June 30, 2016

The Gary Johnson/William Weld alternative.

24 comments:

johns said...

Johnson/Weld is all about policy. Who cares about policy? Sadly, no one does these days. It is all about scorched earth tactics now. If Trump wins, will the future be all about what celebrity best connects with the public? I am hoping that is not our future, but I have trouble seeing that policy will play any role.
Of course, when the POTUS ignores the law, Congress can policy itself blue in the face and it doesn't mean anything.

Nonapod said...

While I'd much rather see him as president than either of the other two, I'm not super excited about his idea of cutting 43% of the military budget. He seems to align perfectly with the official Libertarian Party platform on Foreign policy in general. Personal I'm a skeptical hawk I guess.

traditionalguy said...

Imagine that. There are two old Republicans from before the 2008 Crash eliminated Americas strength offering to run against the Republican candidate.

They ask why risk Trump's leadership and common Populism when the Old GOP is ready to offer us a way to split the Populist Trump vote and automatically crown Bloody Hillary as Queen, the same way Perot crowned Horndog Bill King 24 years ago.

They must think we are all stupid druggies like their friends are.

eric said...

The one thing I like about these guys is that, according to polls, they take from both candidates equally.

This means no spoiler.

Nonapod said...

Although the only path to victory I could imagine for Gary Johnson is if Loretta Lynch becomes host to an alien parasite that puppeteers her to indict Hillary, and then immediately after that Donald Trump dies in a freak spray tanning accident.

tim maguire said...

Could be a good introductory video--follow it up witha series of one or two minute pieces on each policy idea they mentioned.

It was a little cutesy, though. More seriousness would be nice.

Brando said...

It would be nice if either of the major parties nominated someone who could stand up to the security theater hysteria, the drug war hysteria, the PC hysteria and the overregulation hysteria, while at the same time upholding the rule of law and limited government. Sadly, neither party has given us that choice this year, to any extent. So the Libertarians are looking better and better--and actually are nominating guys each with more governing experience than the two major party clowns.

It'd be nice if the Libertarians could realistically win, and teach the GOP and Dems a lesson about not picking the most grossly unqualified, corrupt and hated people they could find.

Clayton Hennesey said...

Johnson's intelligent immigration reform unpacks differently under cross examination. At the 5:30+ mark Tucker Carlson provides Johnson with the opportunity to declare that he is for unlimited immigration: "Get the government out of the immigration business." "There either will be jobs or there won't be jobs."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT7uxOsf0LI

Later in the segment Johnson's head begins to swivel as he tries to look at all of those at the desk simultaneously, leaving him looking uncomfortably like a flustered goose with Graves disease. One naturally wonders what a Putin or a Xi would make of this.

There is much to admire about much of Johnson's thinking that works superbly in a term paper.

Sharc said...

Feel the Johnson!

buwaya said...

Grossly unqualified seems to describe the Libertarians - If they were qualified they would be popular. We are speaking of politicians getting elected here, not some search for a mid-level executive. Even CEO searches are political exercises that favor political skills.
As for policy - good luck. Damned few academics even care to discuss policy on a substantial level. The stuff at, say, Brookings, is generally of dreadful quality.
Consider an argument on regulatory reform - can it even happen? If it did, what form would it take? There you go.

buwaya said...

"Who cares about policy? Sadly, no one does these days."

No one ever, in any intelligent way. Taking the high road on this stuff is just a rhetorical trick. There is no science here, no Feynman bending over backwards to ensure the integrity of the experiment and data. There's no engineering-process iterative empiricism either. A policy is a set of rice bowls defended or attacked for reasons of interest.
Politics cannot be about policy because politics as a process is too fundamentally corrupt to evaluate policy with any integrity.

rehajm said...

Two men unburdened by the consequences of losing.

rehajm said...

In the middle of the night Weld took down the Newton tolls at a time when I often couldn't afford tolls.

JAORE said...

Who could be against "intelligent" immigration reform... or "reasonable" gun control?

Why only the unintelligent and unreasonable....

Prolly racist too.

Capitol Report New Mexico said...

Policy aside, Gary Johnson is honest. That's his reputation here in New Mexico. So would you rather have an honest policy discussion instead of the lies, equivocations and dishonesty of Clinton and Trump.
Also, a New Mexico business leader told me recently told me that bill proposals taken to Johnson as governor got one of three responses, with no B/S: Johnson would say: I'm for it. Or I'm against it. Or fix these these things and I will be for it.
We got a call recently from a relative in southwest Wisconsin who is troubled by Clinton and Trump and who voted for Sanders in the Wisconsin primary due to unhappiness with the current system. I told her about Johnson. She liked what she heard. So if you like Johnson, call your friends around the country. Tell them to call their friends. Create a spontaneous grassroots movement. Change the world.

Gospace said...

Are #youin?

No.

AS I've noted before, there's no way I could vote for a ticket that includes William Weld, who brought Massachusetts to the forefront of 16th century science by appointing the first ever official state astrologer in the country.

As stands now, this is the ultimate lesser of two evils election, and the lesser of two evils, by a very large margin, is Trump.

If I want the greater of two evils, I'll go all the way here: https://cthulhuforamerica.com/


gadfly said...

So Bill Weld did this incredibly bad thing of appointing a MA astrologer - which cost nothing and which did no harm is somehow comparable to supporting Trump, the crazy New York Liberal who spends all night on twitter attacking his critics. He even got mad at folks who have audacity of moving Twinkies and Oreos production to Mexico - its the Mexican problem!

Good luck with your decision tree, Harold.

Sebastian said...

End the wars, make "intelligent" immigration policy . . . OK, sure.

mikee said...

I, too, remember Ross Perot helping elect Bill Clinton.

gadfly said...

@rehajm said...
Two men unburdened by the consequences of losing.

A new concept - the consequences of losing. What consequences do Hillary and Donald face?

Gospace said...

gadfly said...
So Bill Weld did this incredibly bad thing of appointing a MA astrologer

IMHO, it's one of the many bad things William Weld did. But really, someone who does that, how can YOU take him seriously? He has demonstrated that he readily believes in nonsense, and is willing to give a state imprimatur so that others might also do so. What other nonsense beliefs does he have?

Trump, OTOH, hasn't actually done anything except run his mouth. Has demonstrated he's a real person with real emotions and real feelings. Is that bad? And, his ex-wives all SUPPORT him. That's saying a lot about his judgment. Of a few dozen people I know with ex-wives, a few of them can be left alone in a room with them without a referee. The presumptive Democrat could be replaced by a humanoid robot and no one could tell the difference.

And- he's {probably} not going to gut the defense budget, as the libertarians will try. The world's a dangerous place. There's a lot of people out there who don't like us simply because we are us. They don't need any other reason.

Between Monica Lewinsky's ex-boyfriend's wife, libertarians who would trust the rest of the world to behave sanely in spite of evidence they don't and won't, and Trump, Trump is still the lesser of the evils.

If it looks like the Libertarians can take my state- I'll vote for them. It'll throw the election to the legislature. And the presidency to a Republican who won't be Trump. At this point, best option.

WarrenPeese said...

If you're moderate conservative as well as NeverTrump and NeverHillary, Johnson-Weld is the best available choice, with the full knowledge that it's a 3rd party protest vote.

dbp said...

I'm in! Well, I'm in Massachucetts, so the stakes could not be lower: If Hillary loses here, it will be a Trump landslide. Trump has next to no chance in the bay state, but if he did somehow win, he won't need Massachucetts.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Neither he Libertarians nor the Green Party are serious alternatives.