[Diogenesis]

"Can I get me a drink for Bill Weld, here?"

[Reno89519]

Johnson and Stein are jokes. That anyone would vote for either raises the question if they should be voting at all. I don’t think Lyn’ Ted’s few remaining supporters would even do that.

[Vaquero]

Rush Limbaugh has Johnson actually taking votes away from Hitlery. I wouldn’t be surprised if Milennials flock to him out of protest. His large ‘L’ libertarianism is laughable to conservatives and real libertarians.

[WashingtonFire]

Anybody who votes for Johnson ahead of Trump is a traitor

[OrioleFan]

My brother-in-law in Minnesota is voting for Johnson because he’s pro thorium reactors. Maybe DFL does stand for Democrats for Libertarians...

[NonValueAdded]

But what of Ross Perot?

[BruceS]

Perhaps someone could help me with a question that I have always had about 3rd party candidates, especially the Libertarians. To this point, no 3rd party candidate has won a single Congressional district or state-wide race (I don't count Lieberman, Sanders or King from Maine in the Senate - they ran as independent, but Democrat). If you can't win in a single Congressional district, why do you run for President?

And don't mention Ron Paul. He was/is a libertarian, but always ran as a Republican.

[SoFloFreeper]

With the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein together expected to capture ten percent or more of the popular vote in November....

[mindburglar]

Everytime I hear some dipshit call himself a libertarian I just laugh and walk away. Most of these dopes don’t even smoke pot...Yeah!

[jmaroneps37]

They won’t draw flies. Pot head= 1.5% Green Fool =.75% bye bye.

[Impy]

In all likelihood Woodrow Wilson would have won the presidency in 1912 even if Roosevelt had not been on the ballot

I disagree, Wilson got fewer votes than Taft's 1908 opponent WJ Bryan, Taft almost certainly would have won sans TR's indie bid, unless the socialist Debs also didn't run. FU Teddy. The author overstates "progressive Republican antipathy" to Taft. TR's personal popularity is what pulled away the majority of GOP voters.

And Nader absolutely did cost Gore the White House and Stein could well cost Clinton. When you lose a very close election you can point to any number of reasons that would have made the difference and Nader certainly was one for Gore. If were a democrat, I'd loate Nader and eternally curse his name.

I think Clinton would have still narrowly won in both 1992 and 1996 sans Perot, but it would have close and certainly there would have been a good chance for GOP victory.

I'll name a third party candidate those of you who aren't geeks have never heard of, James Franklin "Frank" Hanley, the Prohibition Party nominee in 1916. He got almost 28,000 votes in Cali, Wilson won that state's decisive evotes by a fraudulent margin of less than 4 k. I couldn't tell you for sure how those votes would have broken down if Hanley wasn't an option (the major parties were trying to stay neutral on the issue I think) but Hughes making up such a small deficit, certainly possible if not likely. Hanley had been the Republican Governor of Indiana.

So yes, third party candidates can and have altered election outcomes and it's perfectly proper to blame them if you didn't like the outcome.

Jill Stein should avoid small planes.