This opinion piece was sent to this IPR editor by Rob Loggia. Full disclosure: Rob Loggia is involved with the John McAfee campaign. This opinion piece is his alone and NOT a statement from the McAfee Campaign.
At the New York State Libertarian Party presidential candidate debate this weekend Gary Johnson made a slip. In recent weeks it had become increasingly obvious that among the talking points issued to Johnson campaigners were instructions to cast Johnson as the only “credible” candidate. Johnson suggested as much, and in doing so he implied, though did not state, that all of the other campaigns were silly.
Like any seasoned politician, Johnson left it for others (https://alibertarianfuture.com/2016-libertarian-party-nomination/we-have-had-our-fun-now-libertarians-need-to-get-serious/)to state this outright (https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2016/04/andy-craig-when-libertarian-party-candidates-jump-the-shark-opinion-piece/). It is a time-honored practice in politics, defined for me as the lustful pursuit of power over others. Send out your attack dogs to say the really insulting stuff, then sit back and reap praise for running a clean campaign. Alexander Hamilton would definitely approve.
So when messaging this himself, the Governor confined himself to stating that it is time to “get serious” and nominate a “credible” candidate. Those are his words. But even Governor Johnson cannot escape the icy death grip of logic, and for every obverse there is a necessary and implicit reverse. In this case, the implication is that the other campaigns are not credible or serious. So we should dismiss them.
His supporters are more explicit on this point. According to Andy Craig, who works with the Johnson campaign, “the Petersen and McAfee campaigns were always a bit silly.” if Mr. Craig considers the two biggest threats to his candidate’s nomination to be silly, imagine what he must think of the rest of the candidates and their campaigns!
Looking at the other 3 candidates that debated Johnson in New York, I fail to see any of the silliness Mr. Craig references.
Instead I see Darryl Perry. I see a highly-principled young man that is a tremendous orator and communicator. His refusal to yield an inch on principle should stand as a sober reminder to all Libertarians what they are doing here in the first place. I see a gentleman that has the courage to endorse as his running mate another highly principled individual that is also a practicing Muslim. Given the unfortunate cultural climate in America that takes guts.
Nothing silly to me there. So let’s move on to Austin Petersen. Thomas Gustin, a Johnson supporter, recently mused that “we Libertarians have labored in obscurity for so long that the attention we’re receiving of late is a little intoxicating.” It is fascinating that he therefore thinks so little of an individual that is a large part of the reason why. Surely it wasn’t silly when Petersen helped to broker the Stossel debate, although I agree it was kind of silly when the Johnson 2016 Facebook page claimed that Johnson “made the debates happen.” (https://www.facebook.com/garyjohnsonforpresident2016/photos/a.370809033005218.89312.370787006340754/976013872484728/?type=3&theater)
Finally we have John McAfee. Surely that campaign must be silly. And I must be silly as well, having put my life on hold to support that campaign in any way that I can. Libertarians don’t enjoy hearing about the threat of cyberwar as much as other topics, but there is certainly nothing silly about that. The destruction of our infrastructure threatens any hope of restoring Liberty and building a bright future. There is also nothing silly about bringing unprecedented media opportunities to the party, or in committing to run a campaign such as the world has never seen.
John McAfee has the clarity of vision, as an outsider to the party, to look at what has been done and to unemotionally determine what has not worked. Those invested in the party, with their money, sweat and tears, have a hard time perceiving this reality. It is painful to accept that wasteful work has been done, but as with all things the only useful thing is to accept it and change course. None of this makes the man, his campaign, or his words in the least bit silly. Quite the opposite.
But I do agree there is some silliness in this nominating cycle. And since Johnson and his supporters have been so generous in diminishing and ridiculing the efforts of others, I must be allowed to return the favor. Let’s look at the Johnson campaign.
Dr. Jill Stein is very well known, and respected, within the Green Party. Of this there can be little doubt, as they stand ready to run her again in a quixotic presidential run. Few people outside the party know who she is, and fewer care. She had her opportunity to gain attention for herself and her party and she failed, being instead relegated to the pile of by now perennial also-rans. Try getting anyone in the Green Party to admit this.
So it is with Gary Johnson. Outside of the party very few people know who Gary Johnson is, and fewer people care. I hear “Gary who?” so often when I mention his name that I’ve begun to wonder if he has a Tardis in his crawlspace. Libertarians are a more prickly bunch, and many do see the reality. But many do not, and are instead victims of the echo-chamber and confirmation bias.
In opening his 2012 campaign, Johnson messaged about an unprecedented opportunity, much as he is doing now. He talked about the deficiencies of the other two candidates, much as he is doing now. In fact, if you go by Johnson’s descriptions at the time, it seems there was very little difference in his outlook for 2012 as for 2016.
I have not been a Libertarian – I dislike politics. But like John McAfee, I have sought to live as one should, and the principles held dear by the party match my own in almost every way. So I say this as much out of love as I do in amazement. It is remarkably silly to me that there is a portion of the Libertarian membership that is seriously, soberly and unabashedly advocating a repeat of 2012, with the exact same candidate and exact same approach. More than that – they are expecting different results!
Strikes me as silly.
Shivany, since you’re here, I do have a question. I read a short piece about McAfee from last weekend’s event in New York. I believe the question was in regards to the Belize police putting a hit out on McAfee, or something like that. He said he NEVER goes out at night. Them he repeated NEVER.
Isn’t that kind of a big deal? Does he really never go out at night?
“Maybe a tip McAfee picked up on their thrice-daily coordination calls.” — Andy Craig
This comment from Andy is disturbing to me. Are we not the party of Principle. The party of Privacy?
And, the McAfee campaign has been running a clean campaign. We, however, have no control over any of our supporters. As far as I know, none of the official campaign team members have attacked any of the other candidates.
I have seen many attacks on McAfee though. Not only from campaign team members but also from the blogs who claim to be impartial and fair, yet they are not even trying to hide that they are squarely in the Gary Johnson corner and have attacked John McAfee every chance they have had.
“Tom, I’d be willing to bet that most of the delegates are not aware of all of the points you have brought up about Johnson’s record and campaign.”
I’m certain that’s true at the moment. Most of them won’t learn about those points until they are actually at the convention.
Among other things, substantial printing services have already been procured.
Thomas Knapp said: “It may be that Johnson will win the nomination again this year. But if he does so, it will be in spite of his record, not because of it, and the delegates won’t be able to claim they weren’t apprised of that record.”
Tom, I’d be willing to bet that most of the delegates are not aware of all of the points you have brought up about Johnson’s record and campaign.
Sometimes I wish IPR comments had “Like” buttons, Barry.
So what’s the message of a Gary Johnson protest vote? Is it that you want a lot of debt and a massive new tax and welfare scheme to fund humanitarian wars abroad and private prison construction at home, have troops in Africa fighting those humanitarian wars and bringing back Ebola, which will be treated with marijuana…and anyone who doesn’t like it all can be hauled off to privatized prison camps where 13 year olds will be executed and prisoners will grow marijuana under the watchful eye of prison security contractors with machine guns? Oh yeah…you’ll also have Jews and Christians in the private prison camps too, forced at gunpoint to bake gay nazi cakes. Go team liberty!
I wouldn’t be voting as a “protest” vote, since no one is going to pay attention to my one vote anyway. Rather, if I were to vote for Castle (which I probably won’t), it would be because the LP chose to nominate someone even less libertarian than Castle (i.e. Governor Milquetoast).
One of the problems was that in 2012 Johnson was not thoroughly vetted.
Agree with Lee Wrights or not, or even LIKE Lee Wrights or not, he decided to take the high road versus Johnson and simply counterpose his own issues views to Johnson’s rather than e.g. attacking Johnson’s record. I was not involved with the LP at the time — it was right in the middle of what turned out to be a four-year break from electoral politics — so I didn’t press Lee to do oppo research or to have it done (by me or anyone else).
Even setting aside his campaign spending/debt issues, I wonder how well Johnson would have done if the 2012 delegates had known about his real record as governor of New Mexico. Gary got to run the whole narrative of his time as governor, with nobody in the LP actually looking into, let alone contesting, that narrative.
The delegates got to hear all about “Governor Veto” and so forth.
Some things the delegates didn’t hear:
– That while Johnson was governor, state government spending increased at about 150% the rate of inflation and far outstripped e.g. population growth.
– That the state’s government debt more than doubled under Johnson.
– That Johnson was the first governor of New Mexico ever held in contempt by the state’s Supreme Court, for attempting to rule by decree when the legislature declined to pass a welfare reform bill he wanted and then ignoring the court’s order that he stop.
– That Johnson tried to fire two University of New Mexico regents for not giving his construction company a contract it bid on.
– That Johnson asked the legislature to let him execute 13-year-olds.
– That Johnson asked the legislature to change the law to let a jury majority impose the death sentence instead of requiring jury unanimity.
– That Johnson signed the first death warrant in New Mexico in more than 40 years.
The closest anyone really came to questioning Johnson’s record was asking why he hadn’t pardoned non-violent drug prisoners if he opposed the war on drugs. A good question — and the answer circulating now, that he was constrained by a process, is bullshit — but not enough tough questions were asked, nor were answers scrutinized.
It may be that Johnson will win the nomination again this year. But if he does so, it will be in spite of his record, not because of it, and the delegates won’t be able to claim they weren’t apprised of that record.
You’d probably have to write him in. But even if he’s on your ballot, the main thrust of your protest vote, in as far as it sends a signal to the powers that be at all, would then be that Republicans should be more theocratic and coercively socially conservative, and both Republicans and Democrats should be more isolationist/protectionist in terms of trade, immigration and foreign policy, out of which only foreign policy would be a libertarian-leaning stance. Whereas not voting would be interpreted as apathy.
In 2012 Johnson asked people to be libertarian with him just one time. In 2016 he’s not even pretending to be libertarian.
Exactly. In 2012, I supported Johnson (albeit somewhat tepidly) after he got the nomination. I can’t see that being the case this year. If he gets it again, I probably won’t vote at all, and if anyone asks me, I’ll probably advise them to do the same. (There’s a slim chance I might vote for Darrell Castle if Governor Milquetoast is the LP nominee.)
“But I suspect that more likely, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel will not be talking about the Libertarian candidate in their monologues, because most of their audiences won’t know who that is.” — Joshua K.
You’re right, Joshua, and thanks for the feedback. Though conventional wisdom suggests that this could be a banner year for third-party candidates, I rather suspect that the “lesser of two evils” syndrome will kick in by late summer or early autumn and the country’s minor-party candidates for the presidency will be virtually ignored.
Despite their considerable negative approval ratings, I think most of the American electorate — even those who strongly dislike both Hillary and Trump — will ultimately decide that one of them is far worse than the other and will subsequently (and, in many cases, reluctantly) cast a vote for one of the major-party candidates simply to keep the other out of the White House, resulting in a rather insignificant protest vote on November 8th.
Despite yesterday’s euphoria, I think the Libertarian Party could be in for a major disappointment.
The mainstream media, after all, certainly won’t be bored with a Clinton-Trump race and it’ll be extremely difficult for those running outside the duopoly to garner any substantial attention.
They’ll need a bold and imaginative messenger, an interesting and accomplished “outsider” capable of mixing it up with his major-party rivals.
Let’s be honest. While John McAfee arguably enjoys higher name recognition than the party’s 2012 nominee and is colorful and controversial enough to attract some serious coverage, the yawn-inducing Gary Johnson — the party’s presumed frontrunner — lacks the kind of dynamic persona to attract any kind of serious attention from the mainstream media.
He’s still “Gary Who?” to the vast majority of Americans.
Sadly, once the fireworks start, the former guv will be treated like the misfired July 4th shell, or dud, that he is, and Libertarian activists will be left scratching their heads and wondering what went wrong in this year of seemingly so much promise…
That is, if he gets the nomination.
Well, for example, in Oklahoma you will only have the D, R and L candidates for president on the ballot in November and no write-in. I’d vote for Johnson in Oklahoma.
Andy,
It’s not that I didn’t pick up on the not voting option. It’s that I don’t intend to exercise it.
My intent is to vote for the Libertarian Party’s nominee this November.
That COULD change if the nominee’s performance post-nomination is bad enough (see “Barr, Bob”), but it’s my default or I would not, among other things, be a delegate to the national convention. Once the party nominates, having been given a voice in that process, I TRY to treat the nominee as having a clean slate even if I didn’t support that candidate for the nomination.
In 1996 I supported Tompkins, and cheerfully worked and voted for Browne once he was nominated. In 2000 I supported Gorman, and cheerfully worked and voted for Browne again. In 2004 I supported Russo and cheerfully worked and voted for Badnarik once he was nominated.
In 2008, I was ready to work and vote for Barr even though I hadn’t supported him for the nomination. I even worked a Pride Festival booth right after getting back from Denver and defended him when gay voters asked what the hell we were thinking.
But right during that timeframe he went on TV and repudiated the repudiation of DOMA that he had given as part of his campaign at the convention to get the nomination. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me, and it was when I threw back in with the BTP — I had opposed running a BTP candidate against Barr until that moment. And even running against him in other states, in my own state I distributed Barr/Root’s literature with my own as a Libertarian candidate for Congress and didn’t run around badmouthing the LP ticket. I did resolve that I couldn’t PERSONALLY vote for him and wrote in Cynthia McKinney, but I didn’t ask anyone else to.
So, if Johnson is nominated, I’ll try to get over it and buckle down to promoting the LP and its presidential ticket, with the intention of voting for that ticket. And if things arise that make it impossible for me to do that in good conscience, I’ll shut the fuck up about it in areas where I might possibly be affecting the undecided. I won’t, for example, use my congressional campaign to badmouth him. I might grumble here at IPR some, though 😀
Tom, I am surprised that you did not pick the not voting option. You also could have said that you would have cast a write in vote.
Why would I assume such an unlikely hypothetical? I wasn’t in Florida in 2012, but it looks like there were 11 choices on the ballot that year and 13 in 2008, so I’m assuming similar numbers this year.
In that unlikely situation, though, I guess I would try to choke back the vomit for long enough to cast a vote for Johnson. It certainly wouldn’t be for Clinton or Trump.
If the candidates on your ballot were Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Gary Johnson, would you vote and if so for which one? Assume no write-in option.
In 2012 Johnson asked people to be libertarian with him just one time. In 2016 he’s not even pretending to be libertarian.
You’re right! I can’t believe I forgot that one.
You forgot about using pot to cure Ebola.
The Johnson plan
1. Pass “fair” tax to pay for humanitarian wars
2. Put lots of people in private prisons that donate to his campaign
3. Force Jews and Christians to bake gay nazi cakes
4. Accumulate lots and lots of debt, like in NM and his campaigns for president
What did I miss?
@Darcy G. Richardson: If the Libertarian presidential candidate, whoever that is, becomes popular enough to get into the presidential debates against the Democrat and Republican candidates, then yes, the late night comedians will be making jokes about the Libertarian. That applies whether it is Gary Johnson, John McAfee, Austin Petersen, or anyone else. If the candidate is that famous, then yes, the comedians will find some way to target him.
But I suspect that more likely, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel will not be talking about the Libertarian candidate in their monologues, because most of their audiences won’t know who that is.
Richard,
Austin does indeed seem to have a well-run and fiscally responsible campaign organization. In a better world, that would be a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for a successful campaign.
I’m not sure what McAfee’s problem has been, with campaign manager musical chairs, soft fundraising, etc. If I was one of his opponents, I’d make an issue of that, just like an issue is rightly being made of Johnson’s complete inability to balance a checkbook (or tell the truth when asked about it).
“lies constantly about being a dedicated party member when he was one of the Tea Party Troup in ’08”
The two things kind of go with each other. Anyone who loved the Libertarian Party enough to do its job for it when it decided to call in sick in 2008 was a dedicated party member indeed.
What puzzles me is how so many libertarians appear to be holding a grudge against the “Petersen 2016” grass root campaign. It’s everything libertarians have been saying they want to see since forever. No special interest funding, no debt, run by all volunteers until just recently as it has become #2 in fund raising.
If the convention decides it wants AWP to be their nominee for POTUS I sincerely hope any grudges will fall by the wayside and the LP will present a unified front against all other candidates for POTUS.
Repeating the story about what Johnson spent in the last election cycle does not explain his answers to nazi weddings and other questions asked in the never ending game of political trivial pursuit!
Question for Andy Craig: What were you hired to do as a paid contractor for Gary Johnson 2016?
I am not asking as a criticism, but rather just wondering what it is that Gary Johnson 2016 hired you to do.
I asked this question on a couple of other threads, but I do not think it was ever answered.
Baggage?
Chapter: How Johnson Ran His 2011 Republican Campaign
In 2011, Gary Johnson gave us a clear record of his wisdom, recorded in the way he ran his Republican campaign for their Presidential nomination. A Republican nominating campaign and a Libertarian General Election campaign are not the same. There is always some hope that a candidate can learn from experience. However, learning always starts from some level of ignorance and proceeds toward enlightenment. In Johnson’s case, the starting point was his 2011 nominating campaign.
For 2011, the Johnson campaign raised $578,124. At the end of December 2011, having spent most of its money, it had $18,012 in cash on hand and $858,458 in debts. Campaign expenses to date, whether paid from funds raised or remaining as accounts payable, were therefore over 1.4 million dollars.
Where did the money go?
In very round numbers: Staff salaries came to nearly $800,000. Fundraising was close to another $200,000, not counting another $28,000 in fundraising commissions that were only revealed in the 2015 Second Amended Report. Back office and bank charges were over $113,000. There were nearly $80,000 in outside subcontracts. There were other miscellaneous costs. That’s more than 1.2 million dollars.
Now we come to the part that involved reaching the public. The large item was candidate travel, more than $90,000. Other outreach efforts, mailing, shipping, web ads, etc. were over $50,000. There was a web site, for nearly $30,000. Being generous, less than one dollar in seven went for direct campaigning. The rest was swallowed by what the military terms the Rear Echelon. Buried in there was spending for “media”, a total of $478.41.
Travel is nice, but it has been a very long time indeed since personal appearances by candidates reached a large fraction of the electorate. Even Donald Trump’s extravaganzas are visited by only a small number of people relative to the number of voters in each state. They generate earned media, which is good. Personal appearances are good for a little earned media, but just a little, unless you are Donald Trump.
Where were the electronic outreach, the broadcast and newspaper media?
There was $478.41 in “media”. The campaign spent more than $13,600 for web advertising and not quite $18,000 for email outreach. The web site cost nearly $30,000. The total is modestly above $62,000, or less than 5% of income and unpaid bills. Noting that many media efforts require cash on the barrelhead, that’s less than 11% of funds raised from private donors going to public advertising.
In short, the 2011 Johnson Republican campaign served in large part to transfer money from donors to campaign staff and contractors, and only secondarily to inform the public about Gary Johnson. There is no claim here that there was bad intent or campaign malpractice leading to this result; I am only reporting on what did happen. A competent candidate however, monitors closely what his campaign is doing, and makes course corrections when needed. The reader may decide for himself if course corrections were needed or made.
It’s not clear that coming up to the standard of the Healey campaign, with three-fourths of the donations going to advertising, would have changed the outcome for Johnson, but that standard would have meant spending six times as much on electronic and broadcast advertising as was actually spent. There might have been some positive effect.
Johnson made another campaign decision that was arguably even worse.
To quote the FEC audit:
“GJ2012 made a written agreement on October 14, 2011 that NS0N would be owed a bonus of ‘$300,000 for receiving any party nomination for either VP or President’.
Libertarian Presidential campaigns generally raise a million or a million and a half dollars, so if the nomination in question were the Libertarian nomination, this commitment corresponds to 20-30% of the candidate’s campaign income, going out the door to NS0N as a bonus for winning the nomination. Losing 20% of income would be a significant handicap to running an effective campaign, even before including in the analysis the possibility that word of this arrangement would reach prospective donors in Summer 2012 rather than Fall 2014.
Last but hardly least, Johnson appears to have run his campaign with almost no fiscal restraints. He may have raised and spent just short of six hundred thousand dollars in his fruitless effort to procure the Republican Presidential nomination, but in the course of doing so he piled up more than $850,000 in additional debt to various people. If we think of this in terms of the Federal budget, that would be a budget deficit that was larger than the total collected in taxes.
Regarding McAfee, very few of us consider him a serious candidate. He appears to be doing this because it interests him at the moment. I don’t think he’s seriously prepared for a long summer campaign.
Petersen, Johnson and Perry all do appear ready for the work required on the part of the candidate. But Petersen is just starting to grow up (the “mountains of…” and other comments), Johnson has campaign and record “baggage” to deal with, and Perry won’t take money, lies constantly about being a dedicated party member when he was one of the Tea Party Troup in ’08 and has a history of anger management issues and explosive reactions at prior conventions.
So…looks like a normal LP convention. We have Moe, Larry, Curly AND Shemp on the stage this time!
“Looking at the other 3 candidates that debated Johnson in New York, I fail to see any of the silliness Mr. Craig references.”
Mr. Loggia couldn’t see any silliness whatever in McAfee’s opening statement in the debate?
“McAfee began his debate performance with an unorthodox opening statement: ‘I don’t have a statement prepared. I am unprepared for everything, always,’ he added, ‘so I’m not going to waste your time.’ He sat back down.” http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/01/john-mcafee-libertarian-party-presidential-candidate
“it might be something for McAfee to correct the record on” Why bother?
Shawn — Of course it is. But without making up words to put in my mouth, how would have got to pretend I was insulting campaigns I hadn’t even mentioned, instead of responding to the very specific complaints about two of the campaigns that he wants to ignore?
“it’s kind of creepy, to put it mildly, that Gary Johnson’s campaign would know how often, if ever, that two of his opponents might speak to one another.”
You imply I had some secret source of the knowledge. I don’t— AP himself brags about it.
If he’s lying about that, it might be something for McAfee to correct the record on. But for once I think AP is actually telling the truth about that. Their campaigns have effectively merged. That’s obvious to anybody watching them.
The key to this argument is to twist the idea of promoting Gary Johnson’s positives as being an insult to his opponents.
And that’s how you set up a straw man to argue against.
Also when the only viable alternatives to Johnson are crazy Belize guy and a child who calls people tubby fucks and claims he swims in pyramids of pussies i think it’s safe to say that Johnson is the only credible candidate.
It’s rather ironic to see someone from McAfee’s campaign accuse people involved with other’s campaigns as “attack dogs”, ever heard of a mirror?
“Maybe a tip McAfee picked up on their thrice-daily coordination calls.” — Andy Craig
I’m sort of surprised by this comment by Andy, who is on the Johnson campaign’s payroll as some sort of “consultant.” How do you know how often John McAfee might speak to someone? It’s really none of your damn business — or that of anybody else. Are you snooping on him?
I know the Johnson campaign — or some of his most devoted followers — put together something called the “Troll Patrol” to monitor any online criticism of their candidate, but it’s kind of creepy, to put it mildly, that Gary Johnson’s campaign would know how often, if ever, that two of his opponents might speak to one another.
It sort of reminds me of Richard Nixon’s re-election committee in 1972 — the paranoid and scandalous Watergate-era CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President), a committee closely associated with the infamous White House Plumbers, a covert group whose primary mission, in addition to generally harassing Nixon’s foes, was to monitor and spy on them.
Tread carefully, Libertarians. Gary Johnson, the burqa banning ex-governor who actively campaigned for George W. Bush sixteen years ago — a president whose administration inarguably destroyed more personal liberty and privacy than any chief executive in American history — might not be the person you think he is.
The LP should nominate a presidential candidate with genuine libertarian instincts, including the precious yet eroding right to privacy — a quality shared by several candidates this year, but one the bumbling and easily rattled former New Mexico governor clearly lacks.
If you want to talk about transparent “classic political tactics,” saying something outrageous and false and then playing the victim when it’s pointed out, is right there on that list of Alinsky rules Petersen boasts about basing his campaign on. Maybe a tip McAfee picked up on their thrice-daily coordination calls.
I think this is a silly amount of obsessing over the use of the word “silly,” trying to make into some outrageous insult that one can grandstand against.
Meanwhile, completely ignoring…. not once even mentioning…. the actual point of the piece this was supposedly responding to. Namely that accusations being slung against Johnson by the McAfee and Petersen camps were absurd and false. Instead of trying to defend any of that, we get a bunch of hand-wringing over how mean it was to use the nasty s-word.
As “Petersen 2016” gets more exposure to the general libertarian population people will see those libertarians deliberately pulling the levers and turning the gears, driven solely by the desire to offer the gift of a libertarian future for themselves and their country. I think they will be very proud of that campaign.
I know I am.
That’s a particularly astute and insightful commentary by Mr. Loggia. I’m glad Caryn shared it. It’s funny that most of those claiming that it’s time to “get serious” while portraying Gary Johnson as the only “credible” candidate in the LP race because he was a two-term governor have never bothered to seriously examine his record in office. They also wittingly choose to ignore his poorly-managed, debt-ridden candidacy in 2012.
Facts be damned.
Any self-respecting libertarian — large “L” or small “l” — would probably be appalled by much of what they would find if they bothered to look closely at their own candidate instead of blindly belittling his challengers, each of whom arguably possesses a much keener intellect than the party’s presumed frontrunner.
If the Libertarian candidate for president is allowed on the debate stage this autumn, it’s a pretty safe bet that McAfee, Perry or Petersen wouldn’t be the target of late night comedians. The same, unfortunately, probably can’t be said of Gary Johnson. They’ll be feasting on him — and the Libertarian Party — long after the election.