The former MA governor said the immediate goal is to reach the 15 percent threshold needed in polls to secure a spot on the debate stage with Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
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“The scenario now is not to just try and pick up a couple of states, it’s to qualify for the debates scheduled and get into the debate at the end of August or the first week in September”, Weld said.
Dan Fishman, LAMA political facilitator and the northeast regional director for the Johnson-Weld campaign, said collecting signatures has been “remarkably easy”. “I think he’s doing just the right thing”.
Baker continued to stress on Monday that he will be focused on helping down-ballot Republican candidates for state offices in November.
“You show me a three-party race with one at 25 (percent) who two-and-a-half months earlier was at five, and two at 35 who two-and-a-half months earlier were at 45, and I’ll tell you who is going to win that race”, Weld said at one point during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters.
“The ice is cracking a little bit”, he said. Johnson is still shy of the 15 percent threshold needed to join Trump and Clinton on the presidential debate stage, but the Commission on Presidential Debates is taking preparatory steps to be ready for his potential presence at the podium.
In a CNN interview Tuesday, Collins said she would, if only the Libertarian ticket was flipped, with vice presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld at the top-rather than former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, the party’s current nominee.
The GOP has already submitted sufficient signatures for Trump and vice presidential candidate Mike Pence to make the MA ballot, according to a spokesman for Secretary of State William F. Galvin.
“I’m not going to even have my personal staff as vice president, because we want to govern as a team”, Weld said. “But Libertarians never tell other people what to do”. The ticket continues to gain double digit percentages in recent polling.
Weld did say he respect’s Galvin’s opinion but stressed that he sees a pathway to victory.
After having his ambassadorship to Mexico torpedoed in Congress, Weld left MA politics for NY, where he said he socialized with Trump on several occasions.
Weld also said he had no problem appearing on a ticket underneath Johnson. “I think he was understated, low-key”.
But he said that when Trump enters the business world he becomes a different guy. I think that’s been proved.
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“I will have to take a hard look at that”, said Collins, who, unlike Johnson, opposes legalizing recreational marijuana. During his time as governor of MA in the 1990s, Weld, a former Republican, was one of few among his party to support legalizing medical marijuana.
