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US2016: Gary Johnson is running for President. Gary Who? And what’s a leppo?

US2016: Gary Johnson is running for President. Gary Who? And what’s a leppo?

After spending so much time on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in their respective quests for the US presidency, J. BROOKS SPECTOR turns his attention to former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who is also running – as candidate for the Libertarian Party. He won’t win, but he’ll be generating some interesting news stories. In fact, he created one on Thursday.

Imagine for a moment, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson sitting wide awake in his home, in his very own private man-cave, the televisions turned silently to various news channels. It is nearly 3am, and Johnson is contemplating his role in the national political scene. He knows for certain – just about as much as death and taxes are, as Ben Franklin observed, certain – that, come 9 November, he definitively will not have become the American president-elect. No chance of that. Someone else will have that honour. Actually, he’s been down this road before on behalf of the Libertarian Party, and so he knows the words and the music to the impossible dream of becoming the American president from a minor third party.

So, what in the world is he doing this time around, yet again, running for president for the second time as the candidate of the Libertarian Party, this time with the free-wheeling former Massachusetts governor, William Weld, as his running mate? The two of them are – or were – seriously unconventional Republicans who are now standing very far afield from their former party’s current standard-bearer. That would be the man who waged a successful guerrilla warfare campaign (or perhaps it was a hostile takeover) to take over the GOP and become its 2016 nominee.

Even though Johnson won’t actually say it, perhaps his faint hope during his late night waking dream is that neither of the two more obvious candidates – Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump – will actually obtain the winning number of 270 electoral votes. And this will come about because Johnson ultimately was just strong enough in New Mexico or another Great Plains or Rocky Mountain state or two that he ekes out narrow, knuckle-biting pluralities in those states. Moreover, the overall results will magically lead to such a close division of the remaining electoral votes between Clinton and Trump that Johnson would become a force of great power when this stand-off of an election is handed over to the House of Representatives to decide the issue, in accordance with the Constitution. Now, if that eventuality were to happen, the House votes in a presidential selection wherein each state, regardless of the size of their respective population totals, gets one vote. In such a circumstance, each state delegation’s choice for president effectively becomes dependent on the political party balance in each state’s delegation in the House.

And if all that were to happen, as Johnson dozes and dreams of just such a deadlocked outcome on Election Day, that would, in turn, give him bargaining power equivalent to the kind of thing that last happened way back in 1824 in what was a four-way race for the presidency. But then the dawn will come, the bright morning light will pour in through the windows and Johnson’s dreams will flee. At that point we would be left with the idea that, maybe, Johnson is really running on behalf of a generating a real tub-thumping for a set of ideas which, loosely, make up the Libertarian gospel, rather than any real chance at an actual electoral victory.

And so, the question resolves to who is Gary Johnson and why is he making such a fuss when he knows in his bones how futile this must all be? Readers should also know that Johnson is almost certainly not going to be on the stage for any of the three upcoming presidential debates scheduled to feature former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton versus businessman Donald Trump. Only. The decision of the non-partisan commission that organises the debates has been one that only the two major party candidates would appear in these debates. Only if any other candidates breach 15% support in national polling would they also be included, provided their names also appeared on a sufficient number of state ballots so that they could be voted for president.

Readers should understand that in the US there actually is no national ballot process or single ballot document. In a US presidential election, each state has its own ballots (since there are many local and state offices at stake in any election), and the laws of each individual state govern the procedures and determinations of who else ultimately gets their line on a ballot. In many states, a pre-set number of signatures on a petition must be collected by a certain date, if a candidate beyond those from the two major parties is to be listed on the ballot.

Specifically in the case of the televised debates, the commission’s determination of the criterion of a candidate’s presence on the ballot is that a candidate must appear on enough state ballots that he or she could – mathematically at least – win 270 electoral votes and thereby become president. So far, while Johnson’s name now appears on all 50 state ballots, his polling support numbers have averaged no higher than about 10%, and no poll has checked in with him having achieved a level of support of 15% or more – at least not yet. Accordingly, together with Dr Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, Johnson will not be a presence during these crucial debates. But perhaps viewers can at least expect a sound bite from either or both of them, perhaps in reaction to the most egregious or outrageous comments made by either of the two televised candidates during the debates. That could be fun.

As a result of his non-appearance in the national debates, Johnson and his supporters must largely continue to nibble at the edges of election coverage. It will be a case of a little bit here and a little bit there in the traditional print and broadcast media, and a vigorous below-the-radar campaign on electronic social media from his supporters and acolytes, rather than his being right there in the mix, slugging it out with the big boys and girls.

Looking at this increasingly standardised debate invitation process, the New York Times pointed out:

“H. Ross Perot, who ran as an independent candidate in 1992, was able to participate in debates as part of an agreement with the campaigns of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Mr. Perot was polling at 10 percent to 20 percent in the fall of 1992 and received nearly 19 percent of the nationwide vote. The debate commission barred the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader from attending the 2000 debates, even as a spectator. Polling showed his support at about 4 percent in the fall of 2000.”

So what are Gary Johnson’s ideas about governance such that his supporters find so intriguing? First, let’s set out a bit of background on Johnson personally. He was a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico. Before that and after graduating from the University of New Mexico, Johnson built a construction company that eventually grew into a multimillion dollar enterprise. First winning the governorship in 1994 and remaining in that position until 2003, he increasingly carved out a niche as a libertarian-minded, conservative politician – tough on government spending, but wide open on the individual behaviour issues such as the legalisation of marijuana. Besides his government experience, Johnson likes to call attention to his athletic prowess, noting his ascent of Mt Everest in 2003.

In speaking to his issues in this presidential race, Johnson advocates a dramatic cut in government spending and taxes and clawing back government assistance and oversight across a wide range of areas. These include the cessation of public support for organisations such as Fannie Mae (the major quasi-governmental home loan originator) and, of course, the national legalisation of marijuana. Further, he would end the national income tax, substituting a national sales tax in its place to raise government revenues for any programmes left in place. Instead of the current system that provides payments to individual claimants, Johnson would provide block grants to states for Medicare and Medicaid and would index any further growth of Social Security to wage growth numbers, instead of the current system that links increases to inflation. Along the way, a Johnson presidency would repeal the Affordable Care Act and the increasingly costly Medicare prescription drug programme that was passed during the Bush administration.

Turning to foreign affairs and international security concerns, Johnson would remove all remaining US military personnel from Afghanistan and Iraq, would ban any forms of torture, and would put in place due process for the treatment and trials of prisoners from such conflicts.

On trade issues, Johnson says he “generally supports NAFTA and other free-trade agreements”. In a 2011 interview in the run-up to his first try for the presidency, he explained:

“So much of the legislation that we pass isn’t really free market at all. It’s touted as free market, when the reality ends up to be very corporate. The reality ends up to be corporatism. I was always looking at business legislation from the standpoint of having it affect everyone equally as opposed to big business being further advantaged. So many of these treaties – NAFTA being one – the criticism of NAFTA should be rooted in the fact that big business became even bigger business.”

A potentially devastating moment for his campaign, at least those paying attention to it, came on Thursday when Johnson, asked on MSNBC’s popular Morning Joe news-chat show, what his reaction was to the continuing horrors of Aleppo and how would he handle such things if he became president. His response was an eye-watering, “What is Aleppo?” Big oops moment. Note to Johnson staff: Make sure your guy gets a better briefing every day, including maps and some newspaper clips, that calls attention to the current issues, rather than let him wing it on national television. You won’t get too many more such chances.

Johnson later admitted to being human in not knowing – or recognising – one of the globe’s major news stories as a horrific tragedy, but managing in the process to muddy the waters by explaining that Aleppo was between the two sides of the conflict. (Most foreign affairs analysts would have told Johnson that one of the major problems in Syria is that it is not simply a two-sided war, accounting for much of its savagery.)

Running seriously cross-grained to the presumed national tenor of discussion, Johnson favours more open national borders and a simplified legal immigration route, arguing also that the legalisation of dagga would lessen pressures for illegal travel into the country. Going with the usual libertarian view of no special favours to industries, a Johnson administration would end any subsidies for ethanol, and relax regulations against the use of natural gas, along with fast-tracking reviews of any new energy exploration projects over economic or environmental reasons.

On the social and individual rights side of things, he has the usual libertarian view of individuals taking full responsibility for their own choices, without any help from that nasty “nanny state”. On some of the current hot-button issues, for example, Johnson supports abortion rights and he refused to sign a social conservatives’ pledge against same-sex marriage.

Given all this, a bit about his supporters would seem in order, right about now. According to both polling and anecdotal soundings, Johnson is relying heavily on young people and independent voters disillusioned with the two major parties’ nominees. According to the Pew Research Center, from their polling this past month, over 70% of his supporters are younger than 50 years old, and over 60% consider themselves independents politically. (Important for Johnson, perhaps, is that more Americans now call themselves independent than supporters of either major political party.)

In sharp contrast to GOP candidate Donald Trump, per the Pew data, Johnson’s support base includes 13% African-American or Latino voters, and his backers are virtually evenly divided between male and female voters. In particular, given the Trumpster’s generally poor showing with these demographic groups, these percentages in favour of Johnson mean trouble, according to Republican strategists such as Michael Madrid from GrassrootsLab, a Republican consulting firm. Madrid said recently, “Something is happening where the [GOP] coalition is no longer able to appeal beyond its disparate and shrinking constituencies. That’s the main problem facing Republicans.” More fodder for those Johnson musings, perhaps?

While, like Trump, Johnson has positioned himself as a candidate who understands entrepreneurial values, he has also drawn strong distinctions with GOP orthodoxy on social policy such as those views on abortion rights and legalised marijuana. His spokesman, Joe Hunter, has added, “When you get past the rhetoric and past the primary politics that Republicans and Democrats each have to play, the real majority of Americans are essentially fiscally responsible and socially inclusive. Right now, neither of the two major parties — particularly the Republican Party — is representing that view.”

Hunter is implying that Johnson can fill that void. Well, maybe, but there are some serious limits and distinct vulnerabilities to Gary Johnson’s appeal.

As the New York Times, in a recent profile of Johnson’s campaign, noted,

“He leans heavily on the Western states, drawing about a third of his support from there, according to two recent Washington Post/ABC News polls. And the Pew survey shows Mr. Johnson polling at just 4 percent among voters 65 and older. He is doing equally poorly among those who describe themselves as very conservative. For now, older voters and the conservative base remain crucial to the Republican Party. Despite its troubles in presidential elections over the past 25 years, the party controls both houses of Congress and most state legislatures. But Mr. Trump faces an uphill battle, and if he loses, the Republicans will once again have to rethink how they pick their presidential nominee and how to widen their appeal to a changing electorate. ‘This is likely to be the sixth election out of the last seven when Republicans lose the popular vote,’ said Richard Born, a political scientist at Vassar College who studies political polarisation. ‘They’re going to have to moderate, and immigration rights will be one place they have to moderate.’ If Mr. Trump loses in November, he added, the Republican Party’s 2020 nominee could be ‘somewhere in between a Gary Johnson and a Mitt Romney.’”

There are still lots of “ifs” in such speculations, however. And Johnson is unlikely to be much of a factor in this year’s race, once voters actually enter the polling booths and decide who gets to control the country’s nuclear arsenal.

Nevertheless, if, in the next couple of weeks, Johnson’s appeal begins to perk up in the wake both of some savagely damaging miscues by Trump and if there is a continuing bleeding in support as Clinton’s e-mail travails take their toll on the respective frontrunners, and if Johnson can just find Aleppo, Syria on a map the next time someone asks him about it, might there just be a bit more pressure to put Johnson into the presidential debates? And if Johnson were added to the mix, would there also be calls to add Jill Stein into the blend as well? Now those debates would be great fun to watch. There could be those Punch and Judy paddles, helium-filled balloons to pop, and noise-makers to twirl handed out as well. But the results might even make voters think a bit more about the consequences of their choices when they go to vote. And, admittedly, it would be vastly entertaining television. DM

Photo: Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson speaks during the Cannabis World Congress & Business Exposition in New York, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

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