From Jeff Greenfield at Politico Magazine:
“I think a third candidate would be very likely on many state ballots,” [Former Romney strategist Stu Stevens] says. “ First of all, I think most GOP voters would want an alternative to vote for out of conscience. But Trump would also be devastating to the party and other GOP candidates. A solid conservative third candidate would give options to senators like Ayotte, Johnson and Kirk to run with someone else and still be opposed to Hillary. In fact, I think it’s plausible such a candidate could beat Trump in many states.”
Any candidate attempting a third party bid would confront serious obstacles, such as getting on state ballots late in the election calendar. As for down-ballot campaigns, most state laws prohibit candidates from running on multiple lines; so a Senate or Congressional candidate who wanted to avoid association with Trump would have to abandon the GOP line to rerun with an independent Presidential contender. The Stevenson [IL Gov. 1986] example shows that leaving a major party line is fraught with peril—although the write-in triumph of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2010 suggests that it can sometimes succeed.
The very fact that serious political thinkers are contemplating such a possibility demonstrates that when Republicans look at the perils posed by a third-party bid from Donald Trump may be looking in the wrong direction. It’s not Trump the Defector that could trigger the biggest threat to the party, but Trump the Nominee.
A real hardcore libertarian would not stump in favor of the Fair Tax.
Yes, although I doubt most of those have a good idea of what his actual views are. Some people may just be saying they know who he is to sound more educated or they may have misconceptions about what libertarian means.
Gary Johnson, unlike the likes of the Paul family, is a real libertarian. Still wouldn’t vote for him, but, that’s the fact.
RTAA, you might have a point, yet I highly doubt the CP’s baggage will suddenly become attractive overnight, or ever with average American voters…
Unless we reenter the dark ages.
“Is he really that orange?”
No, but sometimes makeup for TV appearances can make people look orange when viewed in person, or in photos.
Cody Quirk: any newspaper or media organization that decided to dig up the CP’s juicey history would have a field day in the level of vilification of the CP that they could create in the voters eyes.
I used to think so. But the Trump phenomenon suggests that vilification isn’t what it used to be. Increasing numbers of voters seem to be attracted by vilification campaigns. Political villains have become sexy. Voters seem to feel, “Oh, you don’t like Trump? Well, then I’ll be sure to vote for him!”
I do think the LP would do better with a radical firebrand, than with moderate-libertarian leftovers from 2012.
“Nobody knows or cares who “Robb Whoever and Don Grundaman” is. The amount of votes the CP nominee would depends on who the candidate is”
If the CP actually nominated a well-known candidate, any newspaper or media organization that decided to dig up the CP’s juicey history would have a field day in the level of vilification of the CP that they could create in the voters eyes.
The LP brand NEEDS to stop being seen as leftovers.
The party needs Presidential candidates that can “sell it”. But before this they must first explain it. This is Gary’s main problem.
Nobody knows what Gary Johnson stands for as there are two Gary Johnsons: one was a republican Governor that served two terms in a obscure low-populated state, and the other was a Libertarian Presidential candidate that got 1% that had no national marketing strategy and spent 2/3 of donations on staff and labor.
I reference Harry Browne’s second attempt to prove this point. As much as I did for him as a candidate, the main Achilles he had was that he was unknown and did nothing to change that problem.
The word Libertarian cannot ever be seen as enough for anyone running for office. It cannot be coupled with someone that wears Nike or goes to Starbucks. The way consumers typical define themselves in the market device does not carry over to marginalized political parties.
Instead of learning Libertarian and then the candidates issue listing and responses, the voter must know the candidate and let the candidate “educate” the voter on Libertarian.
Gary Johnson has a brand problem. He is a leftover from another party. As in the film industry, the sequel is never as good as the original, and the original was quite awful.
Nobody knows or cares who “Robb Whoever and Don Grundaman” is. The amount of votes the CP nominee would depends on who the candidate is, and who the other candidates are. And how much media attention the nominee gets. And how hacked the voting machines are. But not on Don Grundman.
ac, these seem awfully high, but I guess possible. Source? I only see cites saying he had low name recognition.
He was excluded from many of the R debates in 12, too, making the number again seem high to me.
Whatever it got up to in 12, I suspect it’s lower now. He’s done some media, but not a lot.
“I’d like to see data that confirms that even 25% of voters know who GJ is and what he stands for. My guess is that the real number would be south of 10%.”
He was in the 20s on name recognition in the GOP primary, I couldn’t find any polls on it for the 2012 general, but probably about the same. Around the same for what I expect Webb got up to in the Dem primary this year.
Still a much better place to start than 0% name recognition.
“The Constitution Party would be the conservative alternative to the GOP, Inc. they’re; Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Second Amendment, Pro-Immigration Control and Enforcement, Pro-Taxpayer and most important, Pro-Constitution.”
‘Conservative’… More like an extreme & marginal alternative that doesn’t get anywhere.
BTW, conservative Republicans are loyalist to the core and won’t vote for a party that counts people like Riley Hood and Don Grundmann in their ranks.
That’s a diplomatic way to put that to say the least on RC’s part.
Agreed.
ta: Gov. Johnson is on Facebook today shilling for war with Syria and Russia. So he may already be positioning himself to pick up the neocon warmonger vote in case the relative peacenik Trump gets the Republican nomination.
me: Are you referring to THIS FB post?
“Why is it that Russia needs sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles in Syria when the purported targets of their intervention aren’t using aircraft? Brinkmanship is a dangerous game.”
If so, *interesting* interpretation to say the least on TA’s part.
sw: Voters already have a sense of who [GJ] is and what he stands for.
me: Cleverly true. SOME voters did. I’d like to see data that confirms that even 25% of voters know who GJ is and what he stands for. My guess is that the real number would be south of 10%.
The ones Americans Elect relied on in 2012, and which were not yet in place when Unity 08 was being planned. Citizens United comes to mind but there were some others about donor anonymity or whatnot… I forgot the details now but it changed the game as far as how money could be moved around.
What court rulings are you referring to, paulie?
Deez Nuts did not get himself on the presidential primary ballot of any party.
Deez Nuts been hangin’ low.
He may or may not be. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. If he is not, I would not rule out a well-financed independent run, and if he is, I would not rule out a well-financed independent run backed by establishment Republicans. Court rulings have changed things substantially in recent years to allow for things that could not have been done before 2012, and Americans Elect in 2012 served as a dry run to show that they can in fact be done now. Another thing to consider is that a much larger percentage of voters now say they want a third major party as opposed to past cycles discussed above; there just hasn’t been one that is well-financed enough and ideologically suited to take advantage of it yet, but there could be next year.
There are some counterexamples. I believe Murkowski was mentioned above for instance.
The new legal rulings change things. 2016 could be different than past cycles; perhaps 1912 is a closer parallel. It’s a different calculation if the Republican establishment donors believe they can actually win as independents or have a decent shot at it. On the other hand, Trump is not leading in Iowa as of the last time I checked, and has many other hurdles to overcome, so it could go either way.
As for drug money keeping the banking system afloat that is common knowledge among many people. As I said earlier it was just a two second web search but there are many other potential sources for this info. Drug money is a key piece of the financial system as well as many other systems that make a lot of money and power for a lot of people, not just those involved in the “narcotics” trade themselves, irrational faith in the federal reserve notwithstanding. Also the volume of the drug trade is vastly underestimated in the quick references I saw online, based on my personal knowledge as opposed to internet searches. It is based on things like self-reporting of drug use in government surveys, which is way underreported. I know what smuggling organizations I dealt with calculate as interdiction loss and what amount seized indicate, and a lot of other things besides.
Andy Craig- Very true but the Drys offered a better protest vote than socialist parties.
“the “Rockefeller Republicans” could have protest voted for the Drys”
That would have been an odd choice for liberal Republicans, who certainly didn’t support alcohol prohibition in 1964, and cared even less for the social conservatives who might have been so inclined.
Don’t forget the Prohibition Party and Socialist Workers Party as well in ’64. The Socialist Labor Party placed third but the “Rockefeller Republicans” could have protest voted for the Drys. The fact that they did not just means they are more disciplined than the right wing sheep of the GOP. Rather than drink the “lesser of two evils” kool-aide the “Establishment Republicans” just let the party get creamed and picked up the pieces later. I suspect this will happen again.
Having participated in the Goldwater campaign, I can say with some authority that Republicans who couldn’t countenance Goldwater’s “extremism” did either stay home or hold their nose and vote for Johnson. As I recall, only the Socialist Labor Party was on the ballot in just a few states so there was no “third party candidate” for them to flock to. If Trump is or is not the GOP candidate, there will be some rather substantial number of disgruntled GOPers who will stay home or vote for Hillary. Those who lean libertarian may decide to cast an LP vote but I doubt the LP will hit 2%. Trump’s fans, like Goldwater’s before him, seem to think there is a vast reservoir of folks who think like them but haven’t voted because their man’s ideas have not been
put forth in prior, flawed candidates. Like in 1964, they will be sorely disappointed.
The Constitution Party would be the conservative alternative to the GOP, Inc. they’re; Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Second Amendment, Pro-Immigration Control and Enforcement, Pro-Taxpayer and most important, Pro-Constitution.
Recycle means that the other wing of the party was in denial and the press tried to rig things (one of the other candidates had the owner of Time magazine as a father in law) and it failed totally.
@8:56 Steve, Those of us old enough to remember the Goldwater and McGovern elections do not find your point 2 to be correct.
Also, I have been watching Trump since last year, and it has appeared to me to be a recycle of Goldwater ’64.
The UN dude was an idiot. The US Banking system is directly backed by the Federal Reserve. Even if every bank depositor wanted to take out every dollar being held, at the same time, there might be very long lines and printing delays, but the banking system itself is capable of handling for this option. The Greeks, because they do not have a real central bank and could not do this. The stabilization includes setting one of the Funds rates to zero. If you know anything about economics, you realize why this is totally non-inflationary as an outcome.
Libertarian readers (this does not include our Right LINOs) should also consider that some Sanders voters will discover that our positions have enough commonality to be acceptable, if people try being polite a the front end.
I want to believe you are correct.
Politico is really reaching for something to write.
1. Trump will NOT be the nominee.
2. For the sake of argument, however, Republicans would not defect to the third party if in fact Trump were the nominee. Instead, Republicans would vote for the Republican or they will stay home, because that is what they have been conditioned to do.
3. By way of example: Here in Pennsylvania, when faced with the prospect of supporting one of the worst candidates EVER, (Tom Corbett) or crossing over, Republicans either voted for Corbett, or they stayed home. I am pretty certain that most Libertarians across the nation have similar stories.
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
For some reason, this reminds me that we haven ‘t heard anything about Deez Nuts lately.
I think until Johnson jumps into the race, we can settle on a good non-establishment candidate for 2016 for now-
https://www.facebook.com/votecamacho/?fref=ts
Beer, Brawndo, and Tarrlytons… Nuff’ said.
‘Merica!
If, after the Iowa Caucuses, NH and SC primaries, a Trump nomination by the GOP is touted in the media as likely, it could signal a surge of “disgruntled” Republicans into the Libertarian Party to nominated a “Whig” ticket to undercut the presumed Trump candidacy.
I think the nominees of the state-sponsored parties are irrelevant to the Libertarian Party advancement. But a sudden influx of “dangerous immigrants” into the LP will alarm many people and alarmed people can make foolish mistakes that would undermine the credibility of the LP in the future.
Unlike all other American political parties, the LP has a “permanent” platform in the Statement of Principles. We at the Founding Convention adopted the SoP and reaffirmed in Dallas in 1974 in anticipation of a possible “hostile takeover” attempt by establishmentarians in the future. The intent was to create a “poison pill” that conventional politicians could not possibly swallow without evoking convulsive laughter in the public.
If there is an attempt to swamp the LP in 2016 then an assault of the SoP at the convention in Orlando should serve as Red Alert. Under the long ratified and habitually reaffirmed rules of the LP, a 7/8ths affirmative vote of national convention delegates is required to amend or abolish the LP SoP. This threat is highly improbable unless the state delegations are packed well in advance by a planned and coordinated open conspiracy. We can rest assured that professional political operatives are capable of marshalling at least 400 zombies to seek delegate seats for the convention.
The Trump nomination by the Gopers does not require an attempted drone strike on the Libertarian Party. No LP Presidential ticket in 2016 can possibly alter the Electoral College victor. Any “bumps in the road” can be paved over by the US Supreme Court. That has been demonstrated and precedented.
Nevertheless, some “disgruntled” mavericks from the GOP may appear at the LP Convention. So long as there is no organized assault on the SoP, settled Libertarians should welcome these mavericks and engage them with conviviality. Read the Nolan Resolution again.
The true conservative alternative to the Republican Party farce is the Constitution Party.
The drug business per se is only a fraction of all the big money at stake with prohibition. Everyone from pharmaceuticals to alcohol and tobacco to military equipment to police unions has a stake. And with cannabis/hemp there is also paper, agribusiness, gas/oil, industrial chemicals, and many other industries for which industrial hemp is a potential competitor. There’s the financial aspect, there’s the side from which fear of drug-related crime created by prohibition is the justification for big chunks of the burgeoning police state and much, much more.
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims
There’s plenty more. Seriously, just do a search. Took me two seconds.
It’s not official news. If someone wants to post a rumor, we have done that in the past, with “Rumor:” as the start of the headline.
Not even close.
50 or 100 billion dollars a year, of which a half or a fifth is pot.
The news in thus thread about Jim Webb needs to be broken by IPR. I’d offer to do it but I don’t have the inside knowledge myself, and with it being the holidays am practically working round the clock.
So, no shilling for war with Syria and Russia, just as I thought.
I presume that trying again is referring to:
https://www.facebook.com/govgaryjohnson/posts/10152825095184364
http://www.livefreeblog.com/watershed_moment_united_states_blinks_in_syria_to_russian_demands
This time I’ll let you look it up. It’s not nearly as modest as you think.
You mean the one who wants to “bomb the shit out of ISIS” and kill their family members and torture people even if it doesn’t yield any information? That guy?
And people on here act like “trying again” has valid info. SMH.
No, he’s already hiring people. A deal has been signed and subcontracts are going out.
It’s a fact. Petition coordinators I know have been offered deals for various states. It hasn’t been announced in a press release or newspaper article. So what? Not all of my information sources are google searchable. Some of them come from phone conversations.
“trying again,” that is.
I’m sure it’s a distortion as usual, given the source.
I won’t be able to vote for Johnson if he wants to go to war with Syria. Can you tell us what
FB page he’s on, so some of us can give him some feedback?
No chance of Obama honoring any promises for anything good, and no chance of Rand Paul being elected President in 2016.
trying again, do you have a link to back up your accusation?
Gov. Johnson is on Facebook today shilling for war with Syria and Russia. So he may already be positioning himself to pick up the neocon warmonger vote in case the relative peacenik Trump gets the Republican nomination.
If it is a fact that Webb is running for POTUS as an Indy, why is this comment at IPR the first place I’ve heard of it? A quick Google search reveals nothing but speculation and what-ifs.
Could it be that Webb is exploring the idea, seeing if he can get an adequate organization together?
Way, way too much nonsense to address in this thread already, I really wish I had the time and blood pressure to respond to all of it point by point. For now, I’ll just briefly say that Jim Webb is in fact running as an independent and has hired Christina Tobin to manage his national ballot access, and she is busy hiring state coordinators. Maybe I’ll get to the rest later but it keeps getting piled hired and deeper.
It is marginally possible that the Republicans would drop over to the Modern Whigs, on the grounds they have few negative connotations.
The notions that bankers control our elections ranks up there with the claim that the rather modest drug smuggling industry props up our banks…it’s totally daft.
Johnson wouldn’t offer principled opposition to the drug war or military spending. He doesn’t understand the common law, and is not even a radical minarchist. He may admire Ayn Rand, but not enough to incur the risk of acting like John Galt by truly standing up to the system. He’s too cautious, and he has all the passion and charisma of a soggy piece of burnt toast.
I suspect that when the next 2006-style shakeup happens, that will encourage the bankers who control U.S. elections to seriously consider allowing a libertarian to “win” (that is, “take the blame” and “offer short-term corrective measures” designed to prolong the survival of their preferred institutions). Of course, such a thing would be for 4 years, and need not involve the Libertarian Party.
I suspect that they’re OK with Rand Paul winning, if push comes to shove, for precisely this reason.
Jeb and Hillary have the millions. That will probably be enough to elect one of them after Trump is dragged off the stage, screaming and kicking. If not, then it’s likely Bernie will win, ushering in a crusty socialist stagnation masquerading as “a rebellious alternative.”
What the Libertarian Movement needs is its own version of Barack Obama, and they need him this year, in 2016. I’ve often suggested Paul Butler for this role, since he’s used to being on TV and speaking in front of a crowd, and is focused on jury nullification of law. He might even get a “tip of the hat” from Barack Obama who recently said “the L-word” in his interview with David Simon, the creator of “The Wire.” (David Simon also publicly championed jury nullification of law as a solution to the racist and oppressive drug war.)
In fact, the best hope for libertarianism right now probably is shaming Barack Obama into honoring a few of his 2008 campaign promises. All the old white fuckers on the horizon are far too comfortable to espouse any serious political change, with the possible exception of Rand Paul, who is far better educated than all the others.
For a brief period of time the Cyber Party looked promising, but it’s beginning to look as though they have absolutely no conception of how difficult Nationwide ballot access is. Still, they could be an interesting part of the landscape in 2018 and 2020 if they “go local” in 2018.
Also, the Republicans need a Party. The Constitution Party likely works best, ahead of the Greens or the Libertarians, for many of them. Setting up a new Americans Fail To Nominate might be the simpler mechanism for something like this. However, one of their billionaires would need to break out the pocket change drawer and do this. Note I said *one*. Actual executive action, not ditheration, is needed, It is inobvious that the Republican establishment is organized enough to create a new party. After all, they are so stupid that it is only now that they are noticing that Trump is well ahead of their candidate (await the screaming if Bush is eliminated from the main stage at the next debate), when in fact in the last month or so Trump has advanced from 25-30% of the vote to nearly 40% of the polling vote.
Leave it to Politico to publish an article about a third party run without mentioning the largest third party nor its likely outstanding nominee.
It is not obvious how Trump is going to lose the nomination. At some point his opponents actually need to win primaries beyond Iowa. The suggestion that the convention might deadlock in a three-way split, following which a dark elephant like Romney might be wheeled out, is not impossible. However, most delegates are extremely dedicated supporters of their candidate, so moving them to support the great pachydermous hope will not be trivial. Persuading the Trump supporters to support the establishment candidate will be challenging, especially if there are Convention Rules changes that grease the ways for an establishment dark elephant. Furthermore, if the replacement succeeds, we will likely get to see a replay of 1966-1976, in which like the Goldwater loyalists the Trump loyalists make it their business to destroy the establishment wing of the party, as the Goldwaterites destroyed Case, Javits, Rockefeller, etc.
It would be nice to have a good candidate, but Johnson’s 2012 campaign organization proves that Johnson is not it. Keeping the identity of instate volunteers secret from state volunteer corrdinators is completely ludicrous. Spending most of your money on staff salaries is farcical.
The cannabis war is about over. There is a provision in the spending bill that allows, at least at the federal level, for medical marijuana use. Hemp is gaining steam at the state level again this year. Johnson won’t be able to use it as a mechanism of separation.
Johnson already ran once, so he will suffer rinse and repeat syndrome. He only got 1%. Voters already have a sense of who he is and what he stands for. He is like a Christmas toy in March: the wonder is over.
As for Trump, he could fund a third party run just like Perot. But this time, the other two parties aren’t going gently into that good night. He will not get on the debate stage with the major party nominees and he will probably send four or five times what Perot did in 1992. Trump won’t start a new party and I doubt very much his followers will go through the process to start one for him.
If Trump does go independent, then his polling in September and October of 2016 could be a lightning rod for Congressional races. His down ticket shadow could put the Speaker of the House in the same state it was when Boehner was there. If his 40% or higher remains, then you cannot dismiss where it comes from. His supporters might go all the way to November.
You also have to face the possibility of faithless electors. You might also consider another Bush v. Gore scenario. Trump could win the popular vote, but we know that isn’t enough.
The upside to Donald: Trump is lazy, Trump is momentary, and Trump is angry. He has yet to face the ultimate test: time.
We cannot assume this is a zero sum game. Trump supporters might be people who sit out when the Elephant running isn’t their type.
The election is still one year away. The polling is a waste of time as is the forecasting of nominees. Unless someone can prove that Bill Clinton is forcing Hillary to run for President so he can have another eight years, there is little the Republican party can do to avoid the loss.
@paulie
Continuing the conversation on this thread-
Your reasons are all good ones, but I’m somewhat more optimistic about the possibility. I think the Libertarian nominee, whoever that is, will benefit from Trump being the GOP nominee (if he is), and that Johnson would benefit more than any of the other potential nominees, it’s just a question of how much. 2% instead of 1%, or 20%+? Would the GOP establishment swing behind Johnson as a bloc? Certainly not, for the reasons you state. Could some of them endorse him, while the bulk simply refuse to endorse Trump? And could a significant chunk of anti-Trump Republicans coalesce around Johnson as the main not-Hillary anti-Trump, particularly if there’s not much other choice? I think so. I think we’d also see a substantial number- not huge, but a lot more than usual- endorsing Hillary. “Vote for the crook, it’s important.”
I also don’t think the GOP launching an AE-style bid by Romney or whoever else, is guaranteed or even necessarily likely. There would be a lot of arguments against them doing that, even while going about distancing themselves from Trump and not supporting him in other ways. And even if they had a suitable and willing candidate, there’s still the problem of *process* — is it done as a new-party that nominates somebody, and if so how? Is it done as an independent, and if so what happens at the RNC? Would them rolling out a candidate picked without any democratic legitimacy by party “establishment” insiders, harm them more than it would help them in the broader base v. establishment fight that will continue post-2016? And can all that be sorted out in the six to eight weeks, on the high end, that they’d have to do and get it launched? One argument against it, is that they can’t surrender control of the RNC to Trump lackies, but neither can they openly oppose him and support another candidate while maintaining control of the RNC themselves. They have to maintain their control of the party organization for post-election, which does limit their options on openly and fully supporting their own ‘independent Republican’ candidate.
In that scenario, I think Johnson becomes the relatively safe endorsement for Republicans not looking to leave the party, and who can’t endorse Hillary, but who also need to distance themselves from Trump’s toxicity. As Reid Ribble pointed out, the LP nominee (or the Constitution Party, but I doubt that) could serve that function.
The thing is, Trump won’t be the nominee. He will not pick up supporters as the other candidates drop out.
Also, to take a few other reasons:
1. Even if Johnson is only for legalizing marijuana, and at the very least privately he has told me he is for legalizing other drugs as well, that’s a huge chunk of the drug war and a massive crack in the dam. The money from the massive profits made possible only by drug prohibition is literally keeping the banking system afloat. The establishment won’t stand for anything that threatens that.
2. Even if he doesn’t rule out “humanitarian wars,” Johnson is for making huge steps in the direction of a non-interventionist foreign policy and big cuts in the military budget. There’s a lot of money on the line, and that money would never allow a candidate holding those positions to get anywhere close to the White House, nor would they want to boost those ideas and give them a place in the main stage debates.
3. It would give a big bump to the Libertarian Party up and down the ticket – and that would include a lot of candidates with far more extreme views than Johnson. Unlike an AE type vehicle that the establishment would use and discard or mold for the future, the boost to the LP would remain after the election.
There are other reasons but that’s a good start.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/12/austin-peterson-running-for-the-libertarian-partys-nomination-to-be-their-candidate-for-president-in-2016-releases-campaign-video-re-his-tax-and-spending-plan/#comment-1283095 for why Johnson won’t be the beneficiary of a Republican establishment defection in case a Trump nomination continues to look likely or plausible after Super Tuesday.
Sour grapes… it’s inevitable… the first woman president! Get over it, Republicans. You can’t stand for something if you really don’t stand for anything.
Is he really that orange? His face doesn’t look natural, lol.