Gary Johnson

[jpx7]

Gary Johnson—and Jill Stein, for that matter—can focus on their respective strong suits—like ideological purity, holier-than-thou posturing, and smug sideline sniping.

Et tu, Julio? Sad to see you using that strawman truncheon.

[Julio3000]

Et tu, Julio? Sad to see you using that strawman truncheon.

Yeah, me too. I've been critical of the Republicans allowing their party to be ruled by purity-testers whose knife-arms are really only long enough to reach their own noses. I'm not interested in watching the Democrats do the same thing, irrespective of the fact that I'm ideologically aligned with them. I'm with 50# here, in this situation, in preferring a technocrat to a doomed revolutionary.

I don't think a progressive legislative agenda has a snowball's chance in hell until there are some baseline changes that are going to take both Supreme Court action and a broad, probably bipartisan congressional majority. Citizens United has to be overturned and access to the polls has to become both broader and easier. Neither a protest vote nor a vote of conscience is going to deliver either of those things, but a vote for a seriously flawed but viable top-ticket candidate actually could. Being a middle-aged ****, I am more comfortable with 50% of something instead of 100% of nothing.

[acesfull86]

not what but where ?

Philadelphia, according to his Twitter

[jpx7]

Yeah, me too. I've been critical of the Republicans allowing their party to be ruled by purity-testers whose knife-arms are really only long enough to reach their own noses. I'm not interested in watching the Democrats do the same thing, irrespective of the fact that I'm ideologically aligned with them. I'm with 50# here, in this situation, in preferring a technocrat to a doomed revolutionary.

I don't think a progressive legislative agenda has a snowball's chance in hell until there are some baseline changes that are going to take both Supreme Court action and a broad, probably bipartisan congressional majority. Citizens United has to be overturned and access to the polls has to become both broader and easier. Neither a protest vote nor a vote of conscience is going to deliver either of those things, but a vote for a seriously flawed but viable top-ticket candidate actually could. Being a middle-aged ****, I am more comfortable with 50% of something instead of 100% of nothing.

I've closely followed elections since 2000, and voted consistently and regularly (even in midterms!) for Democratic candidates since I could legally vote (which began with the 2004 election). I've always been left of the party, but I've grown further left while they've seemingly grown further right; likewise, all the progressive promises the party's made in the past fifteen-plus years have either fallen far short, or—far too often—actually ended with backsliding.

You can fairly place some blame, especially over the past half-decade, on an uncompromising, intractable, mostly bellicose right. But you can also pretty fairly blame the party for a doubling-down on neoliberal, meritocratic-fallacy politics. This policy perspective was initially implemented under the first Clinton's regime, and I think is best summed by its focus on the slimy, right-pandering euphemistic programs to help for the "working poor" (because **** the rest of the poor, right?); obviously there was pressure of an unfriendly Congress, but these ideals nonetheless buttressed the devastating "welfare reform" Clinton put into practice. It's also seen, more recently and at the more local level (and this one's close to home—or former home, at least), in the technocratic embrace of projects like charter schools, which are largely pro-corporate and anti-union and statistical-model-obsessed. And lastly, but perhaps most viscerally, it's detectable in the haute-smug, "we have the facts" tactics—furiously on display this cycle—that seeks to deny the agency of sentiment in politics, and which belies the putatively-progressive and -democratic goodwill of party actors. In any instantiation, it's the emergent coefficient to a greater coziness with capital and a further disregard for—and even an endgame dissolution of—labor (and with it, obviously, non-elite solidarity). In Clinton redux—even though I find her a more capable public servant than her husband, on the balance—it's almost a tripling-down of this posture; and—given the vitriol disseminated by the establishment and its surrogates through the primary season (and continuing beyond the primaries, despite Sander's capitulation)—it feels like a bald and icy repudiation of the left as a real flank within the Democratic Party.

Maybe that should inspire me to struggle even more to modify the party from within, but the tea-leaves just don't read like that for me at this point (and the last time leftists tried that, it didn't work out so well). Maybe the Democratic Party's deeply disappointing me my entire voting life—even in spite of the fact that I understand that institutional politics is, to a large extent, a practice in disappointment—has simply soured me. Maybe the party's salting that disappointment by taking my support as a given—or worse, something owed—has irrevocably broken my investment in their tent. Maybe I'm still young enough, with at least a decade left before middle-age, that I can swallow starting over while there's still time.

Regardless, it's not "ideological purity", nor a putting the perfect before the good, nor holier-than-thou out-grouping, nor a wish (unlike some far leftists) to burn the thing down to 100% of nothing rather accept a highly-qualified something. Not for me, at least—and not for a lot of others expressing dissent with the Democratic Party. For me, it's a belief that there will always be a boogeyman to collapse left energy back into the liberal hegemony, but at a certain point it ceases to be worth voting from that place of fear. For me, it's the belief that the party isn't really going to let itself be pushed from within—not substantially, anyways; not enough—and so there comes a time when it's more worthwhile to push them from without.

[57Brave]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/01/politi...trump-florida/

Bradshaw said she hasn't yet decided who she'll vote for -- though "it obviously won't be Trump. I haven't made a decision yet between Clinton, Gary Johnson or writing in a candidate."
"If the race in Florida is close, I will vote for Hillary Clinton," she said.

[weso1]

I honestly think Gary Johnson is only a libertarian because of pot. Other than that I think he'd wind up being pretty moderate.

[57Brave]

The good news today?

After Trump --- Johnson - Weld getting traction.
Guessing they cross the 15% marker by Sept 1.
and I'd wager he gets on the debate stage then perhaps overtake Trump. Perhaps
Provided there still is a Trump

I still don't think him a good candidate for two reasons.
1) Here is one policy example. He favors privatizing the prison system
2) I don't think he has the experience for the national and/or international stage.
wonder if HRC would use him in her administration in some role, cabinet or Ambassador

Seeing how the Libertarian Party is another (R) party, I wonder why he or Weld didn't get involved in (R) Presidential politics in 2013 or 14
Just one more of those questions that won't be answered for another 10 years.
Can't wait to read about this election once the dust settles and it becomes history

[acesfull86]

Seeing how the Libertarian Party is another (R) party, I wonder why he or Weld didn't get involved in (R) Presidential politics in 2013 or 14

You saying this doesn'tt make it true. From a non-interventionist foreign policy, to supporting a woman's right to choose, to wanting to end the war on drugs, to being pro-gay marriage, to being free trade, I'm not seeing how Johnson fits in with the current GOP platform. I guess they agree on the 2nd amendment.

[acesfull86]

Duplicate post

[57Brave]

Seeing how the Libertarian Party is another (R) party, I wonder why he or Weld didn't get involved in (R) Presidential politics in 2013 or 14

You saying this doesn'tt make it true. From a non-interventionist foreign policy, to supporting a woman's right to choose, to wanting to end the war on drugs, to being pro-gay marriage, to being free trade, I'm not seeing how Johnson fits in with the current GOP platform. I guess they agree on the 2nd amendment.

The similarity ( the Hooverism) is the unflinching desire to cut the New Deal off at the knees.
Deregulation
Top down government

Social issues come and go but this overriding philosophy has endured
In the 1990's (I think) one of the Koch Brothers was the VP nominee to Libertarian Party
Tell me,
Does anyone really think the Koch Brothers give 2 rats asses about a womans right to choose ?
The war on drugs? Gay Marriage ?

How deos that old saying go, "follow the money"

[Tapate50]

The good news today?

After Trump --- Johnson - Weld getting traction.
Guessing they cross the 15% marker by Sept 1.
and I'd wager he gets on the debate stage then perhaps overtake Trump. Perhaps
Provided there still is a Trump

I still don't think him a good candidate for two reasons.
1) Here is one policy example. He favors privatizing the prison system
2) I don't think he has the experience for the national and/or international stage.
wonder if HRC would use him in her administration in some role, cabinet or Ambassador

Seeing how the Libertarian Party is another (R) party, I wonder why he or Weld didn't get involved in (R) Presidential politics in 2013 or 14
Just one more of those questions that won't be answered for another 10 years.
Can't wait to read about this election once the dust settles and it becomes history

And this was a lot of folks primary gripe with BO resume at the time.

[57Brave]

Agree to a point.
Obama was a member of the US Senate when he ran with hands on access to current legislation and briefings .
Johnson hasn't held office for over 15years (?) and that was Governor of a state with a population less than that of Brooklyn, NY.
Not disqualifying but to my eyes, doesn't check the experience box.

I am curious what he does or what he gets offered after the election.
As in willing to grow from this experience - recruit down ballot (L) or even become a member of a Clinton Administration

[57Brave]

I am listening to an interview with Gary Johnson and thinking Mitch MCConnell , Chuck Shumer , Nancy Pelosi and Ted Cruz would eat him for lunch.
What he and Jane Stein say sound great but, the rubber will always meet the road.

Nor to mention had he been on the (R) debate stage.
If we are electing a Sunday School teacher, I might vote for Johnson.
Otherwise all those nice sounding things he says stand 0 chance of becoming law.

He is not going to cut military spending by closing bases.
He is not going to completly restructure Social Security
and
He will not eliminate corporate and income taxes.

All of those things are at best 25-30 years down the road
That road does not start from the White House.
All of the bridges he would burn by even bringing those issues up at the national level would politically leave him beyond ineffective
As I watch Johnson and Stein I think you have to give Sen Sanders credit for recognizing the process and that the ship of state doe not turn around in a swimming pool

I did see one person running for Congress from the (L)
I haven't seen anyone from the Green Party

[57Brave]

Has anyone else actually heard this candidate grilled on his "policies" and temperament.

Let me put it this way, if he was running for Sheriff of Mayberry RFD he'd have my vote
He can gosh and golly with the best of them.

Toward the end of the interview his feet were held to the fire, because when you get right to it, he does have competing interests. In a nut shell he became testy and kept repeating "2 term Governor in a red state"
as if ...
////

should he get to the debate stage -- he will get gutted

[sturg33]

Has anyone else actually heard this candidate grilled on his "policies" and temperament.

Let me put it this way, if he was running for Sheriff of Mayberry RFD he'd have my vote
He can gosh and golly with the best of them.

Toward the end of the interview his feet were held to the fire, because when you get right to it, he does have competing interests. In a nut shell he became testy and kept repeating "2 term Governor in a red state"
as if ...
////

should he get to the debate stage -- he will get gutted

I love how you act like he has no experience.

When in fact he has the most governing experience of any candidate in the race

[acesfull86]

I'll take my chances of him getting "gutted"...just get him on the stage...

[57Brave]

I love how you act like he has no experience.

When in fact he has the most governing experience of any candidate in the race

The Mayor of Brooklyn has more experience and from my last hearing thicker skin
and has actually governed since the rise of Twitter, text messaging , Uber , widespread use of analytic's in sport, Facebook, etc etc etc.
oh yeah, Barrack Obama was still an unknown Illinois State Senator the last time Tommy Laste ... I mean Gary Johnson governed.
wow, Obama still hadn't said "no red states-blue staes ..."
Hillary Clinton was in the US Senate for 8 years and Sec of State for 4. It is mathamatically impossible to back up the statement Johnson has
' the most governing experience of any candidate in the race "
So Sandersesque

I think you get the idea

[sturg33]

The Mayor of Brooklyn has more experience and from my last hearing thicker skin
and has actually governed since the rise of Twitter, text messaging , Uber , widespread use of analytic's in sport, Facebook, etc etc etc.
oh yeah, Barrack Obama was still an unknown Illinois State Senator the last time Tommy Laste ... I mean Gary Johnson Governed.
wow, Obama still hadn't said "no red states-blue staes ..."

I think you get the idea

You're a sad dude.

If you were as much of a Bernie supporter as you claim... I'm surprised you're not more favorable to the governor.

Only difference is Johnson's made decisions that affect the lives of real people... and was immensely successful in doing so.

Bernie has just gotten rich in our rich country by complaining about rich people for his career

[57Brave]

I'll take my chances of him getting "gutted"...just get him on the stage...

Said, Lil Marco, Lyin Ted,Low Energy Jeb ...

[weso1]

Speaking of that, what kind of nicknames do you think Trump would have for Gary Johnson? lil Johnson might have hit too close to home for Trump.