Gary Johnson CAN become the next President of the United States. It’s a long shot which relies on an Electoral College stalemate, and Twelfth Amendment solution, but there is a path to the White House for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.
That’s why Johnson is so (irritably) charitable to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by withholding sharp criticism of her more heinous activities. Johnson/Weld have a pretty good lock on #NeverTrump Republicans. Those Republican (and Republican-leaning independents) are never going to vote for Hillary Clinton and see Johnson as a legitimate option to the Republican nominee. But Johnson isn’t running as JUST an alternative to Trump; Libertarian candidates perform equally as well among Democrats (and Democratic-leaning independents) as they do among Republican voters. The message is the same but, to Democrats, Johnson’s tone matters.
Trump is an uncouth brawler. To brawl with Trump, Johnson is competing for the already decided #NeverTrump vote. #NeverTrump Republicans drew the red line six months ago about Trump. The #NeverHillary Democrats however, are up for grabs. While Jill Stein has targeted the disaffected, hard core Bernie Sanders supporters, she is never going to be an alternative for mainstream Democratic voters by calling for Clinton to be locked up.
Hillary Clinton is unpopular among mainstream Democratic-leaning voters but, with Donald Trump as the Republican alternative, they don’t see an out this November. These are Candidate Obama voters: they care about civil liberties, they care about ending foreign wars, and they care a robust economy which balances profits for owners and financial security for labor. While President Obama may have disappointed them on two out of three of those issues, they know that Hillary Clinton will be worse.
They think Bill Clinton was a great President but know that Hillary Clinton is a fraud. The only thing motivating them, this November, is that Donald Trump could conceivably win the Presidency. If Johnson and Weld sound more like Bill Clinton than Ronald Reagan, it’s because Johnson knows that he has to appeal to the Democratic-leaning voters who liked BOTH Presidents.
It’s a long shot indeed. Johnson would have to pick up 4-5 New England states, 3-5 Western states, and two Midwestern states to affect a block. He can’t do it through solidly red states because electoral math favors Democrats. But two Republican Governors, re-elected by big margins in traditionally Democratic states, offer a better chance of defeating Clinton in the “bluish” states than Trump does.
Johnson’s strategy is designed to poll above 15% nationwide so he can get into the national debates. Once he gets there, his chances of pulling 10 states from the likely-Clinton column get better.
Could this happen? Anything is possible this election season. I mean, whodathunk these two would be our only choices?
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That’s one path.
Another is for a raft of endorsements from anti-Trump bigwigs like Bush and Romney to turn this into a legitimate 3-way race.
It’s kinda weird that Bush and Romney haven’t done it already.