As the Libertarian Party’s convention nominates former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson for president, some are saying that the Libertarians’ time has finally come, that 2016 could be the Libertarian moment. In addition to immigration participants particularly took issue with Trump’s stated positions on global trade and national security – all of which stand in firm opposition to a party that tends to favor lax immigration restrictions, free trade and is skeptical of military intervention.
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The field also included businessman Austin Petersen and antivirus software company founder John McAfee, who once fled Belize after police sought to question him in a murder case.
While Johnson locked down enough votes on the second ballot, the drama was far from finished Sunday.
“The people coming across are the people who just want jobs”, Johnson said.
On the first ballot, Weld got 49.022 percent of the vote, just shy of the 50 percent needed for the nomination. If Johnson’s support can increase to 15 percent in pre-election polls then he would be the first third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1992 to participate in the presidential debates. This year, the former two-term Republican governor of a Democratic state is joined on the ticket by William Weld, another former two-term Republican governor of a Democratic state.
During an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Johnson defended his recent remarks in which he called out Trump’s “racist” rhetoric against immigrants and bashed his proposal to build a border wall. Many Libertarians want to slash government benefits, eliminate the National Reserve, and return the US currency to the gold standard.
“In many cases illegal immigrants are taken much better care by this country than our veterans and that’s not going to happen”, Trump said.
Johnson was declared the nominee at the Party’s convention in Orlando, Florida on Sunday.
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Talk of Trump, Sanders, and Clinton has been dominating the headlines, but many voters say they might not vote for any of those candidates, turning to a third party option instead. As for the Libertarian Party itself, its platform combines some fringey ideas, including total drug legalization, with a reasonable emphasis on limiting government power.
