Libertarians seem unhappy with Gary Johnson’s Town Hall performance.
(I have to confess I fell asleep in front of a TV from a day of overwork, planning on attending a debate watch party, and awoke with only 15 minutes of it left. What I saw did not make me prioritize watching the rest.)
Two trends in libertarian commentaries, like those by readers at reason, where editor at large Matt Welch summed up Gary’s performance as “nice guys finish third,” are that Gary was a bit of a choke artist – perhaps Romney is thinking of endorsing Gov. Johnson because they share the same debate coach – and that the ticket should be reversed, with Weld for President and Johnson for Vice president.
Of course, libertarians would not be happy with that either. Johnson is probably more libertarian on issues than is Weld. And they have been running very much as a team anyway, as one might expect given that they are both two term Governors, but Weld from a larger state.
Dr. Ross Levatter, a long time libertarian activist who worked on the 1980 Clark campaign summed up Johnson’s refusal to go negative thus: “I get that Gary Johnson wants to be positive, but if he felt compelled to say Hillary Clinton was good at something, I wish instead of ‘public servant’ he had gone with ‘commodity trader’.”
Another Clark campaign activist sent her former colleagues a long rant on Johnson:
(I have to confess I fell asleep in front of a TV from a day of overwork, planning on attending a debate watch party, and awoke with only 15 minutes of it left. What I saw did not make me prioritize watching the rest.)
Two trends in libertarian commentaries, like those by readers at reason, where editor at large Matt Welch summed up Gary’s performance as “nice guys finish third,” are that Gary was a bit of a choke artist – perhaps Romney is thinking of endorsing Gov. Johnson because they share the same debate coach – and that the ticket should be reversed, with Weld for President and Johnson for Vice president.
Of course, libertarians would not be happy with that either. Johnson is probably more libertarian on issues than is Weld. And they have been running very much as a team anyway, as one might expect given that they are both two term Governors, but Weld from a larger state.
Dr. Ross Levatter, a long time libertarian activist who worked on the 1980 Clark campaign summed up Johnson’s refusal to go negative thus: “I get that Gary Johnson wants to be positive, but if he felt compelled to say Hillary Clinton was good at something, I wish instead of ‘public servant’ he had gone with ‘commodity trader’.”
Another Clark campaign activist sent her former colleagues a long rant on Johnson:
I suppose you all watched the town hall last night. Johnson needs help. He needs a coach – a team of coaches. He’s not good on his feet. Is anybody working with him on how to be a strong clear minded confident articulate candidate who knows how to field the questions and be clear about his program and the libertarian solutions to the problems? It would appear not.
Weld should have been the presidential nominee. Johnson vice President.
It was clear in the convention debates that Johnson was not the best of the candidates at articulating his approach, but the fact that he is a former elected governor made him the best choice. Hopefully he’s teachable.
Besides a coach, the campaign needs money, and I’m sure volunteers, and experts in marketing, media, public relations, etc.
Who is working with the campaign to set these things up? Does anybody know? The campaign headquarters doesn’t even have a voicemail.
What can we be doing to make this happen? Are any of you involved? Would you please let us know?
I hope to hear back with some good feedback. Or, is it s lost cause?
The reason readers have a third commentary trend: many mentions that even though they found Gary’s performance cringe worthy, their non-libertarian spouses all thought he sounded like a reasonable person for whom they could vote.
The Insomniac Libertarian 