Politico: “[Former New Mexico governor and presidential candidate Gary] Johnson had run a New Hampshire-centric effort that never got him past a blip in the polls.”
This is the same Gary Johnson who nearly forgot to file to appear on the New Hampshire ballot, right? “Johnson successfully rushed to New Hampshire overnight Thursday after his campaign made the embarrassing realization that he might miss the state’s filing deadline.”
In his announcement of his Libertarian bid, I expect we’ll hear a lot of complaining about how the media never gave him a chance, and a lot of talk about how the “establishment” suppressed his campaign, and a lot of blame placed everywhere except on the candidate and his staff.
It’s a bunch of baloney (other words would apply, too). Ron Paul is running on a similar platform and is close to winning Iowa today. Herman Cain represented a less likely résumé and he was frontrunner for a while. Michele Bachmann has never won statewide office the way Johnson had, and she enjoyed frontrunner status and won the Ames straw poll.
You could argue that with the renewed emphasis on economics and runaway government spending, the Republican primary electorate has never been more receptive to a libertarian-style sales pitch than it is today. And yet Gary Johnson can’t get to 1 percent in a bunch of polls, even in the state he’s allegedly targeted the most. He’s at 1 percent in PPP’s survey of New Hampshire; Suffolk asked 400 New Hampshire Republicans their preference and 3 answered “Gary Johnson.”
Sometimes, a candidate just isn’t any good.
Herman Cain, he of light resume and vacuous candidacy, was included in all national polls and every Republican debate. Gary Johnson was included in few of either one.
Joe McQuaid decided that he did not particularly care for Gary Johnson's socially liberal message, so he devised criteria to exclude him from the Union Leader's debate, while simultaneously including candidates polling worse than Johnson, like Rick Santorum. Other debate organizers quickly followed suit. Polling organizations conspired to exclude Johnson from polls. The most notable example of this was when CNN discontinued listing Johnson as a candidate immediately after his poll numbers exceeded those of Jon Huntsman. There's a reason you cited a PPP poll: they are the only polling organization to include Johnson.
Polls reflect visibility and name recognition, and various entities have conspired to ensure that Johnson received neither, just as somehow the leading candidate in Iowa, Ron Paul, has received the least amount of speaking time of any candidate during debates. The establishment is absolutely terrified of libertarian candidates, as they mean an end to the entire insidious, pandering, ceaseless expansion of government beloved by liberals and conservatives alike.
Realistically, what the National Review should take away from Johnson's candidacy is that it would have been far better for the Republican party to give Johnson a seat at the table and allow the voters to decide whether they cared for his message or not. Instead, they conspired to silence him, so he's taking his message to the Libertarian Party, where he'll likely siphon off voters that would have otherwise voted Republican in the general election. Perhaps it might be better to let voters decide who the "viable" and "leading" candidates are, rather than media elites.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCareful slinging that "baloney" charge around, Jim.
I'll echo the previous commenter that Johnson was excluded from multiple polls and debates when he was polling around the same level as Santorum. (and within a few points of other longshots as well, if memory serves), even though his two term governorship resume is just objectively better than at least half the current field.
There was nearly endless fascination with the non-candidacies of Trump and Palin, but I don't remember five minutes of airtime for Johnson's views - which I'd add are likely more palatable than Paul's for many general election voters, seeing as how he doesn't subscribe to the gold standard weirdness.
Are the candidate and his staff blameless? Of course not. He could and should have done more to get airtime and made more hay out of being shut out by the media, but ultimately, the blind eye that the news turned to him reflects worse on the status of serious political discourse in this country than it does on Gary Johnson.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGary Johnson knows there isn't a chance in hell he could win the Presidency. SO, a run is simply self-love. We've heard his shtick, and we didn't bite. If he loves his country, he will support the Republican nominee and help to defeat Obama.
If he pulls a percentage of votes from the Republican "not Obama" candidate, and Obama wins, Johnson will be the most hated man in America.
Gary Johnson is not going to grow on us.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is a chicken and egg type situation here. Johnson being excluded made him seem like a fringe candidate. He was polling about the same as Santorum during these early exclusions. The GOP left a popular two term Governor out and included a philandering pizza company executive who's never held any political office. We should include guys that have shown they can win because we want to win. But we don't because we want to pound our chests about stupid crap and run Bob Doles to fall on the sword. Bah Humbug.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWith all due respect to Jim Geraghty, who I don't think has ever elected anybody to anything ,Gary Johnson's potential is far greater than he believes, based on the diversity of his issue positions, all of which are dictated by his consistent libertarian philosophy. As a former two-term Governor with what NATIONAL REVIEW called a superior job creation record than either Rick Perry or Mitt Romney, Johnson is far more credible that Bob Barr, the non-libertarian who captured the LP nomination in in 2008.
American voters have never been offered a real libertarian choice i.e. someone who is for smaller government, cutting spending, ending debt, withdrawing from senseless and expensive foreign wars and standing up for gun-owners rights at the same time they favor a women's right to choose, marriage equality for gays ( as required by the constitution) and legal marijuana. While Ron Paul shares many of these views he is not a pure libertarian-- yet his has gotten traction in the GOP nomination process.
Johnson has not gotten support because his views remain unknown to the voting public based solely on his arbitrary exclusion from the debates. Why anyone would include Rick Santorum who's poll numbers register in the same 1% neighborhood yet exclude Johnson is anyone's guess but elitist censorship come to mind.
As a candidate for the Libertarian Party nomination Johnson will be eligible for Federal matching funds. The Libertarians will be on the ballot in 50 states. The New York Times breathlessly writes about the left-of-center American's Elect being a "new 3rd Party" when we already have a third party, the Libertarians who were on all the ballot in all 50 states in 2008.
America is about to meet Governor Gary Johnson and his Freedom Agenda. They are going to like what they see..
Roger Stone
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI can't agree more with this comment. Johnson is the perfect foil to both Obama and the (R) that would lose to him in November regardless of Johnson entering the race. Paul, while a decent candidate, is not, as the poster writes, as pure a libertarian as Johnson -- his message will resonate with the left and the right, and ultimately he'll make a run of it (already at 9% in a recent poll).
Right now the (R)'s have a choice between non-Conservative Romney and a "social" conservative/big government (code words for -- "I'm all for freedom and liberty unless you disagree with my religious views that I want to impose upon you.") in Santorum. Neither of these guys will beat Obama, and neither one, honestly, should. Why bother electing a big government (R), I'd rather the GOP lose horribly and have to make the realization that they are out of touch with American voters.
Can Johnson win? Sure, it's unlikely, he's not a firebrand speaker, but his message will resonate enough to make the GOP realize that they are screwed unless they change their tune, and lose the big government, bomb everyone, let's all be close-minded garbage that their "front runners" (i.e. losers to Obama) espouse.
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