Looking Ahead with the Libertarian Party

The 2016 presidential election presented a golden opportunity for the Libertarian Party, even more than other third and minor parties, to become a major force in American politics. Both the Democrats and Republicans nominated truly awful candidates, despised by both independents and large numbers of liberals and conservatives in the party bases. Mistrust of the federal government in general, and specifically insider politics as practiced by members of both parties, was historically high. The time seemed ripe for a third-party disruption, and the Libertarians, as the largest third party with an existing infrastructure and ballot access in all fifty states, seemed the ones to do it.

And then they blew it by nominating Gary Johnson, he of “What’s Aleppo?” fame, who was given several opportunities to make a sizable impact and even came close to reaching the 15% polling benchmark necessary to appear on the general debate stage, but never seemed presidential or serious enough to earn the votes of the many who were convinced that voting third-party would merely constitute a “wasted vote”. To earn those votes, the Libertarians needed a fresh face that appealed to the broader electorate, and an aging ex-governor most people had never heard of, who reminded many of a crazy, if good-natured, uncle, was not the vehicle they needed.

In the end, Gary Johnson received just over 3% of the national vote. In down-ballot races, the party’s best showing came in the Alaska Senate race, where Joe Miller, a conservative former Republican with high name recognition in the state, earned over 20% of the vote against moderate Republican Lisa Murkowski. There is currently one Libertarian state legislator, a Nebraska state senator who switched from the Republican Party following Donald Trump’s nomination.

So, what now? Libertarians must now figure out how to define themselves over the next four years of a Trump presidency, which will be both a challenge and an opportunity. Democrats will obviously be the major opposition party, but as the main liberal party in America, conservative voices of dissent against Trump’s policies will not often be welcome there. Libertarians therefore have a chance that would not have been available had Clinton been elected president, with Republicans united against her—the chance to gain support from conservatives opposed to some of Trump’s more liberal leanings. His proposed major infrastructure bill, for instance—something being embraced by many Democrats, taken seriously by many moderate and establishment-oriented Republicans, and viewed with trepidation by conservatives—offers an opportunity for Libertarians to gain a significant foothold within the GOP and begin gaining high-profile, strategic supporters.

Of course, this assumes the party at large actually begins thinking strategically and wants to win, something it has demonstrated itself incapable of in the recent past. But the opportunities for political triangulation and further growth are there, if the party has the collective will to seize them.

Was 2016 A Realigning Election?

First, a primer: A realigning election, generally speaking, is one in which the country as a whole seems to dramatically shift in its political leanings. The media often talks about wave elections, where one party or another does significantly well across the board in certain years—as Democrats did in 2008, and Republicans did in 2010 and 2014. A realigning election is more significant than even that—an election that rewrites the electoral map, sees party coalitions change, and ushers in a new era of politics as it is generally understood. The 1860 election, which saw the election of Abraham Lincoln, the rise of the Republican Party, and ultimately the beginning of the Civil War, is generally considered to be such an election. The election of 1932, which heralded FDR’s election as President and the rebirth of the Democrats as the major liberal party in America, is another.

Sean Trende, a skeptic of the realignment theory, laid out what are generally considered to be the major hallmarks of realigning or critical elections, in his 2012 book The Lost Majority: “sharp and durable” voter changes; the emergence of new issues; spiking voter turnout; turmoil at conventions; and a strong third-party showing. The 2016 election indisputably had most, if not all, of these factors:

·         “Sharp and durable” voter changes: The relationship between working-class white voters and the Democratic Party has been increasingly strained for years, if not decades, but this year the tensions finally broke into the open, flipping three states (Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) that had been reliably blue at the presidential level since the 1980’s. Working-class whites are to Democrats now what Hispanics were to Republicans following the 2012 election. The changes in party coalitions this year, and the resultant changes in the electoral map, were sharp; only time will tell if they become durable.

·         Emergence of new issues: In 2016, trade became an important campaign issue for the first time since at least the 1990’s. Immigration was even more important, becoming perhaps the biggest defining issue in a campaign dominated by personal attacks. The traditional major issues of national campaigns, national security and the economy, meanwhile played no major, defining role for the first time in years.

·         Spiking voter turnout: This factor is less impressive. Turnout was down slightly from 2012 (from 54.9% to 54.6% of eligible voters), and overall was the lowest since 2000, presumably because of the nasty and seemingly never-ending campaign.

·         Turmoil at conventions: Um, yes. Trende argues that since the rise of the national primary process, and the concurrent decline in importance of the conventions themselves, extended primary battles are the best modern way to measure this factor. Either way, 2016 had it all: convention drama and brutal primary fights on both the Republican and Democratic sides.

·         Strong third-party showing: There was no single groundbreaking third-party candidacy, as in the mold of Ross Perot or George Wallace, but the third-party vote was far from dormant, as I discussed here. One third-party candidate got 20% of the vote in Utah, and had a very realistic chance at winning the state outright. Two others combined for almost six million votes between them, although neither came close to winning almost a single state. Polling showed that had a strong independent or third-party candidacy emerged, that person would have been a legitimate threat to win, no small feat in modern American politics. I would argue that these respectable showings from several less-than stellar third-party presidential candidates underline what could have been, if a single, stronger candidate had decided to take the plunge, and the failure of third parties to make more of an impact hinges more on the personal decisions of a very select group of people than on the political climate of the country as a whole.

By my estimate, the 2016 elections satisfy at least three, and possibly four, of the five main criteria for determining pivotal realigning elections. The question then becomes whether one believes in the overarching realignment theory, a subject much too broad for this post. But I find many of the arguments in favor of it compelling, if some proponents of the theory to go somewhat overboard in their attempts to ram every national election into a narrow framework of cycles and “deviating elections”. And if one accepts the overall theory, then the evidence seems clear that we have just witnessed such a realigning election.

The Third-Party Vote in 2016

One of the less-noted surprises of 2016, for me, was the lack of any major third-party presidential effort, one led by a national figure whose focus was not just to serve as a protest vote, but to actually win the presidency. There were rumblings from the moment that it began to seem likely that Trump would win the Republican nomination, that someone like Mitt Romney or Tom Coburn, a former or current officeholder, would emerge to appeal to the sizable bloc of voters dissatisfied with both Trump and Clinton. Rumors that Romney was considering the move, and an early poll showing Romney earning over 20% of the vote in a hypothetical three-way matchup, further fueled speculation.

Of course, nothing ultimately came of the rumors, and no well-known figures challenged Clinton and Trump in the general election. The three main third-party candidates were the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson, the Green Party’s Jill Stein, and the independent Evan McMullin. (I previously wrote about third-party candidates in 2016 here, here, and here.)

In the end, none of the three made a significant impact on the race nationally in terms of raw vote totals, although all three performed better than is normal for third-party presidential candidates in recent history. Gary Johnson received around four and a half million votes, or 3.3% of the total, while Jill Stein received 1.4 million, or just over 1%. Evan McMullin got 608,000 votes (0.45%), many of which were concentrated in Utah and Idaho.

The state-by-state results are slightly more impressive. Johnson’s best three states were New Mexico, his home state, where he earned just over 9% of the vote; Alaska*, where he won 6%; and Montana, where he won 5.5%. Jill Stein only made it above 2% of the vote in one state (Hawaii, where she won 3%), but Evan McMullin earned 21% in Utah, only a few points behind Hillary Clinton. It seems as though Mike Pence’s last-minute pleading for Utah Republicans to come home did the trick in the end: Trump outperformed his average in the last few state polls before the election, while McMullin’s share dropped significantly from the same polls, costing him any shot at becoming the first independent candidate to win electoral votes since 1968.

It should also be noted that McMullin earned the highest percentage of votes in a single state since Ross Perot, and that Gary Johnson set an all-time record for number of votes received by a Libertarian presidential candidate (smashing his own record of one million votes in 2012).

What does all this mean? Third-party candidates’ shares of the popular vote may have dropped significantly from their polling numbers before the election, but that seems to speak more to the weakness of these particular candidates and the still-widespread belief among the electorate that a vote for anyone other than the Democrat or Republican is simply a vote wasted. To me, the numbers indicate that if someone with a wide national following, name recognition, and access to donors (like Mitt Romney) had ultimately waged an independent bid, they could have been victorious, or at least given Trump and Clinton a run for their money.

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*Alaska had another interesting third-party candidacy: Joe Miller, the Libertarian nominee for Senate, won almost 30% of the vote (amusingly, the Democratic nominee came in fourth). But this is a special case: Miller was actually the Republican nominee for the seat in 2010, beating incumbent Lisa Murkowski in the primary, but Murkowski came back as a write-in candidate in the general election and narrowly won reelection. As such, Miller has abnormally high name recognition in the state for a third-party candidate. (However, Gary Johnson also did very well in the state, and Alaska currently has an independent governor. Alaskans, like other Westerners, are notorious for their independent spirit.)

Trick or Trick

This year, both major party candidates are tricking the American voter. The many lies and deceptions of Donald Trump are hardly worth repeating at this point—from his policy flip-flops to his refusal to release his tax returns, to his past praise of his supposed opponent. The evidence continues to mount that he is conducting this campaign either as a favor for his friend Hillary Clinton, or as an ad campaign for Trump TV, or both.

And Clinton herself is no better. Her own lies and deceptions have been on public record for decades, from Whitewater to Benghazi to her private email server and the pay-to-play schemes of the Clinton Foundation. Leaked emails from campaign chairman John Podesta show her discussing how she has a “public position” and “private position” on certain issues, and now word emerges that she may have illegally coordinated with SuperPACs. Meanwhile, the FBI reopens their investigation over the mishandling of classified information.

And the one candidate who emerges from 2016 with a “lying” nickname is Ted Cruz.

At this late stage, there’s just no other way to say it: Both Trump and Clinton are god-awful candidates, and would make god-awful presidents.

So choose neither. Look at Evan McMullin (especially if you’re in Utah!) Give Gary Johnson a chance. Check out Darrell Castle, the Constitution Party nominee, or someone else. Just remember that it’s not necessary to vote for someone who’s neither run a scam university nor stored state secrets on a private server in her basement.

Trump and Clinton backers will say that a vote for a third option is a vote wasted, that only the Democratic or Republican nominee stand a chance of winning. But that only remains true as long as the voters believe it to be true.

I'm Voting for Evan McMullin for President

In July, when I first decided to support Gary Johnson for President, he seemed likely to be the only semi-viable third-party candidate on the ballot come November. More importantly, he was the only notable candidate for President who had displayed the temperament and character necessary to be an effective Commander in Chief, and his platform actively pushed for several policies appealing to conservatives searching for an alternative to Trump and Clinton—including fiscal responsibility and the appointment of originalist justices to the Supreme Court.

When Evan McMullin announced his candidacy as an independent conservative in August, I initially believed him to be little more than a curiosity. He had joined the race late, with no name recognition whatsoever, no infrastructure, and no outside support. I assumed that, rather than a viable third option for conservatives disgusted with Trump, he was yet another of the hundreds of people who run for president each election cycle merely for the novelty and excitement.

The past two months have proven me wrong.

Far from fading into the background of an election season dominated by outsized personalities, McMullin has been making campaign stops across the country, appearing on every TV station and radio program that will have him, and aggressively reaching out to disaffected Republicans and independents. His platform is not merely a “good enough” offering of the sort embraced by the Libertarian ticket, which, while it has much to offer conservatives, is troublingly liberal in areas such as immigration, drug legalization, and the death penalty. McMullin’s platform, in contrast, is unashamedly conservative—from embracing enforcement of immigration law and a solid pro-life stand, to supporting fiscal responsibility, the rule of law, and the preservation of the Constitution.

In short, a platform worthy of wholehearted support by conservatives everywhere.

And if the prospect of supporting a bold, conservative candidate for President in 2016 wasn’t incentive enough, McMullin has also proven himself on the campaign trail to be a man of integrity, character, and decency, who would honor the office once held by Washington and Lincoln.

To be sure, McMullin has as little chance of becoming President as does Gary Johnson, and trying to decide which of the two to vote for may seem like a meaningless endeavor. But in 2016, the possibility of voting for a presidential candidate with both strong moral character and a realistic chance of victory is long gone. But voters should never lose sight of their duty to choose the person they believe to be the absolute best option, regardless of an ability to win. For President, in 2016, Evan McMullin is that option.

The Insult of Not Allowing Gary Johnson to Debate

Once again, Gary Johnson was excluded from the presidential debate, and with the final debate next week it looks unlikely he will make the 15% polling threshold necessary to participate in that one, as well. He currently hovers around 7% in the RealClearPolitics average; Jill Stein seems unable to break 3%, and never had much of a chance to make the debates.

Johnson, on the other hand, has been on the cusp of 15% national support in several individual polls dating back to August, and has declined in recent weeks only after his exclusion from the debates created a perception among many voters that he simply wasn’t relevant. That fact in itself should be a major embarrassment for the Commission on Presidential Debates—shouldn’t it be the role of a debate performance itself to disbar candidates from office in the minds of voters, rather than a candidate’s exclusion from the debates altogether?

The fact is that, while Johnson’s support may be plateauing in national polls, 7% is still hugely respectable for a third party candidate, and if it holds through Election Day would be the highest since Ross Perot in 1996. He is actually competitive with both Clinton and Trump in winning outright voters under 35, and has been endorsed by more print publications than Trump, including major newspapers in Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, and New Hampshire. A solid majority of voters nationally believe he should be included in the debates. And he regularly exceeds 15% in polls of several states, including New Hampshire and his home state of New Mexico—where a poll released last week showed Johnson at 24% support overall, just a few points behind both Trump and Clinton.

With numbers and support like that, coupled with the fact that Trump, Clinton, and Johnson are the only three presidential candidates with ballot access in all fifty states, the Commission’s decision to exclude the Libertarian from debates becomes increasingly hard to defend, except to the staunchest of Clinton and Trump supporters.

The Good Thing About Having No Candidate to Support

For the first time in my life, I truly have no candidate to support in a presidential election. I truly see no effective difference between the two major party nominees. I will likely vote for Gary Johnson, as I believe him to be the most honest, trustworthy, and overall best candidate currently running (although Evan McMullin is an appealing choice as well), but I carry no emotional attachment for either Johnson or his party, and disagree with both on a substantial number of issues. Realistically, either Trump or Clinton will be the next president, and it can be sobering and slightly depressing to stay on the sidelines.

The silver lining, however, is that I no longer feel any constraints on pointing out the flaws of one candidate or another, simply because I hope for a certain outcome. Both are terribly flawed candidates. Previous candidates I have supported, for both national and state office, have had flaws as well, but because I wanted them to win and saw them as infinitely better than the alternative I would often hold onto those opinions which could negatively affect the outcome I preferred.

This election, however, all of us who remain #NeverTrump and #NeverHillary can regain some intellectual honesty we may have lost over the last few election cycles. Neither of the two major candidates want or need our support, and most of the minor party candidates have significant flaws, as well. This election gives us a chance to truly voice our opinions, tell it as we see it, and hopefully regain some independence from the opinions and pressures of others in the process.

Why Did No Major Independent Candidate Emerge?

One of the enduring mysteries in a campaign season full of them: Why, in a year when both major parties nominated candidates who are both historically unpopular with the general electorate, did no major independent candidate emerge, à la Ross Perot in 1992 or 1996?

Sure, we’ll get our fair share of third-party and independent candidates on the ballot: Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Evan McMullin… But none of those command high name recognition, a particularly unique campaign platform, or the massive financial resources needed to wage a successful presidential campaign. Two of those, Johnson and Stein, are retreads from the 2012 election, doing far better this time around merely as the unwitting beneficiaries of widespread animosity toward the two major-party candidates. And Evan McMullin, while a decent man who would make a good president, is hardly a household name, even in intensely political households.

After it became clear that Donald Trump had a reasonably good chance at winning the nomination, the narrative turned from “Will Trump run as an independent?” to “Will someone run as an independent against Trump?” For a while, the answer looked like it would be yes—and someone well-known at that, a sitting or former governor or Senator (Gary Johnson, a Libertarian who last held elected office over a decade ago, doesn’t count). Rumors flew that Mitt Romney would enter the race, or Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, or John Kasich.

But no one ever did.

Many of the reasons why lie with the prospective candidates themselves, and are impossible to guess at fully. But running for president is a demanding task, even when supported by the full resources and infrastructure of a major national party. Running as an independent, and building a national ground operation and fundraising infrastructure from scratch, is doubly difficult. And, for any Republicans who were current officeholders—or who hoped to seek office again in the future—following through with an independent bid almost certainly doomed from the beginning would have seemed to be a career-ending move.

Considering all that, it seems to me that there would have been only one Republican who could have reasonably embarked on a serious independent bid for the Presidency, without risk of political suicide, and who would have had a reasonable chance at success to boot—Mitt Romney.

Having run for president twice already, once as the Republican nominee, he would have already had built-in name recognition. Being retired from public office would have meant that he needn’t have worried about any potential sanctions from the RNC down the line. He would have been able to build, through his high name recognition and multitude of contacts, a national infrastructure in relatively short order. And he would have had a realistic chance at winning, or at the very least getting on the debate stage—a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted in May showed Romney receiving 22% of the vote nationally, with Clinton at 37% and Trump at 35%.

As to why he ultimately chose not to run, only Romney himself can answer that, but I assume it was basically the same reasoning that led him to pass on running in the primaries last year—he had had enough of running for President, believed it simply wasn’t meant to be, and wished to give other, younger candidates an opportunity. Whatever the reasoning, though, his passing on an independent run exacerbated the trend of major national figures turning down the chance of running against Trump in the general election—and likely deprived the #NeverTrump movement of its one real chance to actually win the election.

The Supreme Court in the 2016 Election

One of the very few good things about this election cycle is the emphasis that candidates for both President and the Senate have placed on the Supreme Court, and on the importance of nominating and confirming good justices. As important as the Court is, and has always been, the past few elections have all focused on issues like the economy or national security, with the judiciary getting little more than a passing mention in debates. While I wish it hadn’t taken the death of one of the greatest Supreme Court justices of the past century to drive the point home, it is important for voters to remember that the federal government has three branches, and the judicial branch is just as important, if less noticed, than the other two.

And, because this is 2016, that’s where the good news ends. Hillary Clinton’s judicial nominees would be far to the Left, and embrace a “living Constitution” judicial doctrine in which the words of the Constitution itself cease to have any meaning. The nomination of even one such justice to fill Scalia’s seat would be enough to form a liberal majority on the Court for the foreseeable future, and as both candidates love to point out, there could well be several additional vacancies over the next four years.

This is the part where Trump comes in, waving his list of potential Court nominees and saying, “All you conservatives, you have to vote for me because of the judges.” And the list he released in May was strong, with many reliable conservatives.

The problem is that the list was released by Donald Trump—absolutely nothing he says or does is binding. The day after releasing The List, he admitted that he also reserved the right to nominate someone else. The List was not comprehensive—as he had been arguing earlier that same week—but rather merely illustrated the type of justice he would probably appoint. In effect, not very different from his prior grand promises to appoint “the best judges” and “the best people.”

 And then you remember how Trump also said, last year, that his liberal, pro-abortion sister would make a “phenomenal” Supreme Court justice. And how many problems Trump has had with the Constitution in the recent past, from eminent domain and “opening up” libel laws to executive power and Article XII—all coupled with the fact that he also tends to hire people who are personally loyal to him alone. The prospect of a Trump appointment to the Supreme Court begins to look less and less appealing.

Gary Johnson, meanwhile, has promised to appoint judges who pay attention to “original intent” (his words), and in general has displayed a far better grasp of the Constitution, and the limitations of the federal government, than either Clinton or Trump. True, William Weld has voiced support for both Stephen Breyer and Merrick Garland as recently as last month. But compared to what both Clinton and Trump have said in the past with regard to the Supreme Court this is a minor comparison—even before we get to the part where, as Vice President, Weld would have no formal say in the appointment of judges.

So, to sum up—one candidate for President openly seeks to appoint extreme left-wing justices who support the idea of a “living Constitution”. Another candidate seems to believe that the ideal justice would place personal loyalty above all else, even when Constitutional principles like checks and balances, freedom of the press, and religious liberty stand in the way. And only one candidate regularly espouses Constitutional principles and has consistently promised to appoint strict originalist justices to the Court.

The Importance of Jill Stein

On Monday, when I listed some of the steps Gary Johnson would need to take if he hoped to be truly competitive, I neglected to mention one important additional factor. Not so much something that Johnson himself could control, but an outside factor that could nevertheless influence the election and therefore his, or Clinton’s or Trump’s, chances of winning—the candidacy of Jill Stein.

Stein, the Green Party nominee, is polling somewhere between two and six percent in national surveys, and as things now stand has no chance of making it onto the debate stage, let alone winning the Presidency. If the chances of Johnson winning are equivalent to me being struck by lightning at the same time a comet crashes into the Earth, Stein’s chances are roughly equivalent to me being struck by lightning while being eaten by a shark—at the same time the Earth is hit by a comet being ridden by little green men.

Nevertheless, Stein’s current 3.1% RealClearPolitics polling average is respectable for a third-party (fourth-party?) candidate, and is marginally better than the 2.7% Ralph Nader ender up pulling nationally in 2000. The lessons of that election show how meaningful minor-party candidacies can be in elections, even when they come nowhere close to actually winning.

Just as the Johnson-Weld ticket serves as an attractive rallying point for disaffected Republicans and conservative independents who reject both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Stein and the Green Party serve as an attractive, principled place to go for disaffected Democrats and liberal independents who reject Trump out of hand, but see Clinton as not sufficiently liberal, and just as dishonest and unfit for the Presidency as Trump. Even though Johnson is actively reaching out to these same voters, many will feel more ideologically at home with the liberal activists of the Green Party. The challenge for Stein becomes the need to spread the word about her candidacy and increase name recognition among these voters, particularly if Johnson makes the debate stage and she does not.

Still, with Johnson’s Republican credentials and past conservative record as governor, it’s hard to predict just how many Sanders voters will end up voting Libertarian and how many will support Stein. And if she manages to take a significant number of votes away from Clinton, the overall margin necessary to win both individual states and the national popular vote is decreased even further. A candidate winning only 30% of the vote could conceivably win several states and come close to winning the popular vote outright, adding even more unpredictability to an already crazy year.

How Gary Johnson Could Win

I should preface this by saying that I think it unlikely, to say the least, that the Johnson-Weld ticket will actually win. Despite Johnson’s current polling strength, he still has a long way to go before he’s even close to being a serious contender for the Presidency. The two major parties, though weakened, still retain a near monopoly over the electoral process, and there’s a reason why no independent or third-party candidate has come anywhere close to winning the White House since 1992, or indeed even won a state since 1968.

That being said, Johnson does have a chance of winning, however remote. Here’s his most likely path to victory:

1.      Manage to get up to 15% in national polls. According to the Commission on Presidential Debates, candidates who wish to participate in the debates must satisfy Constitutional requirements for holding office; obtain ballot access in enough states to “have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College”, and average 15% in national polls, using the most recent results from five different national polling groups. Any candidate who satisfies those three criteria before each of the three debates will be allowed to participate, and the running mate of each candidate who qualifies for the first debate (in late September) will automatically be allowed to participate in the single VP debate.

Johnson meets all age and residency requirements in the Constitution, and the Libertarian Party has already obtained ballot access in thirty-six states, more than fulfilling the second debate requirement. All that remains is achieving a polling average of 15% before late September. He has already hit 13% in some isolated polls, and currently hovers around 8% in the RealClearPolitics average. With both Trump and Clinton intensely disliked, and their numbers unlikely to improve dramatically anytime soon, it’s easy to imagine Johnson reaching 15% in the polling averages within the next six weeks.

2.      Perform well in the debates. Just showing up won’t be enough. Johnson would need to stand out and draw a clear contrast with both Trump and Clinton, while not fading into the background. (The same would go for Bill Weld in the VP debate.) He’s not the best debater or public speaker, so if he does make it into the debates he’ll need extensive debate prep. If he handles the debate effectively, however, tens of millions of voters will hear from him for the first time, and the majority who despise both Trump and Clinton will learn more about their third option.

3.      Capitalize on debate success. It won’t be enough to just have a successful debate or two and coast to November. Assuming he does have a good debate, Johnson would need to get out right away and start holding larger rallies, airing TV and radio ads, and in general take advantage of the record-setting fundraising the Libertarian Party is already reporting. He would also be much more in demand for interviews and other valuable opportunities of free air time that he should seize wherever possible.

4.      Target disaffected conservatives, moderates, independents, and Sanders supporters. Broadly, those groups represent Johnson’s best path to victory. And he’s already been reaching out to them to varying extents. What he needs to focus on right now are the conservative Republicans who are firmly #NeverTrump but aren’t currently supporting the Libertarian nominee, as well as Republicans who opposed Trump in the primary, are supporting him now only because he’s the nominee and is, they believe, better than Hillary—but could be persuaded to support a more principled choice, especially with aid from Trump himself.

Competing for Cruz and Sanders supporters simultaneously may seem counterintuitive, but there are ways Johnson can reach out to both camps without contradicting himself. Cruz voters will find Johnson’s stances in favor of limited government and free markets appealing, while Bernie bros will like his support of same-sex marriage, a dovish foreign policy, and attacks against a political system rigged in favor of the two major parties.

5.      Target specific states where Libertarians have the best chance of success. This will pose the most difficult problem for Johnson, as unlike a standard Republican or Democratic nominee he would essentially need to compete across the country, taking no state for granted. On the other hand, if the Libertarian ticket does become a serious threat, both Trump and Clinton would need to do likewise, as Johnson could put many reliable red and blue states in play, either by winning them outright or by serving as a spoiler and enabling one of the other major candidates to compete strongly.

The closest thing to a geographic base for Johnson would likely be the Mountain West, an area in which both Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders thrived during the primaries. Utah in particular is turning out to be highly competitive, and with a large number of undecided voters it could be especially receptive to a third-party message. States like Colorado, Montana, and the Dakotas also have strong libertarian bents. And in other parts of the country, Maine, Vermont, and Minnesota have shown a willingness to support independent and third-party candidacies for state office in the recent past. All could be fertile ground for Johnson to make the case for a Libertarian President.

I want to stress once again that I don’t think Johnson will actually win the Presidency. (For some perspective, no Libertarian nominee has ever won more than 1% of the vote.) This is just what he would need to do if he’s to have any realistic hope of winning.

But a year ago, no one would have expected Trump to be the Republican nominee, or Hillary to struggle to the very end of the primary season against Bernie Sanders. This is the year anything can happen, and there would be no better way to highlight that fact than to see a no-name third-party candidate win the White House.

Evan McMullin and Write-In Presidential Candidates

In case you haven’t yet heard, former CIA officer and House Republican policy director Evan McMullin has launched an independent campaign for President.

I’ll just go ahead and state the obvious—McMullin doesn’t have a chance of winning the election. Filing deadlines for ballot access will have already passed in roughly half the country by the end of the week, and even if he wanted to mount a legal challenge to those deadlines his campaign would be spending a crucial part of the election bogged down in court. The most likely result will be that he will be waging a write-in campaign in the majority of the country, a tactic that almost never ends well.

(There are exceptions—Lisa Murkowski won reelection as Alaska’s senior Senator in 2010 through a write-in campaign after losing the Republican primary, but she was already an incumbent with high name recognition. Almost no one had heard of McMullin before Monday. If an independent effort by a first-time candidate with no name recognition was to have a chance of influencing the election, it would have had to begin months ago.)

In addition, he has yet to earn any high-profile endorsements or significant financial backing. If people like Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, or the Koch brothers were to become seriously involved with the campaign, McMullin might begin earning more votes and making a bigger impact, but until something changes that looks unlikely.

This isn’t to say that any vote for McMullin is automatically a vote wasted because he can’t win—although Gary Johnson has a better chance of making an impact on the race, he has almost as little a chance of winning. This election, every voter needs to chart their own course and follow their conscience. And I’m sure McMullin has better principles and character than either Trump or Clinton (not, admittedly, a very high bar).

But when a candidate will likely only secure ballot access in a handful of states, has no significant backing, and enters the race only three months before Election Day, the question needs to be asked: Why does this candidate deserve my vote more than one of the third party candidates already on the ballot, or even one of the countless other possibilities for write-in candidates? Is this a serious effort to win, or just the addition of one more name to the nearly infinite list of choices to write in?

Of course, circumstances can always change. But for now, despite my issues with him, I’m sticking with Gary Johnson.

I'd Rather Have Mike Pence for VP, But...

…But I’d still rather vote for the Johnson-Weld ticket over Trump-Pence any day of the week.

No one can argue with any intellectual honesty that Bill Weld is more conservative than Mike Pence. On nearly every issue, from abortion and gun control to taxes, foreign policy, and the size of government, Pence is by far the more conservative of the two. Weld endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, praised Stephen Breyer and Merrick Garland as ideal Supreme Court justices in a recent interview, and has supported a number of liberal causes throughout his career. Even many in the Libertarian Party, both before and after his nomination, questioned whether he truly believed in a libertarian vision of government.

Mike Pence has his own flaws, to be sure. Most recently, and of most relevance to his potential service as Vice President, has been his repudiation of his own past statements and policy positions merely to earn the approval of Trump and his closest supporters. He has proven himself unwilling to stick up for his beliefs and for what he knows to be the right course of action, a key requirement for anyone wishing to serve as the Vice President of Donald Trump.

But comparing his flaws and policy positions with those of Bill Weld, Pence would still be the better, more reliable VP. If given the opportunity to vote separately for the next Vice President, I would choose the latter in a heartbeat.

Of course, that’s not the way national elections are conducted in America, and the top of the ticket has to be the prevailing concern. Considering the options put forth by the organized political parties, Gary Johnson is by far the best choice for the Presidency. Allowing the running mates of each nominee, candidates for an office which holds little formal constitutional authority, to significantly influence the choice between the nominees themselves, is foolish.

So I will happily vote for Bill Weld for Vice President, because every ticket is a package deal, and Gary Johnson would be an infinitely better President than Donald Trump.

Gary Johnson for President

I have long said that both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are corrupt, liberal power-mongers without morals or any ethical compunction whatsoever. Both care more about winning elections and improving their own brands than about the future of the country. Neither is fit for the office of the Presidency.

Gary Johnson is neither corrupt, liberal, nor lacking in moral fiber, which by definition makes him the best choice for President in 2016.

Johnson, a former Republican governor now running under the Libertarian banner, is everything Trump and Clinton are not—namely, a fierce proponent of limited government and constitutional liberty. He alone among the significant candidates for President has consistently stood up for all rights enumerated in the Constitution, from the right to bear arms to the right of religious liberty. He alone has made the national debt and entitlement reform key aspects of his campaign, recognizing that a balanced budget is key to securing America’s future. And he alone has proven that he can be trusted to put principles and country ahead of personal gain.

As governor of New Mexico, Johnson proved that he has the will to follow through on his promises. He managed to balance the state budget while cutting taxes fourteen times, and vetoed over seven hundred bills approved by the heavily Democratic state legislature. At the same time, he worked to find common ground with Democrats, leading to a comfortable reelection in a solidly blue state.

Johnson is a libertarian, not a full-spectrum conservative, and therefore some of his positions will leave conservative voters dissatisfied. He, like Clinton and Trump, disavows the Iraq War, as well as the “chaotic, reactive military and foreign policies” of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush. He, like Clinton and the Trump of 2013, also supports some form of amnesty for illegal immigrants, and opposes increased border security. And he opposes the death penalty for any and all offenses.

Yet even on many issues most likely to drive a wedge between conservatives and libertarians, Johnson walks a fine line between appeasing the base of his own party and reaching out to disaffected conservatives. Most notably on abortion, which the platform of his own party endorses as a woman’s right, Johnson declares himself to be personally pro-life. While supporting some legal abortion access at the state level, as governor he also signed a bill banning late-term abortions, supports parental-notification laws, and believes Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned. His pro-life credentials are already therefore stronger and more consistent than those of either Trump or Clinton.

And beyond issues of policy, Johnson has proven himself to be a man of high character and strong moral fiber. With him in the White House, there will be no mishandling of classified information, shady financial dealings, or lawsuits brought by scammed customers of discredited universities. He will truly do credit to the office of Washington, Lincoln, and Reagan.

Gary Johnson for President.