Gary Johnson isn’t officially running for president in 2016, but he appears to be inching closer to that decision. Other than expressing an intention to run, he has not made a formal announcement, nor even filed candidacy papers with the FEC.
Yet in an exclusive interview for IVN, Johnson suggests that his potential candidacy for the Libertarian nomination is advancing toward another serious run. Johnson, governor of New Mexico between 1994 and 2003, was the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate in 2012.
“We learned a lot in 2012,” Johnson said when asked what would be different in a 2016 campaign. He elaborated: “Looking back, much of what I did in terms of scheduling and travel was not very efficient. The sheer number of people who must be reached demands absolute efficiency and not wasting time in unproductive activities. A 2016 campaign will be much smarter and much more efficient.”
Read the rest of the article at Independent Voter Network.
On the other hand, just because something is a certain way for a long time doesn’t guarantee it will continue to stay that way.
It’s always possible that one of the establishment party coalitions will fall apart, although they have a long track record of reconstituting new coalitions when that happens.
“I don’t see any demise of the two-party system.” – Mark Axinn
Nor do I. But my response was to the comment by Sean Scallon regarding the possible perception that the GOP could be imploding due to the circus they find themselves in with more declared candidates than anyone can get their head around. That situation was compared to 1980 by Gene Berkman and my comment was intended to convey that there was no sense of any weakening in the two party monopoly in the 1980 presidential race despite having four national tickets with ballot status everywhere. Gene correctly remembered the 1979 LP convention slogan “toward a three party system” which was the LP’s attempt to play in the major leagues but not expecting to replace one of the dominant parties. Whew! That may just be more confusing!
Sen. Angus King (ME) was elected as an Independent with both a GOP and Dem opponent. Bill Walker (AK) was elected as an Independent after the Dem nominee dropped out to be his running mate. They’re both currently in office.
NF–
I don’t see any demise of the two-party system.
They hold the White House, all 535 seats in Congress (Sanders is really a Democrat; he pretends otherwise) and control all 50 state govts. They do whatever they can to shut down outsider attackers (Nader, Perot, LP, GP) by marginalizing them and making it so difficult to get on the ballots. They have the mainstream media (yeah, we have IPR but it’s not as influential as CNN, Fox or NY Times).
Like many of us, I see them as two facets of a one-party system (statism), but they’re doing quite well as far as I can see. We got 1% for LP and .3% GP; they got 98.5% for statists.
A strategy based on the expectation that either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party will die and be replaced by The Libertarian Party or some other alternative party is just not realistic. The Republican Party survived the FDR landslide of 1936 and the LBJ landslide of 1964. The Democratic Party kept control of Congress as McGovern went down to defeat in 1972. The two parties are more evenly matched in the last 20 years than at any time in my lifetime.
The focus of the 1980 Libertarian campaign was “toward a three party system” or more realistically, “join the core of the new coalition.” Both point to a more realistic strategy of building an alternative to the two pro-government parties which are not identical, but are bad in different ways.
The major difference I see is that in 1980 no one was seeing the demise of either major party.
Sean is on to something. In 1980 many Libertarians blamed John Anderson’s Independent campaign for President for taking away votes from the Clark/Koch ticket. Actually, Anderson got so much publicity from the “liberal” media that it made voting outside the two-party system more respectable, and probably helped convince some people to “throw away” their vote on the Libertarian ticket.
A Trump independent campaign could be a great opportunity for the LP. If the perception is the GOP is imploding, split between its party-anointed candidate and Trump as the candidate of Conservative INC., then the LP can wedge itself in as a fresh alternative, especially to those soft-Republicans voters and younger voters who will be looking for alternatives for the future than a rotting GOP.
True, but he also paid a lot of taxes as a business owner and private wealthy individual over the years. That’s not to say that I take that position on matching funds or not.
Interesting. So you all want to argue the ethics of matching funds? I guess we can have that here then if anyone wants to argue it. Not that we haven’t had the discussion here before, but we could.
Regardless of the ethics, though, the reason Johnson and Nielson gave me why they don’t want to do it again is that they say they got double crossed by the FEC after a change in personnel there and did not get the money they were promised and were counting on. Above, Moulton characterizes those same facts differently and says that it was the FEC finally catching on to the campaign’s scam to get more matching funds than they were entitled to. Both Moulton and Nielson said the FEC demanded money back as well, although the characterization of why was different and this is the first I have heard that it was in fact paid back to the FEC. Nielson may be characterizing that as debt he is owed by Johnson in subsequent filings, which may explain why the debt is supposedly still going up.
Johnson got paid in taxes as Governor, plus he collects a tax payer funded pension for it today.
Some people will believe anything. So find a rich libertarian who pays a ton of taxes , and have him sell you ownership of the “stolen” property, or the part of it you can recover, for example for a dollar. One might propose that over the years Johnson has paid more in taxes than he recovered.
Questionable. Libertarians who oppose matching funds on principle believe it is tantamount to receiving stolen property.
Paulie, Except Matching Funds aren’t illegal.
(Yes, I’m leaving out some laws that shouldn’t be there, but those aren’t the laws we’re talking about either).
And I’m no angel either.
I can argue either side of that one, but that sounds a lot like the arguments I made to justify what I was doing when I was a career criminal, when I went to the dark side in the petition business, and, well, pretty much any time I ever did anything wrong in my life…which, mea culpa, has been a lot of times.
“I felt used/dishonest/out of integrity/angry . . .”
Good for you! There might be redemption for you yet,
Chuck Moulton @ July 30, 2015 at 5:55 pm wrote:
“As for me, I’m going to go watch another episode of Columbo. It’s much more fun than this discussion.”
I’ve been binging on Fraiser on Netflix. Forgot how sharp the writing was on that show.
As far as I know, I did nothing illegal during my time with OAI/GJ2012. I left for reasons I’ve shared here openly earlier. Chris — were you asked to do anything illegal/immoral/fraudulent?
I do regret several promises I made on behalf of the campaign to Wes Wagner, some vendors and others that were later left unfulfilled. I felt used/dishonest/out of integrity/angry . . .
OK, One question…
Yes, It isn’t Libertarian,
But Given the system we are operating in, and with the understanding that the Kochs aren’t coming back as they Own the Republican Party…
What is wrong Given The System with matching funds.
Someone will get them.
Oh, I’d say there’s been progress on a lot more fronts than that. I don’t feel like going through the laundry list, especially since I’m pretty sure we’ve done it more than once on various threads.
And yes, it was a fair statement in 1980, which is why I said it’s too bad the newspaper didn’t follow through with its threat. We’d probably be further along now if they had – maybe to a trivial extent, but maybe not (who knows when a spark or a chai reaction could have been ignited).
pf: We need activists, donors, future candidates – active participants – a lot more than we need votes, at least at this juncture.
me: Fair statement. It was also a fair statement in 1980.
Little has changed, except government is — net net — a lot bigger now than in 1980. A few more states have legalized weed, gays can marry (thanks mostly to the Supremes), and more people vaguely know the L word.
Well, some people are delusional, sure. Probably best if they are disabused of illusions without putting forth more effort than needed.
If he wanted a job he probably would have been screwed any way you slice it with any alt party regardless of ideology, without millions to spend (I don’t know what his resources were), etc., etc.
Votes are nice, but active participation is better, and far more important at this stage of the game. We need activists, donors, future candidates – active participants – a lot more than we need votes, at least at this juncture.
pf, yes, and 1% might have liked it SO much that they would have voted for Hunscher. It sounds as if he actually wanted the job as opposed to viewing a campaign as an opportunity to proselytize an ideology.
I don’t know much about Mr. Hunscher, since it was way before my time and if I have read about the campaign subsequently my memory fails me, but I wish he’d followed through, if only to have the Union-Leader print the whole LP platform. Candidates come and go, but at least some of the people who read it would have liked it and at least some of them would have become involved to some extent.
gb: the Manchester Union-Leader threatened to publish the entire platform of the Libertarian Party to show what an extremist Mr Hunscher was,
me: If true, yet another example of how L extremism has negative consequences.
Gene- I actually have a campaign poster of Bill Hunscher that he autographed after he lost the nomination to Ed Clark and he signed it “William H. Hunscher Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate, New Hampshire”. I know he never did it but I never knew why.
Okay NF – I forgot Mr Hunscher’s first name after 36 years. But at the time, I did not see much evidence of his campaign, but I saw a lot of evidence of the Ed Clark campaign. I was living in Austin, Texas which had an active local Libertarian group.
After Mr Hunscher lost the Libertarian nomination for President, he talked about a campaign for U.S. Senate from New Hampshire as a Republican. I was told that the Manchester Union-Leader threatened to publish the entire platform of the Libertarian Party to show what an extremist Mr Hunscher was, or what extremists he had aligned himself with. Apparently the threat caused Mr Hunscher to decide against running.
cm: If you want to keep giving the Johnson campaign the benefit of the doubt despite the mountain of evidence showing financial shenanigans (the FEC report analysis Phillies has shared, Paulie’s quotes of Ron Nielson, the FEC audit which forced the Johnson campaign to return the matching funds, etc.), go right ahead. I don’t mind if you choose to be ignorant.
me: I’ve not read Phillies analysis, actually, and I somehow missed the news about return of matching funds. Based on 5:57, I’m not sure we’re all on the same page, frankly.
But I do really like being compared with Columbo. Open mindedness is something I strive for, and Columbo’s methods seemed the ultimate in a scientific approach to life.
” Ned Hunscher was a non-entity in the 1979 campaign for the Libertarian Party nomination. He was only briefly involved in the LP, and left it after he lost the nomination.” – Gene Berkman
Ned Hunscher? That must have been his brother. The candidates’ name was Bill. I hosted him overnight at my home in Encinitas. Michael Emerling (now Cloud) was his campaign manager and I voted for him as a delegate at the LA convention. Afterwards I was a supporter of Ed Clark and even coordinated a visit by Alicia to El Paso after n my move there. She went over extremely well by the media due to her background and appeared on all the local TV stations. Great times!
Of course, it depends what you man by “wrong”. Johnson has refiled large numbers of FEC filings twice, showing different numbers after corrections are made. You could then say that the earlier filings were wrong, though large numbers of entries remained the same and therefore are to be taken to be correct.
However, my analysis in Liberty for America is based on the assertion that the filings are substantially honest and accurate, even though mistakes have been made.
Robert Capozzi wrote:
I’ve been marathoning Columbo on Netflix the past few days (and no, I was never “Columbo” on IPR). You seem to be doing a Columbo impression here, playing the idiot to get me to do all the work for you.
George Phillies has been commenting on IPR and in the monthly Liberty for America newsletter for years. You’ve read them just as I have. I’m not going to waste my time digging back through them to quote you things you’ve seen before so you can keep playing stupid.
If you want to keep giving the Johnson campaign the benefit of the doubt despite the mountain of evidence showing financial shenanigans (the FEC report analysis Phillies has shared, Paulie’s quotes of Ron Nielson, the FEC audit which forced the Johnson campaign to return the matching funds, etc.), go right ahead. I don’t mind if you choose to be ignorant.
As for me, I’m going to go watch another episode of Columbo. It’s much more fun than this discussion.
Liberty for America newsletter.
Perhaps you are assuming that I will support Gary for the nomination?
I haven’t made that decision. I did not make my decision til the convention in 2012, and that may be the case again this time.
I was state co-director, then director, of the campaign post-nomination, because I hoped it would help the LP in Alabama, and it did.
I am involved with OAI because I hope we will help move issues forward.
I have not decided who I support for the nomination. I’d like to have more options, if possible.
CM, OK, now we’re getting somewhere. You say GP has documented this. Where?
Robert Capozzi wrote:
That sure would be nice. Unfortunately the Johnson campaign won’t release actual numbers. All we can do is look at the numbers he has released to the FEC and show that they are wrong — as George Phillies has extensively documented along with Paulie’s pointing out that he personally witnessed many expenditures that are not properly categorized in the reports.
I don’t know why you assume that I missed any point. I’m just interjecting the facts that I know of which have not yet been mentioned in this thread, although they have been mentioned in past threads. What you make of them is up to you.
Chuck Moulton wrote:
paulie wrote:
You always seem to miss the point. The problem isn’t that the Johnson campaign went for matching funds. The problem is the Johnson campaign cooked the books and eschewed financial transparency.
Suppose I operated a Best Buy and I had an employee that stole a bunch of televisions, which he sold hoping to buy a car with the proceeds. It turned out he didn’t steal enough to afford the car, the police catch him, I fire him, and he is forced to make restitution. Then the fellow asks me to hire him again. I say “Why would I hire you? You stole a bunch of TVs to buy a car.” He responds “It’s okay. I don’t want a car anymore.”
In the analogy I want an employee who knows that stealing is wrong and I can trust not to steal again. I don’t give a damn about his desire or lack of desire for a car. The Johnson campaign still has shown no signs of fathoming that cooking the books is wrong and we want a campaign that can be trusted to be financially transparent.
But CST is now playing the turncoat, that’s the difference. One heard Dondero attack RP1 for years afterwards. Hopefully, CST has said peace with this piece. Although I sense he may become GP’s Deep Throat! 😉
A lot of different people have travelled with Gary, including me on several different tours.
pf, cst said, “In April of 2013, I traveled along with Johnson and Judge Gray on what was proclaimed to be a “College Tour”.”
Dondero IIRC was RP1’s travel aide.
cm: I’m just relaying facts as I heard them and applying the law, honest accounting, and libertarian principles to those facts
me: For me, “honest accounting” involves actual numbers and analysis of what numbers are incorrect and why they are incorrect.
Maybe this has been compiled and published, but I haven’t seen it and near as I can tell you haven’t, either. Something may well be rotten in Denmark, but I’d think we’d like to know what’s rotting and whether it’s actually in Denmark and not Germany or Sweden.
“As the quote “National Fundraising Director” for the 2016 campaign…”
*This should of course read the 2012 campaign.
And for the record, I’m not angling for anything. Simply stating my opinion, based on what I have witnessed. I frankly don’t plan to put forth any more energy into this conversation, as the whole thing has been over and done with in my mind for quite some time.
Dr. Phillies, feel free to contact me at [email protected].
How so?
Ron and Gary have both told me they learned their lesson as far as the matching funds and will not try to get those again. I don’t know if Ron will engage in any more “high end estimating” for the other reason he told me.
CS Thrasher is angling to be the new Eric Dondero!
Robert Capozzi wrote:
There were lots of financial irregularities in the Johnson FEC reports. Paulie, who is an OAI state director and seems to have a line of communication with Ron Nielson has repeatedly explained that Nielson says the FEC reports were done that way to get the FEC to give matching funds and extract as much money as possible from the FEC, even though the actual accounting wouldn’t support that. I take Paulie at his word — I have known him for many years and he has always been a straight shooter.
There are no “heated charges”. I’m just relaying facts as I heard them and applying the law, honest accounting, and libertarian principles to those facts, translating self-serving propaganda into ordinary English.
Robert Capozzi wrote:
He probably will run again. And the campaign will probably engage in the same financial shenanigans.
I like Gary Johnson. He’s a good guy, he has an impressive resume, and he is a solid messenger for libertarianism.
The problem isn’t Gary Johnson, it’s his campaign. The Johnson campaign is focused on the “Fair Tax” which is a loser issue, unlibertarian, and terrible messaging. The Johnson campaign lacks transparency and attempts to defraud the FEC. The Johnson campaign employs staffers (perhaps incredibly overpaid, but that’s impossible to know without honest accounting) who do not try to build the Libertarian Party by promoting the party and sharing data, who encourage Johnson to torpedo his campaign with the idiotic “Fair Tax”, and who engineer bookkeeping that lacks transparency and defrauds the FEC. The Johnson campaign is drowning in debt from a Republican campaign and his 2012 Libertarian campaign — debt which is unclear because it lacks transparency and doesn’t use honest accounting.
Johnson could solve all of these issues by ditching the “Fair Tax”, running a campaign with transparent accounting to donors and the FEC, firing all the staffers who keep making all these terrible decisions in his name and hiring better staffers, and starting from scratch guaranteeing donors that their funds will not be used to pay off Republican debts. Obviously he’s not going to do that.
Fundamentally Johnson is loyal to the staffers that are running his reputation through the mud. It speaks to his inability to lead — if elected President, most of the work of the government will be delegated to people in various agencies that the President nominates or hires, and Johnson has demonstrated that he will nominate and hire people who do a terrible job (the only exception that I have seen is Alicia Dearn, who is exceedingly competent).
I can’t support Gary Johnson for the Libertarian presidential nomination in 2016 because he won’t fix all the obvious problems with his campaign. That position doesn’t make Gary Johnson my enemy… he’s like an alcoholic that won’t change his ways even after his friends have an intervention for him. I don’t hope that Gary Johnson won’t run for President; I hope that Gary Johnson will look in the mirror and decide to fix all the problems with his campaign, then run for President.
Robert Capozzi wrote:
I have no intention of talking to the FEC about the Gary Johnson campaign. (Besides, the FEC already saw through the cooking of the books and is demanding that the Johnson campaign return the matching funds.) I will, however, be warning any of my friends not to donate to the Gary Johnson campaign while these shenanigans continue.
Chris, if you want people to contact you some contact information would be good.
My personal impression of Gary in person has not been anything like that.
Interesting comments from CS Thrasher. Can anyone here confirm or deny what he said?
No. Just no.
If the Libertarian Party wishes to be relevant in any way, it will not make the mistake of giving Gary Johnson the presidential nomination for a second time.
“A 2016 campaign will be much smarter and more efficient.” Yet, it will be run by the exact same person, with the exact same questionable business and accounting methods.
As the quote “National Fundraising Director” for the 2016 campaign, I witnessed firsthand as countless resources were wasted and real electioneering plans were ignored.
As an example, I personally witnessed what I estimate to be $5,000-$7,000 worth of printed materials thrown away on election night. Most of these items were still in their original box, despite a constant stream of requests for their dissemination during the campaign.
It is, however, what happened post campaign that truly solidified my opinion of Gary Johnson.
In April of 2013, I traveled along with Johnson and Judge Gray on what was proclaimed to be a “College Tour”.
In retrospect, I am of the opinion the only reason for its existence was fundraising to keep Nson from bankruptcy.
While Judge Gray was professional, kind, and inspiring as always, Johnson showed his true colors.
Gary Johnson treated everyone he came in contact with during that trip with colossal disrespect, and in many cases utter contempt. He was woefully uninformed on the issues, and when corrected would dismiss it flippantly.
His absolute contempt for the campaign and everyone around him was palpable. I could share an anecdote that involves him inserting himself into a conversation with nothing more than an egotistical and dismissive comment, which was actually factually wrong, but I’ll spare you the details.
What is worth noting is that he did it thinking that it was all about him when the conversation had absolutely nothing to do with him.
He constantly complained about having to actually campaign during the 2012 election. Most disturbing was his habit of praising someone while talking with one crowd, only to disparage that same person in another setting.
Now I realize talking out of both sides of one’s mouth is usually a perquisite for becoming a politician; but do we not claim to be the “Party of Principal?”
The Libertarian Party would do well to heed this story and find a better alternative to a second Gary Johnson candidacy.
Simply put, any run this time around would exist only to further an already out of touch ego, and enrich a questionable campaign consultant.
We can do better.
P.S.
I am not writing this anonymously. I stand by these statements.
I have worked for many, many candidates on a national level, Democrat, Republican, Green and Libertarian, and I have never encountered such a prima donna, with such contempt for those who strove for his betterment.
I am not currently working for any political candidate, although I would love to be informed of a new challenger for the LP nomination.
pf, sorry, I am not suggesting you misrepresent at all. CM is making some rather heated charges here that I am trying to understand. Snippets of informal conversation may or may not lead to truth, but thus far I’m not even really seeing an allegation, just rumors.
I’m really not all that interested, actually, although I would like to see GJ run again, despite the fact that I think the LP is based on some severely dysfunctional premises. OTOH, if his operatives are too corrupt as CM and GP seem to be suggesting, maybe that won’t happen or shouldn’t happen.
Then again, my sense was that GP wildly overreacted to some FEC filings by Barr’s campaign, and it’d be great if that unfortunate incident were not repeated.
You can also ask him yourself if you care enough to do so. I’m not intentionally misrepresenting anything but it’s always possible I misunderstood.
Oh, casual conversations that Paulie reports he had with Nielsen don’t really cut it for me as proof. This all still feels half-baked.
Take it up with him. I told you what I know, what I don’t know, and what I’ve been told.
Paulie wrote:
If you make up numbers that you know to be too high, you are not “estimating”.
Chuck Moulton wrote:
Robert Capozzi wrote:
Paulie has repeatedly said this — and he said it comes straight from Ron Nielson. He hasn’t used the words “cooked the books”… he just describes a process that anyone familiar with the term would call “cooked the books”. Here is one example from above.
Geore Phillies wrote:
Paulie wrote:
sf, ya know, I never met any of them, and I’m not necessarily skilled at assessing intellects based on TV appearances, but the only R candidates who don’t seem too bright to me are Walker, Santorum, and Perry.
The rest seem just as bright as Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley, and Webb.
GJ doesn’t come across as all that bright in his interviews for that matter, though again a lot of that is coaching or lack thereof.
Ron claims that he just “estimated” what various expenses, including salaries, were, and estimated way on the high side. He claims that this is all legal, and that it was done for two purposes: 1. maximizing government matching money (libertarians have been debating the ethics of government matching money for a long time, with many on both sides) and 2. so he can continue to bill other clients at his usual higher rates.
Whether his claims are true, or whether what he did was ethical and/or legal, you can judge for yourself.
What I do not find credible, based on multiple sources (not just Ron) is the claim that people working on the campaign were paid a lot.
I’ve also made it clear that I would prefer it if Ron went on the record himself instead of using me as a quasi-spokesman. He’s told me quite a few times that he would and hasn’t done it so far.
NF – Ned Hunscher was a non-entity in the 1979 campaign for the Libertarian Party nomination. He was only briefly involved in the LP, and left it after he lost the nomination.
Hunscher’s proposed campaign would not have been about issues. He was a successful business owner, and he was going to claim he was more skilled @ business than the other candidates. Since few people had ever heard of him, it was unlikely that kind of campaign would have had any resonance.
Just to be clear: I think Trump is a complete fake. His business history could be a chapter out of “How to Cheat and Get Away with it!”
He’s really a lot like Root, he’s just richer and more well known.
You’ve listed four out of about twenty running. 🙂
cm: it has been admitted by the Johnson campaign that they cooked the books to try to get matching funds from the FEC and hide information from donors
me: Guess I missed this fact’s reportage. Nothing popped up in my research affirming this statement. Any good sources? Much appreciated.
sf: Trump is certainly smarter than most of them,
me: I guess I’m just not seeing this. Paul is an MD, Cruz went to Princeton undergrad, Harvard Law, and clerked for the Supreme Court. Jeb Bush strikes me a very bright. Hillary also seems quite smart to me.
Now their judgments are certainly questionable on many matters, but Trump seems like a megalomaniac and a blowhard. Even his business track record is quite checkered. His politics seem calculated to stir up the weak willed and simple minded.
But YMMV.
The whole point of using the word “allegedly” is to avoid being sued for defamation.
I think it would be wonderful to be sued for defamation by the Johnson campaign. First of all, he’s a public figure, which makes defamation suits very difficult to win. Second, truth is a perfect defense to defamation claims. A defamation suit would enable me to subpoena the Johnson campaign’s books and depose all of the staffers involved in the Johnson campaign about their financial reporting shenanigans. And I’m an attorney, so I wouldn’t have to pay much to defend myself from the baseless suit. For those reasons I’m not going to walk on eggshells about the word “allegedly”.
Chuck Moulton wrote:
Robert Capozzi wrote:
Well, it has been admitted by the Johnson campaign that they cooked the books to try to get matching funds from the FEC and hide information from donors — Paulie has said as much repeatedly here. That is obviously fraud.
It is also illegal, as it violates FEC rules. The FEC has already audited the Johnson campaign and demanded money back, as George Phillies mentioned.
FEC form 3P:
http://www.fec.gov/pdf/forms/fecfrm3p.pdf
They use a different federal statute than perjury. It still comports with the definition though.
There was an oath or affirmation. “Court” has often been extended to documents filed with federal agencies. For the sake or argument though, let’s just say instead of “perjury” what the Johnson campaign did is knowingly submit “false, erroneous, or incomplete information.” That is still terrible.
I see no reason to add the word “allegedly” to my reporting of what the Johnson campaign did.
@1:16. There was a Federal Audit. The Feds want some of our money back.
Agreed. And I haven’t seen your garden, so I am going to assume that you have a few less rocks in it than there are candidates seeking the GOP’s nomination.
Trump is certainly smarter than most of them, and he’s not afraid to go out on a political limb and court the far right. If he gets the nomination, he’s figure out a way to go after democrats who won’t vote for Clinton. Assuming of course that she gets the nomination, which is not yet a lock at this point. There’s still plenty of time for the contributions to her foundation from foreign governments while she was SOS, email server parts 3, 4 and maybe even 5, and whatever other stuff they can dig up without actually digging up Vince Foster.
Trump’s best political defense is that his scandals are already public. Most are so old that people won’t really care.
cm: the Johnson campaign perjured itself on FEC filings to fraudulently and illegally take money from taxpayers,
me: Has this been proven? Or should this be modified with “allegedly”?
gp, and your take on Hillary, Bernie, Martin, Jim and Lincoln’s IQs is what?
Stewart,
The bad part is that Trump is smarter and more competent than most of his Republican opponents. Of course, so are many of the rocks in my garden.
Chuck, Do you think the problem is that you believe in the Libertarian idea that using fraud for political purposes is, like, wrong? Paulie is claiming that Johnson is using fraud for political purposes.
With respect to Paulie’s absurd answer, suppose you are the secret master of the Godzilla for President campaign. You have the choice between reporting honestly that you spent $100,000 for advertising, or lying about it and saying you paid yourself for an hour of your time. Why, exactly, would you choose lying, when the truth makes you look better? That’s what we are being told that Johnson did.
Also, the Government caught Johnson, and is demanding the return of a quarter million dollars in campaign cost sharing.
Geore Phillies wrote:
Paulie wrote:
I continue to be mystified at why you repeatedly claim that the Johnson campaign perjured itself on FEC filings to fraudulently and illegally take money from taxpayers, and — this is the really crazy part — somehow think that makes the Gary Johnson campaign look good.
In fact, committing perjury to fraudulently get money from a government entity is FAR, FAR worse than overpaying staffers and failing to allocate some campaign spending to advertising. I can’t fathom that anyone would view things otherwise.
Maybe I’m living in a bubble because I was a Boy Scout, I went to church as a youth, and I’ve been exposed to attorney ethics principles (through a law school class, the professional responsibility exam, and continuing legal education). Fundamentally I believe the ends do not justify the means… I thought that principle was a core part of the libertarian philosophy. Perhaps I’m in the wrong political party.
“Do you think Trump is “Sensible”?
Am I the only one who gets the Monty Python reference?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31FFTx6AKmU
“Do you think Trump is “Sensible”?
…
Personally, I don’t think he’s even sentient.”
I heard a rumor that his doctor certified that Trump’s hair pieces are sentient. As for Trump himself…
(crickets)
Romney’s main advantage was that he was running against a candidate who the Republicans, but not the American people as a whole, loathed.
2004- Badnarik collected volunteer names but did not have a volunteer effort until labor day. Badnarik’s contract with the LNC, now published, required him to use a particular person as campaign manager. That person did not use email much and did not believe the internet would be important in politics.
2008 Barr – the notion that a ‘celebrity’ candidate will draw large numbers of votes because they are a famous whatever is nonsense. Barr was a better test than most because he was a notorious politician.
2012 Johnson had the advantage that there were no other significant third party candidates running and Mitt 47% Romney was not popular among his own aprty. His main advantage was that he was running against a candidate who the Republicans, but not the American people as a whole. loathed
+/- 1%
Gene- Do you think Bill Hunscher would have done better? He would not have had the Koch money but he might have had other attributes.
Ed Clark could have done better in 1980 if Ronald Reagan had failed to get the Republican nomination. While in office Ronald Reagan presided over a government that expanded in power and cost, in his campaign he made some articulate free market critiques of government policy and he promised to end draft registration and cut tax rates. His understanding of market economics stopped him from demagoguing the issue of high oil prices, and he was less likely to get America into a Middle East war than President Carter, All these factors made his campaign attractive to voters who favor limited government, and cut into the potential vote for a Libertarian candidate.
The Clark campaign against Reagan could have picked up some traction from an appeal to Pro-choice Republicans, much more numerous then than now. Most of the Republicans who voted for John Anderson probably did so because of the abortion issue, and the Clark campaign failed to make serious appeals to this group of voters.
The Reagan record in office was mixed, but in 1980 his rhetoric was very attractive.
>I’m sorry you don;t want to believe $200/hour and more rates. Tough. Get over it
Depends of course what you’re getting for that money. It’s a pretty high rate to pay for a food service employee in Seattle, but dirt-cheap for a lawyer in Boston or New York.
I hope you’re wrong but I would not be too surprised.
It seems obvious that OAI will continue fundraising for the (proposed/”imminent”) lawsuit against the CPD without filing that lawsuit until after the October date when the CPD says they may change the standard anyway. No “rush” to file when it seems there is at least a chance they will not need to file/the CPD will adopt a 270 electoral vote standard or something “fair enough.”
If the CPD does not announce something reasonable by the end of October, then, and only then, would I think there’s any chance that OAI (or whoever OAI is supporting/doing fundraising for as the actual plaintiff) will actually file.
I’d not be surprised if they are still fundraising at Christmas however, with a new “imminent” date for filing of “early in the new year.”
Call me jaded, or “anti-OAI” but that is what I was called here BEFORE THE FUNDRAISER in Columbus 13 months ago . . .
The FEC numbers aren’t accurate (apparently), promises made in 2012 were not fulfilled removing Mr. Burke as Oregon OAI director “right after the election” for example), and nothing I’ve seen so far regarding the CPD lawsuit has proved all that accurate either . . .
Not necessarily.
Maybe, but if so, why didn’t we do better in say 1984 and 1988? Or how about 2004 and 2008?
244% of the previous result is pretty good. If we can double again next year I’ll be very happy.
And many have gone up, but you are correct, many have gone down…which is why I do believe that Johnson could still learn a few things from Harry Browne, even though Johnson’s vote totals were higher.
PF, Barr to Johnson was 144% in absolute vote-total increases.
Nice, but unless it triggers asymptotic growth, not very impressive, especially given the pattern on your chart (thanks for sharing).
Other metrics might be interesting, too, but my understanding that many of them have gone south since GJ2012 (I voted for him, btw).
Still, the game for the prez is an all-or-nothing one…win the electoral college, or not. It’s wise to take a longer term view, but for me that longer term shows that +/- 1% is the result of those holding high the challenge to the omnipotent state. Not much traction to this effort that I can see.
Might be a good time for a rethink.
True. If what I do is make craft beer, I don’t necessarily want to take Budweiser and Coors head on with their type of recycled product, although I may want some incremental expansion.
I don’t know whether we will do any better than we will against epitomies of dynastic corruption such as Bush and Clinton redux. Some people may feel like there’s no sane middle of the road choice, others may find that their anti-establishment instincts are already well served by the estabishment parties in your scenario.
I ready told you. I know approximately what people working for Ron made. That’s what’s obvious about it.
You know the answer to that one too. Trying to get more money from matching funds and keeping up appearances with other actual and potential clients.
It’s not a matter of what I want. As I told you I have multiple sources, not all of them friendly to Ron anymore.
No.
I disagree somewhat. If the only thing we could measure a presidential campaign by is vote totals, Capozzi would be right – neither 0.3% nor 1% make that huge of a difference. There are many other ways to measure the impact a campaign has, from how it impacts downticket campaigns to how it builds local party organizations to increasing party membership and income to bringing people into the larger liberty moement and so on.
That’s really weird. I don’t understand why. Are you able to edit your comments, other people’s comments, other people’s articles?
In any case I posted it.
On the other hand if 2016 is Trump-Sanders-Libertarian we might do decently well.
What’s obviously false about the FEC reports, Paulie? Let’s start with the simple one: Why would someone publish phoney numbers to hide real numbers showing that the publisher is on the side of the angels?
I’m sorry you don;t want to believe $200/hour and more rates. Tough. Get over it.
How about in four years?
pf: A small company whose share of the market grows or shrinks by 353% in relative terms and 559% in absolute terms would find those numbers very relevant, for example, even if it’s within the 0.3 to 1 percent range.
me: In a year or two, maybe. Over 2 decades, no.
Plus, such a company may not care about market share if they are growing profitably. They are often happy to remain in a niche.
There are a lot of reasonable criticisms- including those expressed by Gary- about how the 2012 campaign operated and could improve in 2016. “He should be more like [past LP nominee who got a third as many votes.]” isn’t really among them in my book.
I still can’t post images for whatever reason, but here’s a direct link:
http://postimg.org/image/qk2yc4l9x/
It depends on what you find important. A small company whose share of the market grows or shrinks by 353% in relative terms and 559% in absolute terms would find those numbers very relevant, for example, even if it’s within the 0.3 to 1 percent range.
pf: You really couldn’t have looked it up yourself?
me: Yes, although I find your methodology wanting, in truth. The relevant numbers are 0.3% and 1.06%.
A five-fold increase of a tiny number means almost nothing, since the numbers are all 1% or less of the actual total. I believe most if not all statisticians would agree with me on this one.
Perhaps I already have?
The FEC numbers are obviously way, way off: what people made, for example. What’s on the FEC reports does not come close to jibing with my many other sources.
The ad money is allegedly rolled into Political Advisers, part of the huge profit that you allege Nielson made.
And we’ve been over all this several times.
I don’t use a ouija board, and the claims of the campaign manager are only one of my many sources. I have multiple sources regarding what people working for Nielson actually get paid. Some of those include those people themselves, others are people who still work for Nielson or are their friends or are involved in our volunteer efforts. Some are former associates who had a falling out with Nielson, such as Joe Buchman.
I know that the campaign spent money on travel, because I kept a close eye on it as a reporter for IPR. I know they spent money creating and distributing various campaign materials because I dealt with that as state director of the campaign in Alabama post-nomination and as part of the state directors list. I know they spent money on ballot access because I was a ballot access contractor. I know that they maintained an office, because I’ve been there a few times. I know they had employees, because I dealt with them in a variety of capacities. I know all of these cost money.
I only have Nielson’s word that they spent a bunch of money on radio ads. They were allegedly playing in Western states and I was not there during any of that time frame. I only have his word that they did do a very, very small TV ad buy.
I’e told you all this before.
You are correct.
I also don’t see much chance of Sanders running, but I’m not as adamant as you about it. I think it’s more likely than Nader running again, although neither is likely.
Bergland and his running mate, Jim Lewis, received 228,111 (0.3%).
Clark received 921,128 votes (1.06% of the total nationwide);
In the 2012 United States presidential election, Johnson received 0.99% of the popular vote, a total of 1,275,971 votes
1.06 is 353% of 0.3
1,275,971 is 559% of 228,111
You really couldn’t have looked it up yourself?
Paulie,
Do you have any indications other than off the record claims from the campaign manager or the output of your ouija board? Perhaps you could explain why, if the campaign actually spent substantial amounts of money on advertising or volunteer organization, you can’t see it in the FEC reports.
George
I think a Trump third party run could be both good and bad news for GJ. I assume he’d keep attacking him, which would earn him some press and social media likes, and certainly reduce the allegations of the LP being Republican-lite. This combined with a well run campaign should hopefully allow him to carve out a niche.
I don’t really think the debate lawsuit will go anywhere. At best maybe they’ll symbolically reduce the threshold to 10%. But if Trump runs as an indie and gets in, I think the powers that be could point to that (with the media’s help) as proof that the system works and is fine as is. It’s easier to convince people that 3 candidates being represented better represent the system than two. A Trump independent candidacy might actually serve to setback the cause of broader debates. At least, that’s my fear.
“These voters may also consider voting for Sanders if he runs outside the duopoly.”
I think you’re more or less right on the rest of it or I’ve no opinion, but just in response to this I thought I’d say I’ve listened to Sanders many times in previous years. There is no way he’d run as a third party candidate. He always urged people to vote Democrat, for president anyway. Mark my words, I am close to 100% certain, so that I think it is silly to even bring it up.
Even Nader running again would be more likely (and that’s not happening). It strikes me that lesser-evil voting is somehow an extremely important principle to Sanders.
pf: Results have varied by 300-400% between different LP presidential campaign since 1980
me: I’d like to see the math on this.
To me, the relevant number is % of vote totals, and the range has been something like 0.5 and 1.2% or so.
>Do you think Trump is “Sensible”?
Personally, I don’t think he’s even sentient.
Outside circumstances intervened.
At least some of the LP vote will be the generic disaffected vote, which could just as easily go to a Buchanan, Nader, Perot or Trump as they would to a Libertarian; they will vote for the strongest alternative to the duopoly that they perceive as populist and anti-establishment, regardless of left, right, center, libertarian or authoritarian. These voters may also consider voting for Sanders if he runs outside the duopoly.
Another chunk of the LP vote is the tea party conservative vote, either because they don’t know the difference between that position and libertarian or because they vote for us despite those differences. These voters could also consider the Constitution Party as well as Trump as an independent, and also the LP, but they will face strong pressure to go back to the Republicans, as disaffected as they may be, because they fear and loathe the Democrats. This effect will be magnified if the race is perceived as being close at the end and/or if the Democratic nominee is someone they especially hate personally such as Hillary Clinton.
Trump could take chunks of both of those kinds of voters who are also in play for the LP.
Results have varied by 300-400% between different LP presidential campaign since 1980 (I will leave out the 1970s because we were not on the ballot in most states yet). That’s as a percentage of all voters; it was a little bigger difference in raw number totals.
We also have at least the potential to do better than that this time, although by no means any assurance.
That may or may not be true. For example, it could mean more stories about alt parties and independents in general.
From the best indications that I’ve seen, Johnson’s campaign was much more efficient than Phillies thinks it was.
Probably too early to predict whether that will be permanent or just a temporary slump.
“Say again?” – George Phillies
It’s a drum roll. Since you have investigated campaign expenditures so thoroughly I fully expected you to comment with wonderful understatement. Nothing negative was intended.
GP, please expand. Why do you think Trump affects the L vote total, since:
a) He’s pretty anti-liberty on many issues.
b) L’s pretty much always get +/- 1%
Do you think Trump is “Sensible”?
Certainly if he runs third party, any L candidate will get less media…is that what you mean?
The largest single factor affecting Libertarian chances is whether Trump will win the Republican nomination or will run as the candidate of the Sensible American Party.
Browne’s 2000 campaign was fantastically more efficient than Johnson’s 2012 campaign.
Readers familiar with my book Funding Liberty will realize that this is a somewhat firm critique.
On the good news side, the threat of another Paul faux-libertarian campaign appears to be imploding, in that the Rand Paul 2016 campaign is collapsing.
More efficient is good. Johnson wasted a lot of time and energy running around the country meeting with groups of 5 and 10 people at a time, and campaigning in places where the LP had practically no organization on the ground.
Unfortunately, Harry Browne also thought he’d cracked the code for a smarter and more efficient campaign in 2000. Hopefully the Johnson campaign doesn’t repeat any of those mistakes.
Say again?
” “less efficient” would have been a challenge .” – George Phillies
pa dum pum! 🙂
“less efficient” would have been a challenge.
We’re looking for people in IA and NH to ask them on video. Since they’re spending a bunch of time campaigning in those states now they should be easy to catch. If they waffle or refuse to answer we can have that on video too.
We may or may not succeed, but a lot more people will learn about the problem as we push forward. We’re already at a much better stage of the game than 4 years ago at this point. Who knows, maybe the heat will go high enough that they will have to make some concession. It will also end up getting more attention for the actual alt candidates as they will get mentioned in articles about it, asked to comment, for interviews and so on. Could bring more coverage to alternative debates, etc.
It looks like the Fair Debates lawsuit is still at least a few weeks away. The latest email I just received:
Friends,
Frank Fahrenkopf, Co-Chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), says the CPD will determine its participation criteria for the 2016 debates by October of this year. And, at least publicly, he says the CPD is hearing t he protests against using polls to determine who is invited onto the debate stage — and that options are being considered. He said as much in an interview with Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and CNN host Michael Smerconish.
Fahrenkopf, the same former Republican National Committee Chairman who helped found the CPD — and made it clear at the time that “third party” candidates would not be welcome in their debates, even conceded: “There’s no question the American people are unhappy with both political parties.”
I’m not sure he really means it, but the message is clear. We’re being heard — and the next few weeks are critical. One lawsuit has been filed. The second lawsuit challenging the CPD’s monopoly on presidential debates is ready to be filed, and more and more prominent voices are calling for Fair Debates.
A few days ago, In U.S. News and World Report, former U.S. Senator and vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman said, “If you are an independent, you have no chance of participating in the final fall 2016 presidential debates, and if you aren’t in the debates you can’t become president. Why can’t an independent stand on the stage with the Democratic and Republican nom inees? Because rules set by a commission dominated by the two major parties stand in the way.”
Our work is paying off, but the next few weeks are the key. We MUST be able to fund our legal challenge to the CPD — and we must be able to ramp up the public relations pressure that is now beginning to have an effect. Your contribution of $10, $25, $50, $100 or more at FairDebates.com is crucial.
Deep-pocketed sponsors will try every trick in the book to defeat us. We must have the funding to fight back — and prevail. At the same time, we must maximize our efforts in the news media, social media and at the grassroots to make sure the CPD continues to feel the pressure to change. Your contribution will make it happen.
I’m counting on your help. Together, we can make history and FINALLY give America an opportunity to see ALL qualified candidates in the all-important presidential debates in 2016.
I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!
Gov. Gary Johnson
Honorary Chairman
P.S. Don’t forget. You can now support Our America and Fair Debates with bitcoin. Simply go to FairDebates.com and make your contribution.
The OUR America Initiative is a 501(c)(4) political advocacy committee and may receive unlimited donations from both individual and corporate donors. Contributions and gifts to Our America Initiative are not deductible for Federal income tax purposes.
He’ll travel to meet local activists if they demonstrate they have skin in the game and will actively promote the event to get decent turnout. He doesn’t want to spend a day flying to and from an event with eight people, only a couple of whom make token donations.
Hae you thought any more about running yourself, or made any progress with finding another candidate you think may be suitable and convincing him or her to run?
In other words he will travel less, spending more time on radio / TV and less time energizing local activists. That may be better for keeping spending down, but it’s a lot worse for party building and helping downticket candidates.
Even with several years to reflect, I still don’t think Johnson understands the point of LP presidential campaigns.