The height of an election season makes it hard to remember that the values that unite us as Americans are...
The height of an election season makes it hard to remember that the values that unite us as Americans are greater than that which divides us. In every election, the nation becomes separated by a gaping political chasm.
What’s different this year is the exceedingly large portion of the population — particularly among political independents and millennials — who are deeply dissatisfied with the Democratic and Republican party nominees.
As the Libertarian candidate for President, my message to voters is simple: You have another credible alternative, on the ballot in all 50 states. You can support fiscal responsibility and social inclusion. You don’t need to vote for a candidate you don’t like in order to stop one that you like even less.
We polled at 13% nationally and 62% of Americans told the pollster on Aug. 25 that they specifically wanted me included in the debates.In spite of all this, the Commission on Presidential Debates decided that only Clinton and Trump will be permitted to speak at Monday night’s debate.
This is everything that is wrong with American politics.
Voting for our ticket does not make it more likely that one of two disliked candidates will win. Instead, it makes it more likely that independents, fed up with both parties and their bipartisan bickering, will have a voice in Washington.
In his recent visit to Miami, FL (my neck of the woods), Gary Johnson (L) came out in support of opening up trade with Cuba. Reason Magazine writer Brian Doherty was there to pick up on this comment, and many more in an article summarizing up the Governor’s Miami trip, which covered topics from the Presidential Debates to Venezuela to coffee to taxes.
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I was the Republican governor of the heavily Democratic state of New Mexico. I focused on good government and I got it done. The people of New Mexico reelected me by a comfortable margin. Ditto for Weld. Think of it this way: I’m someone you would trust to run your household and to keep it safe while you went away on a trip or a vacation. I could even fix a few things around the house. After all, the construction company I founded began as a one-man handy-man operation. Can you say the same for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?
I've balanced budgets and cut taxes. I've also spoken my mind about where the country needed to go on personal freedoms and marriage equality. In 1999, I became the only sitting governor to publicly advocate the legalization of marijuana. Sen. Bernie Sanders came to that viewpoint — a position that most Americans support — 16 years later.
I'm also a strong believer in our Constitutional rights to civil liberties and privacy. Our government should not be spying on the electronic communications of American citizens. Nor should our iPhones or Android devices be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures.
And I understand that, as a nation and as a society, we have unfinished business to right the wrongs of injustice suffered by minorities. Blacks are 30 percent more likely that white to be apprehended by the police; they are three times more likely to be searched; they are arrested twice as often as whites; and they are 75 percent more likely to be charged with offenses carrying mandatory minimum sentences.
It is not surprising that there is tangible mistrust, tension and frustration between the police and African-Americans, particularly black males. We need to speak honestly about these issues in order to address them. Let’s be honest. We have healing to do.
One of the biggest concerns that many voters have with both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but particularly with Ms. Clinton, is the sense that she uses government power to advance her personal and political interests. She is the very status quo Americans want changed. She talks about progressivism, but lines her bank accounts with speaking fees from banks and special interests. That's what crony capitalism is all about. Americans recognize pay-to-play when they see it, and they are really, really weary of it.
Having been governor of New Mexico, I know that legislation gets passed to benefit those who have money and influence. Then they buy more money and influence. As governor, I vetoed more than 750 bills and thousands of line items to keep crony capitalism away from government.
Another big difference between Hillary Clinton and myself is that I'm for our national tradition of peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations -- while being extremely skeptical of committing ourselves and our armed forces to foreign conflicts.
As a Senator, she endorsed ill-advised foreign interventions. As Secretary of State, she was the architect of tragic and counter-productive policies in Libya, in Egypt and in Syria. These should not be America's wars, and we ought not be prompting regime changes that serve only to replace bad actors with even worse actors and instability that makes us less safe.
Americans can find sanity and principle by voting Johnson/Weld in 2016.
If you've at any point said that you're voting outside the Republican or Democrat parties, then you've probably heard a very tired line. "You're wasting your vote!" is something that I've received ad nauseum since I made up my mind to leave the Republican party, and vote for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. It's a phrase that many people believe they're logistically right for saying, | Read More »
If you’ve at any point said that you’re voting outside the Republican or Democrat parties, then you’ve probably heard a very tired line.
“You’re wasting your vote!” is something that I’ve received ad nauseum since I made up my mind to vote for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. It’s a phrase that many people believe they’re logistically right for saying, since a vote that is not for their candidate is obviously a vote for the opposing candidate. It’s not a very well thought out accusation. My vote is who it’s for, and no one else.
Millenials tend not to fully identify with the current political binary of Republican or Democrat. While what we’re seeing, in terms of party abandonment, is the result of widely unpopular candidates being chosen as their nominees, it only hastened something that was already happening.
Furthermore, many of those who have left the party have done so on principle. They can’t get behind the proven liar, and expert manipulator, or the proven liar, and expert manipulator. And while many of us don’t wholly agree with Johnson on every issue, he is honest about his intent and clear about his goals. That can’t be said about Trump or Clinton, who will say what needs to be said at the time to get elected, and whose positions flip-flop with the wind.
Someone telling you that you’re wasting your vote because you can’t get on board with that kind of political fraudulence is absurd. Many of us are willing to bend our principles, but breaking them isn’t what we signed on for with our particular parties.
But most of all, people who tell you that you’re wasting your vote are telling you that your principles, and values, and beliefs aren’t worth much. It’s saying that selling out for a chance at winning something you don’t really believe in is better than sticking to your guns and going down fighting for something better.
Gary Johnson is correct. For those of us who cringe at the mere mention of Trump or Clinton, a vote for them IS a wasted vote.
Vote your conscience.
This blog will be supporting Gary Johnson in the 2016 presidential election.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, announced her decision to resign amid controversy over leaked emails that exposed the DNC’s underhanded efforts to stifle Sen. Bernie Sanders’ popularity during the primary.
Her resignation will become effective at the end of the convention, where she had already been stripped of her prime-time speaking role as calls for her to step down grew louder over the weekend.
…Wasserman Schultz had faced pressure to leave the DNC since Friday, when a massive leak of internal documents suggested DNC officials had conspired to attack Sanders on his religion ahead of primaries in West Virginia and Kentucky. Her stewardship of the party has been under near-constant fire throughout this primary season, with supporters of Sanders smelling collusion long before WikiLeaks released stolen DNC emails.
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, says she looks forward to campaigning with Wasserman Schultz in Florida “and helping her re-election bid”.
