# Johnson/Weld campaign **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 23, 2016, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446 "2016-05-23T07:34:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/181 "2016-06-27T03:18:37Z")
Polls are not predictive this far out, but they aren’t useless either. The polls clearly show that voters hate the top two and want alternatives. If you think that Clinton and Trump are going to become more attractive over the next five months, then you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/182 "2016-06-27T03:21:09Z")
Voters always hate the top two. Only in Bush v. Gore did another party make a difference in the election. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/183 "2016-06-27T03:23:51Z")
That’s not an indication of Nader’s support so much as the closeness of the race. I’d rather see a Perot-like performance than a Nader-like performance. And no, voter do not always hate the candidates. Trump and Clinton enjoy record unfavorability. Clinton could win this race while underperforming her husband’s poor 42%. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/184 "2016-06-27T03:34:07Z")
Nader cost Florida for Gore. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/185 "2016-06-27T03:35:44Z")
And he won 2% of the vote. Given the closeness, Nader would have mattered if he got .5% of the vote. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/186 "2016-06-27T03:54:59Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > 8-10% is more than they’ve ever polled. NBC actually had a poll showing Johnson and Stein combining for 16% of the vote. And again, tell me a single time a third party candidate was in single digits in June and finished in double digits? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/187 "2016-06-27T04:23:45Z")
Tell me a single time that both major party candidates were this far under water, AND the third party ticket had more executive experience than both major party tickets combined? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/188 "2016-06-27T04:36:07Z")
How much executive experience does being Secretary of State give you? Not to mention running the First Lady’s White House staff. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/189 "2016-06-27T05:14:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Tell me a single time that both major party candidates were this far under water, AND the third party ticket had more executive experience than both major party tickets combined? Nobody gives a crap about “executive experience” from nonentities. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/190 "2016-06-27T05:34:03Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > How much executive experience does being Secretary of State give you? Not to mention running the First Lady’s White House staff. Running a staff of an office with no legal responsibilities is not executive experience. George McGovern’s experience running a hotel was more meaningful. Plus she seems poised to go for a non-entity as VP. If she picks Tim Kaine then she can probably then claim a better resume than the LP ticket, but if she picks Castro or Perez or Warren then I gotta give the edge to the LP ticket in terms of practical experience. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/191 "2016-06-27T14:21:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > …then I gotta give the edge to the LP ticket in terms of practical experience. Well, gee, if you gotta, you gotta! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/192 "2016-06-27T15:00:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Polls are not predictive this far out, but they aren’t useless either. The polls clearly show that voters hate the top two and want alternatives. Please stop with the wish-fulfillment fantasy. Your posting history tells me that if one of your insane conservative favorites were the presumptive nominee and ahead by a fraction of a point you would be ridiculing the polling for Johnson and the voters desire for alternatives. Just as you ridiculed the polling for Romney. Speaking of [2012](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson_presidential_campaign,_2012): > [@](#): > > 10–13 July 2012, JZ Analytics: Barack Obama 43.6%, Mitt Romney 38.0%, Gary Johnson 5.3%, not sure 13.1%[49] > > August 2012, Rasmussen Reports poll includes Johnson for the first time. One in ten likely voters are familiar with him and 1 percent intends to vote for him.[50][51] > > September 2012, CNN poll includes Johnson. 4% of registered voters say that they would vote for him.[52][53] > > November 1, 2012 CNN poll includes Johnson. 5.1% of 796 likely voters indicated that they would vote for Gary Johnson.[54] > > On Election Day, Johnson received 1,275,951 votes and 0.99% of the popular vote… Americans love getting a chance to put a name to “none of the above” in polls. They don’t vote that way. Votes count. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/193 "2016-06-27T18:36:54Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Running a staff of an office with no legal responsibilities is not executive experience. George McGovern’s experience running a hotel was more meaningful. > > Plus she seems poised to go for a non-entity as VP. If she picks Tim Kaine then she can probably then claim a better resume than the LP ticket, but if she picks Castro or Perez or Warren then I gotta give the edge to the LP ticket in terms of practical experience. Running a staff of 18 - 24 people is executive experience, although quite small. Of course at the same time, she was the chair of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, which came up with the Health Security Act that the GOP and health insurance companies hated. Probably no executive decisions during that though, how could there be. Probably no executive experience earned from her time as the First Lady of Arkansas, she was just chair of the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–1992), Wal-Mart Stores (1986–1992) and Lafarge (1990–1992), and from 1987 to 1991, she was the first chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. Oh, and also on the board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation. Nope, absolutely nothing in any of that where she would have had to make any kind of decisions about anything, or control meetings of strong willed people. And of course, while she was Secretary of State, she only had to do what Obama told her. It wasn’t like she had to run a department of the Executive branch of the US, with about 70,000 employees, literally spanning the entire globe, with a budget of over $60 billion. While coordinating with other departments like Homeland Security and Defense. Yeah, nothing in there that would give her any executive experience. And her 8 years as a US Senator was purely legislative, which will certainly not be of any help at all in the executive branch. Why would knowing how the other branches of government works from the inside be of any help to the President. Frankly, it looks like Hillary has more executive experience than the entirety of the rest of the Presidential candidates of all parties combined. She has worked with small groups, large corporations, NGOs, and even US Senators, to get things done, and I can admire her for that, even when some of the things I could have down without personally. There have probably been more qualified candidates than Hillary sometime iin the last 30 years, but I can’t think of them. And you would have to go back to Nixon and Johnson to find actual Presidents that could possibly match her qualifications. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/194 "2016-06-27T18:57:30Z")
I would argue that being a First Lady has more executive experience than being Vice President (re; Nixon) ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/195 "2016-06-27T19:22:12Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > You know, most of the country views the libertarians as rather wack. Not quite as goofy as sovcits or Bundistas, but the reality is that they are simply not realistic. And the reason we are less than keen on them is not because we need to listen carefully to their ideology: most of us who _have_ studied libertarianism are just not impressed. > > What I am saying is, a purist libertarian like Paul is going to alienate people with his dogmatic rants. Johnson and Weld may be bland and equivocating, but they might be able to make better gains for the LP that a strong ideologue like a Paul or a Paul. Because, you know, I learned a year or two ago that I am not going to get the government _I_ want, so I support the people who will drag it in my preferred general direction. J&W are the kind of people the Ls ought to support if they want any hope of makes their own desired “progress”. > > No one will be able to turn America into Libertopia in a decade, but they might be able to work in that direction gradually, if they just try some tact and patience instead of shouting at us fucking blind moroons. No. Interest in libertarianism surged with Ron Paul’s campaigns. From what I hear, Johnson’s last run resulted in very few new LP members. Numbers just never support this mealy-mouthed approach. Johnson is a very poor politician and an awful explainer. I’d be elated if he was half decent at either of these functions, but he isn’t. Paul was an above-average politician, and an above-average explainer. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/196 "2016-06-27T19:40:19Z")
The minor party candidates are taking more positive poll responses from Clinton than Trump. That’s particularly clear when the polls includes the Greens, but true even just including the Libertarians. And in one sense of simulating the voting process it’s unrealistic not to include both. However minor parties almost always fade when the election actually comes, and that’s now pollsters justify asking the question without offering the minor parties as choices, under the assumption most of the 16% (max IIRC in one poll picking Lib or Green) will settle for GOP or Dem eventually so why not just ask respondents now which of those two they’d prefer. Neither is a complete reflection of the reality of November, which simply isn’t known. The GOP of 1850’s went from minor to major party by offering a position on a major issue (no new slave states) at odds with the then only real major party, the Democrats, who were regionally split on that issue, a major enough issue to eventually start a civil war. No recent third party has that kind of issue clarity. The LP seeks mainly to re-shuffle themes of GOP and Dems, socially liberal like the Democrats, pro-free market and small govt like the GOP (is or has been, theoretically at least). You _could_ have a major party on that general basis. It has some things in common with what Conservative parties in other English speaking countries have become. Some Republicans would like to make the GOP a party like that (though heavily outnumbered at the moment). And Johnson and Weld held major office, ‘non-entity’ is not really accurate. The problem is getting from here to there without a monopoly on one side of a critical issue like the 1850’s GOP. I think it could happen eventually if the GOP moves further away from free market concept to rightist ethno-nationalist populism, and gets walloped doing so. A stronger Dem party could then also eventually weaken itself by pursuing more and more leftward economic policies to try to solve the slow growth problem at the root of a lot of other problems, and failing, as they would IMO. But that would only happen over time, if it does. For the LP to break through right now they’d have to have a spectacularly good candidate, which Johnson just isn’t IMO. He comes across as a guy who smokes a lot of pot. He’s up against two very unattractive major party candidates, but they are backed by major parties, he’s not. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/197 "2016-06-27T21:46:29Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > No. Interest in libertarianism surged with Ron Paul’s campaigns. From what I hear, Johnson’s last run resulted in very few new LP members. Numbers just never support this mealy-mouthed approach. Johnson is a very poor politician and an awful explainer. I’d be elated if he was half decent at either of these functions, but he isn’t. Paul was an above-average politician, and an above-average explainer. Problem is, Paul was never a **L** , he was always a [sub]L[/sub]R. He only ever tried, pathetically, to run for president as an R, he never had the cojones to run for the big office on the LP ticket (probably for fear of losing his seat in Congress and being left with nothing). And Randy, well, he has a following as well, but a pretty fringy one. As for being a wonderful explainer, that part only seems to be good for preaching-to-the-crowd. The Johnson, at least, managed to get awfully close to the 1% mark last time around, so maybe the so-called mealymouthiness is actually more effective than dogmatism. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/198 "2016-06-28T00:58:07Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > a spectacularly good candidate, which Johnson just isn’t IMO. He comes across as a guy who smokes a lot of pot. FWIW, there was always scuttlebutt in Massachusetts about Weld and booze. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/199 "2016-06-28T01:15:52Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > The GOP of 1850’s went from minor to major party … The Republican Party was never minor. It was founded in 1854, and finished second in the 1856 presidential election. In 1858 it was dominant in almost all Northern states, and it won the presidency in 1860. I suppose it’s possible that the Libertarian Party could duplicate this success by absorbing the Whigs and Free Soil Democrats, but I see that as unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446/200 "2016-06-28T12:18:37Z")
Or by absorbing the more libertarian-oriented Republicans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johnson-weld-campaign/755446.md?page=11)