Where is the Libertarian Party?

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pr0ner
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

Post by pr0ner »

Isn't Trump still at 0 newspaper endorsements?
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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He got four endorsements during the primary but I don't know if that counts in the general (and one of those was the national enquirer)
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Defiant wrote:He got four endorsements during the primary but I don't know if that counts in the general (and one of those was the national enquirer)
And all four of those are tabloids.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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And one of them is published by his son-in-law -- endorsements don't get more serious than that. :)
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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According to FiveThirtyEight there's a 2-3% chance of Johnson actually winning New Mexico. And it's possible, but very, very unlikely (0.15%) that that could cause a deadlock.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Defiant wrote:He got four endorsements during the primary but I don't know if that counts in the general (and one of those was the national enquirer)
Apparently it doesn't.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Max Peck wrote:It looks like Gary's gaining ground.
This year neither major party presents a good option. So the Chicago Tribune today endorses Libertarian Gary Johnson for president of the United States. Every American who casts a vote for him is standing for principles — and can be proud of that vote. Yes, proud of a candidate in 2016.
Lemme guess, Illinois is a dark blue state?
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I'm not surprised that the Chicago Tribune endorsed Johnson. The Trib is normally a Republican paper (oped board, anyway), and other than endorsing Obama in the last two elections, they pretty much always endorse GOP. (And they pretty much endorsed Obama because he was wildly popular in his home state/city, and they didn't want to get people unsubscribing.) I didn't know if they'd go Democrat three elections in a row, and I couldn't see them endorsing Trump.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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VP candidate Bill Weld told the Boston Globe that he plans to focus exclusively on attacking Donald Trump for the remainder of the campaign — essentially admitting that running mate Gary Johnson can not become president.

Trump has Weld’s “full attention,” he explained, because his agenda is so terrible it’s “in a class by itself.” “I think Mr. Trump’s proposals in the foreign policy area, including nuclear proliferation, tariffs, and free trade, would be so hurtful, domestically and in the world, that he has my full attention,” Weld said.
However, Weld’s move doesn’t exactly constitute “going rogue,” since earlier in the day Johnson admitted in a CNN interview, “I guess I wasn’t meant to be president.”
The gaffes led many to say Weld should be at the top of the ticket, and Weld strategists reportedly looked into the possibility of doing that, only to be shot down by Johnson.

Weld insists that he’s not abandoning Johnson, and that his running mate is fully in support of his strategy shift. “I have had in mind all along trying to get the Donald into third place, and with some tugging and hauling, we might get there,” he said.

However, Weld’s claim that there’s no discord on the Libertarian ticket wasn’t very convincing. He also suggested to the Globe that he may abandon the Libertarian party in the future. “I’m certainly not going to drop them this year,” he said.

Weld, a former two-term Republican governor of Massachusetts, said that after blocking a Trump presidency, he’d like to work with Republicans like Mitt Romney and Haley Barbour to rebuild the GOP.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Defiant wrote:

However, Weld’s claim that there’s no discord on the Libertarian ticket wasn’t very convincing. He also suggested to the Globe that he may abandon the Libertarian party in the future. “I’m certainly not going to drop them this year,” he said.

Weld, a former two-term Republican governor of Massachusetts, said that after blocking a Trump presidency, he’d like to work with Republicans like Mitt Romney and Haley Barbour to rebuild the GOP.
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I dropped in to post the same story. In May Weld declared himself a "Libertarian for life," but I guess life is short.

Johnson has sure proven himself to be Not Ready for Prime Time, so Weld's smart to desert a sinking ship.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Weld says that the New York magazine story is "made up".
But in a follow-up interview with Reason this afternoon, Weld denied that he was pivoting, denied that he would be focusing "exclusively" on Trump, and denied that he was working on any political future outside the Libertarian Party.

"I said to the reporter that I plan to focus on Donald Trump, because I think his international proposals represent a grave threat," Weld told me, "but in the same breath I said that I'm not going to omit to make the points that Mrs. Clinton, if she were elected, runs the risk of spending and borrowing us into the poorhouse, and that I think her fiscal policies and her military policies are not at all in line with the approach that Gary Johnson and I will take if elected. So nothing is to the exclusion of anything else. I did convey to the Globe the idea that I would be emphasizing the respects in which I think Mr. Trump's international proposals are wrong-headed, but that's nothing new—I've been saying that since Day One."

...

The former Massachusetts governor also rejected the Globe's assertion that "Weld's new plan calls for him to focus his fire on Trump in a handful of red states," saying "No, somebody's making that up."

"I mean, I'm going be tomorrow in Massachusetts, the next two days in New Hampshire, and then in Maine," he continued. "Those are not red states the last time I looked." Certainly, Weld's itinerary does not look like the schedule of a candidate who has given up.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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The Atlantic ran a good interview with Bill Weld just a couple of days ago.
The official position of the Libertarian Party, currently America’s third-most-popular presidential ticket, is that nobody won last week’s presidential debate, and America lost. But that is not the position of the party’s vice presidential candidate, Bill Weld.

“I thought Mrs. Clinton was very good,” Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, told me the morning after the debate, settling his tall frame into a cheap, vinyl-seated chair. “She kept her game face on, and Mr. Trump did not. She was in control of herself.” Trump, he noted, had not been able to stop himself from taking the bait every time he was confronted with a sensitive topic.

Weld poured salt and then pepper into his left palm before sprinkling them onto his steam-tray Western omelet from the breakfast buffet of his Manhattan Holiday Inn. He was, he confessed, a bit embarrassed to be staying there. But it was in convenient proximity to CNN and CBS—since the Libertarians can’t afford ads, their campaign strategy revolves around seeking media attention—and usually priced at $110 a night. The Libertarian ticket is, appropriately, nothing if not frugal.

The question that always haunts third-party tickets is whether they will play spoiler to one of the major parties. This year, the Libertarians were initially assumed to be a problem for the Republicans: The ticket consists, after all, of two former Republican governors, Weld and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. For the many GOP voters repulsed by Trump, the Libertarians could be an appealing alternative. But Johnson and Weld also appear to be drawing votes from Clinton, particularly from young people who prefer their live-and-let-live idealism to her baggage-laden wonkery.

This is not the way Weld thinks it ought to be. He believes Clinton is wrong on policy, particularly fiscal and military matters—but Trump is unthinkable. To some, that discrepancy means he ought to drop out and throw his support to Clinton. “We have a lot of New York City liberal Democrat friends, and they are very anxious,” he told me wryly. In the last few weeks, he’s received dozens of emails and phone calls from strangers to that effect—he is not sure how they got his contact information.

Weld’s answer to these critics is, essentially, that he is more good to their cause where he is. “I have a platform,” he told me. “As long as I’m a candidate for a legitimate political party, people pay attention to what I say, and I have a lot to say about Mr. Trump.” In the next few weeks, he plans to make his position clear, he added. “We are drawing 50-50 [from the two major parties], but that’s before people hear everything I have to say about Mr. Trump for the next seven weeks.”
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Gary Johnson Returns to Politics! (As Soon As He Finishes This Cross Country Bike Tour)
Before leaving for Banff, Alberta, the former two-term governor of New Mexico made plans to return to politics, to mobilize "the largest grassroots army of liberty activists in the nation."

Johnson and strategist Ron Nielson have relaunched Our America Initiative, a website "giving voice to the notion of less government and greater freedom, and advocating policies that will allow entrepreneurs, young people and all Americans to achieve their dreams."
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Hmm. I saw an article recently (in the last couple of months) that suggested that there aren't that many people who would be libertarians (issue wise), even if party loyalty weren't a thing. If I see it, I'll post it here, but that might be why the Libertarian Party might never become a major party in the foreseeable future.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Bill Weld Lays Groundwork for 2020 Libertarian Presidential Run
If you had asked most members of the Libertarian Party on election night 2016 whether vice presidential candidate Bill Weld would be central to the L.P.'s efforts in 2020, you may well have been held in violation of the Non-Aggression Principle.

The former two-term governor of Massachusetts had just wrapped up a tumultuous first six months as member of the party, from a hotly contested V.P. nomination to unprecedented media penetration to persistent speculation that he might drop out, all culminating with an unforgivable-for-some six-word sentence on The Rachel Maddow Show one week before the election: "I'm here vouching for Mrs. Clinton." Even those who were charitable toward Weld's late-breaking behavior—and there weren't many—reckoned that he'd parlay his successful/disappointing Libertarian half-year into some new centristy John Kasich/John Hickenlooper action. That is, if the well-heeled lawyer bothered with politics at all.

They were wrong. After announcing last November that "I'm going to stay L.P." and declaring the party "perfectly positioned to fill what's a growing need in the country," Weld is now openly laying the groundwork for a 2020 presidential campaign. The only question is whether he'll be the one running.
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Re: Where is the Libertarian Party?

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Joe Rogan Experience #1167 - Larry Sharpe
Larry Sharpe is a business consultant, entrepreneur, and political activist. He is currently a candidate for the Libertarian Party nomination for the Governor of New York. https://www.larrysharpe.com/
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
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