Libertarian Gary Johnson Polls at 10 Percent. Who Are His Supporters?

NY Times ^ | Sept. 4, 2016 | GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

[Paradox]

I consider myself a libertarian. And this year more than any other, the Libertarian ticket is anything but. They are less Libertarian, than Trump is a Republican, that’s for sure. I do note this, that it seems like he draws MORE from Hillary than from Trump......

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

“What he can do, however, is take away enough votes from Hillary to ensure Donald Trump wins the presidency.”
_________________________________________________________

I am A-OK with that line of thinking!

[Rinnwald]

Not voting for anybody. Johnson’s just as pathetic as everybody else.

You could just write your own name in. You know you want to.

[GregoTX]

No, Clinton won because Bush and Dole were lousy candidates who couldn’t energize voters.

Bush and Dole were lousy candidates... terrible candidates. They would have won if Perot hadn't split the vote. Perot wasn't stealing to many democrat votes. Clinton wont with much less than 50%.

[Reily]

You can think that way if you want but the practicalities of it is the fact we don't have a parliamentary system. We have a system purposely designed by the Founding Fathers to minimize “factions” - What Founding Fathers called political parties. (Political parties didn't really exist then as we know them!) What is the minimum number of factions to have and not have a one party state, like North Korea. The number is two. Our system forces the contending political forces in the nation down to two choices. You may not like that but that's the way it is. Major parties have come and gone in the past, but you always end up with 2 major ones, that is not by historical accident but by design. Minor political parties exist to make philosophical points and that's about it. Voting for them is the equivalent of not voting in our system.

When you vote two things happen, you deny power to one and grant power to another. One may be more important then the other. We can always survive a mediocrity but a potentially dangerous megalomaniac like Hellary, that might be a different story. Hellary is not a weak snowflake like Zero, or her husband. (He was into politics to get laid!) Hellary wants to make a difference and doesn't care who or how many she steps on to do it. That kind of ambition should never be rewarded.

So are you really comfortable handing Hellary power? That's what you will do if you vote 3rd party. I don't have to believe in Trump or someone, be someones’ fan boy to vote for them (I am no ones fan boy!) It's always nice to vote for someone who shares most of your principles, but sometimes you have to vote for the least dangerous. Picking the least dangerous is what we have here. And so what switching political parties, Churchill did it multiple times - 3 I think. (One could argue that Churchill was his own political party and tried on others to suit his tastes & beliefs.

[discostu]

Hell no, what if I won?! Then I gotta move to DC, I hate snow.

[discostu]

I think he stole pretty evenly from both sides. Folk like to focus on his somewhat conservative talk, but a lot of it wasn’t conservative so much as anti-business as usual. Well in ‘92 business as usual was Bush. And given how long Dole had been in the Senate was at least as much business as usual as Clinton.

With both major candidates polling around 40% this year’s winner might be looking up at Clinton’s numbers.

[Flick Lives]

any claim he’s got any serious support is some sort of false manipulation for ??? Purpose —???

---

The MSM want to maneuver him into the debates. They figure it will allow them to double- team Trump, give Hillary more time to rest during the debate, and they will try and sell Johnson as a viable choice in the hope of taking votes away from Trump.

[discostu]

The Founding Fathers didn’t make political parties. Actually Jefferson talked about banning them, but couldn’t figure out how to do that and have a robust 1st Amendment. Our system does NOT force contending political forces to two choices, the two supreme parties have done that. We’ve had more than 2 significant parties in this country many times. Both these parties are upstarts that replaced existing parties. There’s no reason to be stuck with these two.

When I vote I do ONE THING. Declare my preference among the options presented. This declaring that it must be 1 or the other is how we’ve landed in this situation where both parties are terrible and don’t give a damn about the people, the country, or any kind of core belief system. The Democratic and Republican parties only have one belief, and it’s one they share and they help each other achieve: that all power in this country should be divided between them. The GOP would rather the Dems win than any “3rd party” and vice versa. Which is why they’ve put out the party faithful to make sure everybody understands that not voting for their guy is the same as voting for the other. It’s funny to watch people who hate each other saying the EXACT SAME THING. Dems are making the exact same statement as you, except their paragraph reads “Drumph” instead of “Hellary”. As long as people are willing to believe it must be one or the other we’ll keep getting worse and worse candidates. There’s a good reason almost came down to an independent vs a 5 time party changer and right now both nominees are having a hard time cracking 40. People are starting to catch on to the mono party, they’re tired of either/ or. Maybe a few of them are even reading their history books and realizing we are NOT a two party system and BOTH these were 3rd parties once.

I’m not comfortable with ANY of the current candidates having power. I’ve done the hold my nose thing. Then for the next 4 years every time they did something stupid I had to think about how I voted for that jerk. So I stopped. Until there’s a candidate worth my vote none of them get it. Period.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Here’s my theory. Most people hate to waste their vote. They may be ticked off now but when push comes to shove most will vote for one or the other of the two major candidates.

[Nifster]

Ignore all media

Get Out The Vote

[Reily]

How did you interpret what I said as the Founding Fathers making political parties? They were abhorrent to them.
If you got that out of what I typed then you didn’t read what I said.

It’s clear Hellary having power works for you.
It doesn’t for me.

No more conversation!

[Nifster]

If you are a libertarian then you can’t support or vote for Johnson. His platform is as left as it comes

[discostu]

Because you SAID IT. You said they deliberately made a system that would have 2 parties. They did not.

No Hillary having power doesn’t work for me. But neither does cancer. Life doesn’t really care what works for you.

[Fungi]

Nonsense, more liberal lies from the source of all lies—The NY Slime.

[Fungi]

Nonsense, more liberal lies from the source of all lies—The NY Slime.

[Theodore R.]

nevertrumper “vote your conscience” types

Does that include TCruz? Are he and Carly privately boosting Mrs. Bill?

[musicman]

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[Theodore R.]

BDole was a senator for only 28 years; many, many others have exceeded that tenure. I am bullish on Bob this year after he nearly alone among the elites endorsed Trump.

[montag813]

We’re going to find out after the election how many millions Soros gave Johnson and Weld to help Hillary