Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate in the 2016 USA presidential race, was questioned about a major flashpoint of the Syrian civil war on Thursday and asked, “What is Aleppo?”. No state has gone to a third-party candidate since 1968, when George Wallace won five states in the South, and no third-party candidate has cracked the top two in an election since Theodore Roosevelt, as a Progressive in 1912, finished a distant second to Democrat Woodrow Wilson but won six states and beat incumbent Republican President William H. Taft.
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Weld said he knew what Aleppo was.
Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson is crisscrossing the country in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to boost his national poll numbers and qualify for the presidential debates.
Then Johnson went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”. Confronted with a litany of Mr. Putin’s offenses, including the military actions in Ukraine and Syria and the computer hack of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Trump responded, “Do you want me to start naming some of the things that President Obama does at the same time?” – as if there were equivalent US actions. If Johnson’s foreign policy were adopted just a few years ago, it’s possible that the formation of ISIS could have been prevented altogether.
Ron Neilson, Johnson’s campaign manager, said in an interview that making the debates will be challenging.
When reminded by MSNBC on Thursday, Mr. Johnson said he’d work with Russian Federation to find a diplomatic solution to the civil war and that the conflict was an example of the dangers of meddling in the region.
“I do understand Aleppo”, he said.
Johnson said he originally thought Aleppo was an acronym. “But when we involve ourselves militarily, when we involve ourselves in these humanitarian issues, we end up with a situation that in most cases is not better”.
Johnson responded online, saying that he’s human and that he just blanked.
“With regard to Syria, I do think that it’s a mess”, he said.
Supporters found an upside to the instantly viral exchange: a surge in attention for the lesser-known candidate.
KOAT’s political analyst Brian Sanderoff said this might hurt Johnson, since the majority of Americans still don’t know who he is.
But Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, said he doubted the episode offered a silver lining. “This isn’t a point of controversy”. He was also clearly a factor in Florida, where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were tied at 43% and Johnson commanded 8% of likely voters. A proponent of gun rights, he has said he’s “open to discussions” about keeping firearms away from potential terrorists or the mentally ill, but skirted any specific proposals.
Following the interviews, Johnson admitted he dropped the ball on the question.
“I’m incredibly frustrated with myself”, he said.
Johnson now is just below 9 percent in three of those polls with results available so far. But the gaffe, while embarrassing, may not have a significant impact on the fate of Johnson’s campaign, as experts say foreign policy doesn’t typically play a large role in the outcome of elections.
There have been recent calls to let Johnson into the debates, including from another former Massachusetts Republican governor – Mitt Romney – the GOP presidential nominee in 2012 and a fierce critic of Trump.
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“But all my life I told the truth”, he said. Johnson made clear from the outset his goal was to secure an invitation. “In the next two cycles, I think you’re going to see a shift in the Republican Party”. “The missiles are flying a little bit further”, Johnson said.
