The US’ Libertarian Party has nominated former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson as its presidential candidate for the second time.
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Gary Johnson won the Libertarian presidential nomination on second ballot at the Libertarian National Convention today, and while he expects socially liberal voters will gravitate toward his candidacy, particular constituencies like LGBT activists will need to come to him rather than the other way around.
Johnson was also the party’s nominee in 2012, when he received 1 percent of the popular vote and became the first Libertarian presidential candidate to receive more than 1 million votes.
Johnson, who served as New Mexico governor as a Republican from 1995-2003, said too few people knew what a Libertarian is, and that his job is to change that. The party’s best showing was 1980, when candidate Ed Clark got slightly more than 1 percent of the vote.
A candidate for Libertarian Party chairman danced and stripped down to a thong during a speech to his fellow party members at the Libertarian National Convention on May 29 at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, Florida (video below).
While Johnson and Weld provide a veneer of mainstream respectability, Libertarians have not tinkered with their party’s underlying platform, which calls for legalizing marijuana, curbing government surveillance, and dramatically limiting the US military presence overseas.
The argument that my fellow TLR writer Lee Enochs lays out for not voting for Gary Johnson is that he is not sufficiently libertarian enough. Johnson said, “If it’s not Bill Weld I don’t think that that happens”. If Johnson succeeds in getting at least 5 percent of the vote, the Libertarian Party would be recognized as a minor party and would be eligible for public funds in the 2020 election. To do that, he must average 15% in five recognised polls.
“Since Bill Weld announced that he is seeking the vice presidential nomination, I would say, at a minimum, he has made 25 national media appearances”.
The Libertarian Party is the only third party with ballot access in 50 states, making Johnson the only alternative option to available to all voters who do not want to choose Trump and Clinton in this election.
The Libertarian Party is the third-largest political party in our nation.
A Fox News Channel poll released two weeks gave people a chance to pick Johnson as well as the two major party candidates – and he scored 10 percent, compared to 39 percent for Clinton and 42 percent for Trump.
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“This is the highest-profile ticket in the Libertarian Party’s history”, said Nicholas Sarwark, Libertarian Party chair. He said electing Clinton would be a continuation of “government probably trying to do more in our lives; tax us more, certainly”.
