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Vote Libertarian!
Here’s a thought: If Trump is nominated, I know a lot of you plan to just stay home.
Personally, I hope Ted Cruz pulls it off or Trump gets ousted at a contested convention. But if that doesn’t happen …
Instead of staying home, why not vote Libertarian? In an election where both candidates are big government populists, the best message you could send is a strong surge of support for the Libertarian candidate. Gary Johnson isn’t going to win, so you don’t have to worry about him legalizing dope or anything, but getting him into the debates would inject a very useful ideological counterpoint to the statism of the other two candidates.
The Libertarians have an organization that has them currently on the ballot in 34 states. At this point, they might wind up being the only viable third party. It would sure be nice to remind the people that they have choices other than big government and even bigger government.
Related article at Reason magazine.
Published in Elections, General
I’m a Ted Cruz supporter. There are a few people on Ricochet who so despise Ted Cruz, that they might vote third-party if Cruz is the Republican nominee. Although I disagree with their position, I respect their right to make that choice and I’m not going to denounce them as dishonest or Hillary supporters.
Why can’t the Trump supporters respect the people who find Trump and Clinton equally unsupportable, and choose to give their votes to a third party, should Trump be the nominee?
I would prefer a conservative option to emerge, but starting this late it will be hard to get on the ballots in a lot of states. If Gary Johnson is on the ballot I will vote libertarian. As a two-term Republican governor he would be far more qualified than either Trump or Hillary. For this cycle I think Libertarian is the best third party option since they already have ballot access. And weed.
Of course the way things are going this year the Libertarians will probably nominate John McAfee, the crazy former software executive who was wanted in Belize in connection with a murder investigation.
I would like to see a strong Libertarian party and it would be nice to have a third option. I also truly understand the Trump hate and we will agree on his faults, but I think it a disservice to the nation and our children to suggest voting in a way that enables Hillary to win. Hillary has blood on her hands. No one is claiming that of Trump.
I have pointed out before, not voting for a candidate who can win is effectively giving a vote to the other side (by not letting your vote cancel out an opposition vote).
It may be good statement, but it might contribute to a bad reality.
Boy, you’ve got our number. There’s no other possible reason for disagreeing with you–none at all. Good job, mate.
There isn’t a lot of good polling data on the LP presidential race, but so far Gary Johnson is #1 and Austin Peterson is #2 on the LP.org online poll.
Johnson won the North Carolina LP primary. “No Preference” came in second. McAfee was not on the ballot.
In Missouri, “Uncommitted” came in first, and Austin Petersen came in second. Neither McAfee or Johnson were on the ballot.
There are only three LP primaries. The next one is California. It’s the only one where all three putative frontrunners are on the ballot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016
Weed is a pretty low-priority topic on the libertarianrepublic.com website.
Again, not an endorsement. Just pointing out that not all the candidates fit the stereotype.
(Aside: Sometimes I get the feeling that the only thing people know about libertarians is what they read at reason.com. Reason.com is no more the official mouthpiece of American libertarians than National Review is the official mouthpiece of American conservatism. They’re both good sources, to be sure, but hardly definitive.)
If McAfee were to win we could have a choice between someone under investigation for mishandling classified docs/corruption, someone being sued for fraud, and someone under the cloud of a murder accusation.
Choices, choices.
I was just kidding. I know that’s what most people think about when they think of libertarians.
I can live with myself just fine without the respect of Trump supporters.
OK, fine. I’ll run for president.
I always vote, I consider it a civic duty.
If Trump is the nominee I’ll be deciding between 3rd party options, write-in vote, or just leaving the POTUS option blank and voting the rest of the ballot.
That may be the first time I’ve seen the words “honest” and “Hillary” in the same sentence.
Try harder. You’ll get it. You have until the first Tuesday in November. Scales are hard, but those who will see can lose them.
I will freely admit I was wrong if Trump wins in the general. Somehow, I think Trump supporters will never admit they were wrong if he doesn’t.
I expect they will spend the next 4 years angrily blaming “The Establishment” and us #NeverTrumpers for stabbing them in the back.
That would be consistent with their intellectual honesty.
My problem is that I have not encountered libertarians who were serious about America. Instead of joinging forces on things we all agree about, such as cutting back the administrative state, virtually all that I have interacted with were obsessive about three things: legalizing drugs (the most common answer), US foreign policy isolationism, and legalizing/eliminating social barriers to any kind of sexual practice, perhaps other than pedophilia.
When the ’60’s anti-war crowd also pushed for drugs and free love, I didn’t expect that this would be the libertarian focus 50 years later.
I did vote Libertarian in 1976 and 1992. (Note the Republican lost both years when people like me withheld our votes.) I will either vote for Hillary or Libertarian. I cannot and will not vote for Trump.
Oh, you’ve encountered them. I guess you just haven’t noticed the rest of their beliefs. The fact that sex, drugs and staying out of wars are the only thing that register with you says more about you than about libertarians.
I’ve been playing around with this
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/16/upshot/trump-cruz-kasich-republican-delegate-lead.html
I know the math is overly simple, but I don’t see Trump winning over 50% regardless (he has yet to go over 50% in any state) so I put Trump at 45% and I think most of Rubio’s votes will go to Cruz, so I think he can. If Kasich stays below 5% (and how can he get much above that), Cruz has a decent path t0 1237.
From that article:
You mean my primary vote might actually mean something for the first time ever? Now I’m starting to get motivated again…
Are you sure about that?
Even if Kasich dropped out tomorrow, with Kasich at 0%, Cruz at 55% and Trump at 45% the tool shows Cruz finishing with more delegates than Trump but short of the 1237 line. If this tool is accurate, Cruz has to get somewhere around 70% the rest of the way to reach 1237.
The fact that he got ~20% in Illinois and places like New York and New Jersey have yet to vote.
Sorry, you are correct. I was focused more on Cruz being ahead of Trump and not the 1237 threshold, so I misspoke.
Thanks for the correction. I agree with your larger point, Cruz has a plausible path to collect more delegates than Trump and it seems likely if he went into the convention with more delegates plus the momentum that he would emerge as the nominee.
Inshallah.
I think Kasich can be credible staying in a five-man race, not a three man race. He is mathematically eliminated from the race already, so I don’t see him being in the race for much longer.
The problem with the graphic is, it assumes every state goes by the percentage you put in, and we can assume that Trump will do better in New York and California than Cruz, which makes the math very difficult.
Yeah, if Cruz can’t really impress us in Cali. I doubt there’s much he can do.