Johnson's poll numbers have been sliding lately. RCP has at 5.9%, down from a high of 9.2% back in September. 538 has him at 5.7%, from a September high of 9.0%. Given that third party candidates tend to significantly underperform on election day as compared to their polls, is the dream of 5% dead?
Apparently the slide in third party candidate popularity as the election season progresses is actually quite normal.
I think Johnson's popularity was a mixture of two things:
1. People advocating him out of protest
2. People not knowing who he was
If this is true, then the decline is perfectly expected.
Now I guess we shall wait for ljoss's take on the whole situation.
getting federal campaign money is a pretty big deal.
No, it isn't, bLatch. Getting 5% of the vote is in no way a big deal, and the fact that the Libertarian party can't even get that and is making it out to be some great milestone only makes them more ridiculous.
Let's make it very clear: if you cannot manage to beat ANY of these candidates by 5%, then you don't get to claim legitimacy as a party. This list includes a man whose party affiliation is "Pirate," a Caesar St Augustine DeBuonaparte of California who is running as "Absolute Dictator;" and a person from the Constitutionalist Party of Virginia, the first two sentences of the mission statement of which are, I am not making this up, "THE CONSTITUTIONIST PARTY WILL ALWAYS BE THE GUARDIEN OF OUR GOVERNMENT!!! TO ENSURE THAT OUR NATIONAL POLITICAL SYSTEM SHALL AND WILL ALWAYS SERVE THE PEOPLE AND PROTECT OUR CONSTITUTION AGAINST ALL ENERMIES BOTH EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL."
And as for the world leaders question, would you again re-read/re-listen to it? Because right now I feel like the only one that actually paid attention to what the question was.
Ljoss, the answer Johnson gave is actually more embarrassing in context than it is out of context.
Either that or, you know, you're kinda reaching like a trapeze artist because that's literally not what the question was. You're all getting too desperate now.
We're desperate because your boy has now choked twice on national television, AND created his own meme on top of it?
The St. Cloud attacker cried out "Allah!" while stabbing people and the bomber responsible for the attacks in Manhattan and New Jersey was Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalized citizen from Afghanistan and you expect us to believe that radical Islam has nothing to do with these attacks? Come on man, please don't be disingenuous.
A. You did not know anything about who was responsible for the NY and NJ bombings at the time of your post, because that information was not released/unknown at the time. Which rather demonstrates my point.
B. I didn't say that these attacks are completely unrelated to radical Islam. What I did say was that there is a difference between violent jihadist Islamist violence and Islam as a whole, just as there is a different between terrorism done in the name of Irish nationalism and presuming that someone is a terrorist because he's Irish. I have already explained this. So either you're distorting what I said willfully, or you didn't understand the distinction, and failure to understand the distinction rather demonstrates my point.
Hardly a huge leap to suggest that the man who invoked the name of Allah during the attacks in St. Cloud was motivated by radical Islam.
And you responded exactly the way I knew you were going to.
1. At the time of your post, we only had information that one of the attacks was motivated by ISIS, and no information whatsoever on the other two.
2. Even if we knew they were all motivated by radical jihadists, that is not the same as being motivated by Islam. It's similar to the difference between saying an attack was the result of someone subscribing to Irish nationalist terrorism, versus saying an attack was the result of someone being Irish.
You're putting the cart before the horse. A good chunk of the reason no one votes for 3rd Party candidates is because of the stigma label "3rd Party."
Not even remotely the case. The stigms of the label third party comes from the fact that people very rarely vote for them, and people very rarely voting for them comes from their extremist and alienating viewpoints, and many times detachment from reality.
This has been a demonstrated fact throughout our country. We generally tend to have two dominant parties, with a third party only coming into prominence when the two dominant parties either are not addressing a major issue, or have candidates that are exceedingly unpopular. This is because the two dominant parties tend to be centrist, with the third party occupying an extreme viewpoint and/or based entirely around a single issue.
He has gubernatorial experience as a Republican governor of a Democratic state. His VP has gubernatorial experience as a Republican governor of a Democratic state. He's polling at 10%+ nationwide with very limited media coverage. Multiple high profile politicians (including Mitt Romney and ex-governors like Schwarzenegger) have voiced their interest in having him at the debates. The two big party candidates are probably the most reviled duo in modern election history. There are only THREE candidates on all 50 state ballots and guess who the 3rd is?
If he can't qualify for the debates, who else will ever have that chance in this media climate?
Someone polling at 15% or above, clearly.
Why cede control of our election to the big parties and the media?
I know you think that the Libertarian party is this put upon party and if only people knew about them they'd get more votes. As though their only problem were lack of exposure. But it isn't. There's one reason people are Libertarians, and that's ignorance. Ignorance of economics. Ignorance of history. Ignorance of law. Ignorance of foreign policy. Ignorance.
Gary Johnson would make a better president than Donald Trump. But that's about all I can say, and really, that's faint praise.
Blinking Spirit with all due respect I think you're wrong. The voters in this election are far more disenfranchised with the available options from the leading 2 parties than they were in the '92 election. The voters want a third option, and Johnson in the debates will show them there is one.
Everyone knows there are third options. The question is whether or not there are any viable third options, which of course Johnson is not.
This is reflected in Johnson's inability to qualify for the debates. The qualifying number is 15% support, which Johnson does not have.
If Gary Johnson is liberal enough to attract moderate Democrats and conservative enough to attract moderate Republicans, why does he lucky to break out of the single digits? Let me suggest an alternative explanation: Although Johnson arrives at views which are on the surface in agreement with various Democrats and various Republicans, depending on the issue, the underlying reasoning which informs his positions differs radically from the reasoning of both Democrats and Republicans. I think most Americans correctly view the Libertarian party's view of the world as incredibly naive and simplistic. It leads him to support such obviously bad ideas as private prisons and abolishing the department of education. Opinion polls put support for the latter at less than 20%.
Spot on.
The fact is the Libertarians are not going to appeal to moderates because they aren't moderate. They are an extreme position, and like all third parties will generally only have a fringe appeal.
What seals it for me that the Gary Johnson will not receive my vote is his foreign policy views. Reduce American military presence abroad? NOW? Are you joking? To compare, Barack Obama has ordered the slowing of the withdraw of troops in Afghanistan. And Johnson wants to reduce our forces there? Because that worked so well in Iraq?
So the argument is, a moderate democrat who cant vote for Hillary would rather vote for Trump because the libertarian is crazy?
Why can't the moderate Democrat vote for Hillary? It's not like she won't appear on the ballot.
And the answer is yes, Libertarians are crazy. They also generally appeal more to Republicans. If anything, I would think it would be the Green Party that would enjoy a bump from Hillary's unpopularity.
I think Johnson's popularity was a mixture of two things:
1. People advocating him out of protest
2. People not knowing who he was
If this is true, then the decline is perfectly expected.
Now I guess we shall wait for ljoss's take on the whole situation.
Let's make it very clear: if you cannot manage to beat ANY of these candidates by 5%, then you don't get to claim legitimacy as a party. This list includes a man whose party affiliation is "Pirate," a Caesar St Augustine DeBuonaparte of California who is running as "Absolute Dictator;" and a person from the Constitutionalist Party of Virginia, the first two sentences of the mission statement of which are, I am not making this up, "THE CONSTITUTIONIST PARTY WILL ALWAYS BE THE GUARDIEN OF OUR GOVERNMENT!!! TO ENSURE THAT OUR NATIONAL POLITICAL SYSTEM SHALL AND WILL ALWAYS SERVE THE PEOPLE AND PROTECT OUR CONSTITUTION AGAINST ALL ENERMIES BOTH EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL."
Ljoss, the answer Johnson gave is actually more embarrassing in context than it is out of context.
The 5% threshold?
The 5% threshold.
The 5% threshold.
bLatch...
Just... Wow.
Yeah, would any of the Johnson defenders care to field this one?
B. I didn't say that these attacks are completely unrelated to radical Islam. What I did say was that there is a difference between violent jihadist Islamist violence and Islam as a whole, just as there is a different between terrorism done in the name of Irish nationalism and presuming that someone is a terrorist because he's Irish. I have already explained this. So either you're distorting what I said willfully, or you didn't understand the distinction, and failure to understand the distinction rather demonstrates my point.
Umm, we talk about Islam all the time.
Drone airstrikes seem to be doing pretty well.
1. At the time of your post, we only had information that one of the attacks was motivated by ISIS, and no information whatsoever on the other two.
2. Even if we knew they were all motivated by radical jihadists, that is not the same as being motivated by Islam. It's similar to the difference between saying an attack was the result of someone subscribing to Irish nationalist terrorism, versus saying an attack was the result of someone being Irish.
This has been a demonstrated fact throughout our country. We generally tend to have two dominant parties, with a third party only coming into prominence when the two dominant parties either are not addressing a major issue, or have candidates that are exceedingly unpopular. This is because the two dominant parties tend to be centrist, with the third party occupying an extreme viewpoint and/or based entirely around a single issue.
You forgot whining about civil rights activists.
The fact that you attribute all three to "Islam" maybe might be the problem we're criticizing about you.
Or reality.
The two party "lock" exists because people aren't voting for anyone else, bLatch.
I know you think that the Libertarian party is this put upon party and if only people knew about them they'd get more votes. As though their only problem were lack of exposure. But it isn't. There's one reason people are Libertarians, and that's ignorance. Ignorance of economics. Ignorance of history. Ignorance of law. Ignorance of foreign policy. Ignorance.
Gary Johnson would make a better president than Donald Trump. But that's about all I can say, and really, that's faint praise.
This is reflected in Johnson's inability to qualify for the debates. The qualifying number is 15% support, which Johnson does not have.
Though that expectation has lead to a great deal of disappointment this election.
The fact is the Libertarians are not going to appeal to moderates because they aren't moderate. They are an extreme position, and like all third parties will generally only have a fringe appeal.
What seals it for me that the Gary Johnson will not receive my vote is his foreign policy views. Reduce American military presence abroad? NOW? Are you joking? To compare, Barack Obama has ordered the slowing of the withdraw of troops in Afghanistan. And Johnson wants to reduce our forces there? Because that worked so well in Iraq?
Why can't the moderate Democrat vote for Hillary? It's not like she won't appear on the ballot.
And the answer is yes, Libertarians are crazy. They also generally appeal more to Republicans. If anything, I would think it would be the Green Party that would enjoy a bump from Hillary's unpopularity.