{"id":12156,"date":"2016-03-25T11:16:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T15:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=12156"},"modified":"2016-03-25T11:16:43","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T15:16:43","slug":"live-free-or-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2016\/03\/25\/live-free-or-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Free or Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Gary Johnson has climbed Mount Everest before.<\/p>\n

This is not a metaphor about how hard it is to operate outside our two-party system. It\u2019s a real thing that a presidential candidate has done. It just happens to also work, you know, as a metaphor.<\/p>\n

Gary Johnson is the former Republican governor of New Mexico. During his two terms in office, he slashed the state budget while pushing for tax cuts, school vouchers and the legalization of marijuana. In 2003, after he left office, and shortly after breaking his leg, he\u00a0climbed Mount Everest<\/a> \u2014 the stuff of campaign ad makers\u2019 dreams.<\/p>\n

Now, as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, Mr. Johnson is facing another daunting task: getting attention, and votes, as a third-party presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

In a normal election year, Mr. Johnson\u2019s candidacy would garner about as much publicity and respect as any third-party candidate\u2019s, which is to say, close to zero. But this time is different. The Republican Party appears to be eating its own tail, with millions of voters lining up for a candidate that many party leaders find morally and politically reprehensible. And now, in retaliation, some of those party leaders are starting to look for their own Naderian spoiler candidate<\/a> to prevent Donald J. Trump from winning the presidency.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday, three influential conservative activists convened a meeting of anti-Trump Republicans in Washington to discuss the feasibility of running a third-party candidate. According to The Washington Post<\/a>, the tone of the meeting was \u201cmuted and downbeat\u201d \u2014 perhaps a sign of the resignation party elites are feeling as they realize Mr. Trump is likely to be their nominee.<\/p>\n

The anti-Trump, anti-Hillary Clinton crowd isn\u2019t out of options just yet. Some have suggested putting up an independent candidate, or going all in for Senator Ted Cruz. But an absurd, unpredictable election season sometimes merits an equally absurd, unpredictable response. That\u2019s where Mr. Johnson comes in.<\/p>\n

As the Libertarian Party\u2019s presidential nominee in 2012, he won around 1 percent of the popular vote. If he somehow were elected president, he would be the first commander in chief to have posed shirtless in GQ<\/a> and served as the chief executive of a medical cannabis company<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

It\u2019s unlikely that Republican elites would ever rally round someone like Mr. Johnson. But as a firewall to prevent Mr. Trump from taking over the Oval Office, the Libertarian Party nominee \u2014 whom they disagree with on many subjects \u2014 may be their best shot.<\/p>\n

The biggest hurdle anti-Trump Republicans must overcome, aside from finding a candidate willing to go into the wilderness for them, is getting on the ballot. The presidential election system is a patchwork of state deadlines and ballot requirements. Ralph Nader, who critics say helped usher George W. Bush into the White House by running as a Green Party candidate in 2000, is extremely familiar with the ballot requirements, having been booted<\/a> off the Pennsylvania ballot in 2004. While Mr. Nader is happy to rail against the \u201ctwo-party tyranny\u201d of the American electoral system, he thinks starting a third-party run at this point in the election season a near-impossible goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost too late, unless you\u2019re a multibillionaire,\u201d Mr. Nader said. \u201cOther than just a tailored two- or three-state approach, I don\u2019t see it happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if anti-Trump forces are able to put a third-party candidate on the ballot, it is a limited victory: Ensure Mr. Trump loses, while also ensuring Republicans split their votes and get another Democrat elected.<\/p>\n

After Mr. Johnson earns his party\u2019s nomination for a second time, which he appears likely to do, his key challenge will be making it to the debate stage. Last year, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party filed a lawsuit<\/a> against the Commission on Presidential Debates to change the national polling threshold that dictates that only candidates polling at 15 percent or higher can join in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way that a third party wins the presidency without being in the presidential debate,\u201d Mr. Johnson said. \u201cThe contention is on our part that if you\u2019re on the ballot in enough states to mathematically be elected, then you should be included in the presidential debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed out that, unlike whichever independent candidate anti-Trump Republicans are thinking of putting up against Mr. Trump, the Libertarian Party \u2014 which will host its nominating convention<\/a> in Orlando, Fla., over Memorial Day \u2014 will be on the ballot in all 50 states come November.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not another third party. There\u2019s not. It\u2019s just not going to happen,\u201d he said, then added, \u201cIt could be me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has played the primary process masterfully, staging his coup from within the palace walls. He capitalized on the very rules the Republican National Committee changed after the drawn-out 2012 primary election to make more states award their delegates as winner-take-all rather than proportionally.<\/p>\n

Instead of ousting Mr. Trump and forcing him to run as a third-party candidate, Republican elites now find themselves, or their preferred candidates, losing control of their own party. After the meeting of anti-Trump conservatives last Thursday, one of the meeting\u2019s organizers, the right-wing radio host Erick Erickson, put out a statement<\/a> from the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe intend to keep our options open as to other avenues to oppose Donald Trump,\u201d he wrote. \u201cOur multiple decades of work in the conservative movement for free markets, limited government, national defense, religious liberty, life and marriage are about ideas, not necessarily parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is noteworthy that Mr. Trump is running a campaign safely within the two-party system, considering he is a Voltron-like candidate built using the most successful parts of past independent campaigns.<\/p>\n

Like George Wallace, the former Alabama governor who ran a third-party presidential campaign in 1968 after his segregationist views put him on the fringes of the Democratic Party, Mr. Trump uses strident racial language to stoke his supporters\u2019 anger. Like Ross Perot, who won 19 percent of the popular vote as an independent in 1992, Mr. Trump is an eccentric billionaire who is fun to watch on TV, which has allowed him to move ahead without relying on traditional fund-raising channels. Like Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate in 2000, he is repackaging warmed-over economic and cultural nationalism and selling it as the future of the conservative movement. Mr. Trump even has a bit of Teddy Roosevelt, whose penchant for strongman bluster made him a populist hero when he ran as the Progressive (a.k.a. Bull Moose) Party candidate in 1912.<\/p>\n

For now, the Republican Party\u2019s leaders are trying to maintain some semblance of control over what\u2019s happening to them. Appearing on\u00a0ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week\u201d<\/a> on Sunday, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said it was both too early and too late for his party to think about starting an independent bid.<\/p>\n

The host, George Stephanopoulos, asked Mr. Priebus what he thought of the Stop Trump movement, and whether recruiting a third-party candidate would doom the Republican chances of winning back the White House. \u201cWell, sure it would \u2014 of course it would,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it isn\u2019t likely, and it\u2019s probably too late, and there is no definitive answer right now as to who the nominee is going to be of our party. So I think all of it\u2019s far too early.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s primary now: both alive and dead, too early to speculate about and too late to save. Worst of all, the anti-Trump movement\u2019s only hope to save the party might be a Libertarian. According to Julia Azari, a professor of political science at Marquette University, a Trump victory would actually prove worse for the Republican Party in the long run than another Democratic presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cParties are not just labels, they\u2019re not just ideas,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re institutions, and they\u2019re institutions that do have people in them that have some sense of their longevity and also their integrity. Trump could run and lose, and the Republican Party could potentially move on from that. If he runs and wins, that\u2019s really the nightmare scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Full article: <\/span>Live Free or Trump – The New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gary Johnson has climbed Mount Everest before. This is not a metaphor about how hard it is to operate outside our two-party system. It\u2019s a real thing that a presidential candidate has done. It just happens to also work, you know, as a metaphor. Gary Johnson is the former Republican governor of New Mexico. During his two terms in office, he slashed the state budget while pushing for tax cuts, school vouchers and the legalization of marijuana. In 2003, after he left office, and shortly after breaking his leg, he\u00a0climbed Mount Everest \u2014 the stuff of campaign ad makers\u2019 dreams. Now, as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, Mr. Johnson is facing another daunting task: getting attention, and votes, as a third-party presidential candidate. In a normal election year, Mr. Johnson\u2019s candidacy would garner about as much publicity and respect as any third-party candidate\u2019s, which is to say, close to zero. But this time is different. The Republican Party appears to be eating its own tail, with millions of voters lining up for a candidate that many party leaders find morally and politically reprehensible. And now, in retaliation, some of those party leaders are starting to look for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[763],"class_list":["post-12156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-gary-johnson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}