanitarian wars, and Guantanamo Bay torture facility. Even though he has shortcomings in my opinion, I’ll gladly support Gary Johnson over a Perry, Gingrich or Romney any day. Heck, the man vetoed more bills than the other 49 governors combined and has brought much-needed attention to the failure of the War on Drugs.
My intention is not to offend the Libertarian Party (LP). But like it or not, we live in a two party system. Strict ballot access laws (repeal them!) make it difficult for third party candidates to even get on the ballot in most states. No Libertarian Party candidate has ever come anywhere remotely close to winning a presidential election. A typical Libertarian Party presidential candidate can expect to get maybe 1 percent of the vote. I doubt a LP candidate actually thinks, “Oh yeah, I’m going to be the next president!”
It may be tempting but Gary Johnson shouldn’t run as a Libertarian to spite the GOP. He should instead run for the OPEN Senate seat in New Mexico. With the retirement of Sen. Jeff Bingaman, he wouldn’t be running against an incumbent. While Gary Johnson still has very low name recognition nationwide, he has high name recognition in the state where he spent eight years as governor from 1995 to 2003. And guess what? He could actually win. Public Policy Polling found that Gary Johnson is well-liked in his home state with a favorability of 44/32 (Ron Paul was not included in the poll).
“We’ve done polls in Massachusetts and Minnesota over the last couple weeks and found that Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Michele Bachmann are all unpopular in their home states. That’s par for the course with this GOP Presidential field- we’ve polled on 9 of the candidates or potential candidates in their home states and only one of them is well liked- Gary Johnson in New Mexico.”
Think about it Gary. We need more people like you in the Senate.
FYI, Gary does not “support” the Federal Reserve in any way, shape, or form. Seems to me your only possible complaint is that he doesn’t mention it in every single speech like Ron Paul does. He DOES talk about a monetary collapse every speech though, by which he obviously means massive money printing by the Fed. His position on the Fed is and always has been a full audit and desire to end it. He’s said numerous times that he would sign a bill abolishing the Fed, but merely reminds us that we’d need a plan for what to do after we end it. Gary does subscribe to Austrian Economics.
Gary and I do support the FairTax, humanitarian intervention to stop genocide, and maintaining Guantanamo Bay though.
Though I agree. He should switch to the NM senate seat instead of the LP Presidential vanity run.
Okay I deleted that statement since I found an article where Gary said: ““I would, of course, abolish the Federal Reserve if given the opportunity, but ending the Federal Reserve is not the cure-all.” Not as strong of a statement as I would like but I try to be fair.
Ron Paul 2012…………Gary is by far a superior choice to the neocon’s in the GOP race at this time……..he has to build his support over time…..his base is weak, if not non existent, but the future is bright for Gary, especially if Ron Paul Becomes President and begins showing the benefits of a non interventionist foreign policy, strong national defense, sound money, fiscal responsibility, and oh ya, Liberty and freedom for all Americans……..Ron Paul 2012
Agreed. Third-party “spoiler” candidates have idealistic appeal, but the actual outcome of the election is often the worst possible result. I’d rather hold my nose and pragmatically vote for the lesser evil (at least in the general election).
More reason he’s (unfortunately) becoming more of an annoyance to all sorts of political persuasions. On his appearance on Red Eye a couple weeks ago Gary Johnson essentially said congress should get a pay raise. He had some weird logic to it that I don’t recall, but it was very much Gary-Johnson-esque sounding
“But like it or not, we live in a two party system. Strict ballot access laws (repeal them!) make it difficult for third party candidates to even get on the ballot in most states.”
this is just… wrong.
Both the Repubs and Dems are are degenerated to the point that they are nominating the modern equivalents of Caligula’s horse, Incitatus,
i.e.-fools who cannot properly even stammer the vacuous, empty lines that a paid campaign consultant taught them to recite.in between cashing delicious checks from a connected bundler.
You don’t recover from this stage of degeneracy by merely rearranging deck chairs.
People who get paid through entities or assets that support in one way or another the modern two-party monopoly can always justify that this is the burden to bear, but their is no legit argument to stay within the two-party system now.
The MAJORITY block of the USA electorate are no longer dems or repubs.. they are actively not aligned with either party.
To suggest that no route exists for this group, along with the 98.5% of dems/repubs who dont get a check bi-weekly from a political entity, to route the most dismal and unattractive, inarticulate retread candidates fielded by the dems/repubs ever, is irrational.
There WILL be a full-ballot access 3rd party candidate from americans elect this time, and it should be with Ron Paul. Gary Johnson was included in the FOX debate for one reason, which was to find a “libertarian” to promote who they hoped would steal some support from Paul- other than that purpose he had no business in any debate, he had no support, and he won’t bring anything to any 3rd party except the apathy he brought to the repub primary. Johnson, unlike Paul, was very welcome and very promoted on FOX, and yet he could do nothing with it.
Ron Paul on the other hand has only one viable route to a win and that is a 3rd party campaign that will get him into a focused televised debate along with Obama and Romney, both of whom are unpopular and offering the same things done the same crooked way. Paul alone can raise the money/support without corp. “donations”, and can show the support percentage in polls to force his inclusion under the Presidential Debate commission rules..
Given the complete disgust most repubs and dems have with their own parties and the potential candidates, to NOT run 3rd party under these circumstances is the illogical thing to do.