The headline question on this post comes from a similar CNN editorial posing as news:
CNN:
Gary Johnson is the new punching bag of the 2016 campaign.In a year when the other candidates are the unconvicted criminal Hillary Clinton and the P.T. Barnum-like Donald Trump, these are your disqualifying criteria? "Can't name a world leader he admires" and "hasn't heard of Aleppo"? And let's not forget the classic "can't hit the arbitrary 15% support level created by the Republican and Democrat-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates to make it to the debate stage"!
The Libertarian presidential candidate is the subject of intensifying ridicule following his latest televised flub when he couldn't name a world leader he admired during a Wednesday interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews. That follows another embarrassing on-air moment last month when, in response to a question about how he would alleviate the plight of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo, he responded: "What is Aleppo?"
The gaffes, combined with his failure to make the debate stage and his infinitesimal chance of winning the White House, raise a pressing question: Why is Johnson still in the race?
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton ribbed Johnson Thursday by pretending to struggle when she was asked to name a world leader she admired. But she made clear her view that she and her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, are the only viable candidates.Of course he isn't. Not with the deck stacked against him. What Clinton said was almost a confession of the conspiracy against third party candidates. She knows the fix is in.
"Either Donald Trump or I will be the President of the United States," she told reporters on her campaign plane, sending a clear warning to disaffected Democrats flirting with Johnson. "People have to look carefully in making their decision. It will be either him or me."
But Johnson isn't going anywhere.
But then we get to this:
Johnson's decision to stay in the race isn't just an academic question. He and [VP candidate William] Weld are doing well enough in swing states to pull votes from both Trump and Clinton. In the latest CNN/ORC poll of Colorado — a state Clinton must win and which her campaign thought was already safe — Johnson is polling at 13% among likely voters while Clinton trails Trump 42% to 41%.Talk about burying the lede.
Then the article goes on to show how silly the complaints about Johnson are:
It was not the first time that a presidential candidate has stumbled in a world leader pop quiz that raised doubts about their credentials to be President. In 1999, then-GOP frontrunner George W. Bush was stumped when asked by a Boston reporter to name the leaders of Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan.
And gaffes don't seem to derail a candidate in 2016 the way they once did.
After all, Trump has made statements that are far more outrageous than Johnson's comments -- on an almost daily basis -- and he is locked in a tight race with Clinton.
It's debatable whether true Libertarian voters — those who support the party because it favors a disentangling from foreign quagmires and a less robust US global role — are that bothered that their candidate is not deeply acquainted with the details of the Syrian civil war.Speaking as a libertarian (and "big L" Libertarian) voter, I can honestly say no, we aren't, and you shouldn't be either. The world is a big place with a lot happening. Expecting a president to know minutiae is absurd. We have the State Department for that. Would you expect a president to understand the intricate details of how Social Security checks are created?
The article goes on to make this outstanding point:
But there's a more fundamental reason why Johnson may resist calls to quit.
He explained in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on Wednesday that the American political system, by producing such alienating rivals as Clinton and Trump, has failed. That, he argued, means reformers have no choice but to fight.
"Hyper-partisanship may be entertaining, but it's a terrible way to try to run a country. We're the alternative — and we're the only ticket that offers Americans a chance to find common ground," Johnson wrote.He is right. Libertarianism is the only possible way to make this democracy work. Otherwise, we will be forced to choose between gridlocked government, which does nothing, or absolutist government, which grows exponentially faster but only in the direction of whichever party controls the strings of power.
There is something else to consider. Libertarianism is the way of the future:
Johnson also appears to be building a significant base of support among millennial voters -- a demographic that Clinton needs to dominate to make it to the White House -- but which could fuel Libertarian Party growth in future.Unfortunately, after this editorial makes such a strong case for Johnson, it ends on the "wasted vote" argument":
A Bloomberg News/Selzer & Co. poll released Monday found Clinton's 10-point advantage among younger voters cut to a statistically insignificant four points when Johnson and Stein are included in the race.
Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine is warning wavering Democrats attracted to Johnson that they risk bringing about an electoral catastrophe similar to the one in Florida in 2000 when Ralph Nader siphoned votes away from Vice President Al Gore. That allowed Bush to claim Florida after the vote count showdown in the US Supreme Court.As if somehow Gore would have been preferable to Bush. The idea of having the king of Global Warming nonsense in the White House doesn't sell me on not voting third party.
"If Gore had been president, we probably wouldn't had a war in Iraq," Kaine told Yahoo News' Katie Couric last week. "Casting a vote, a protest vote, for a third-party candidate that's going to lose may well affect the outcome. It may well lead to a consequence that is deeply, deeply troubling. That's not a speculation, we've seen it in our country's history."
Gary Johnson isn't a perfect presidential candidate, but he is easily better than the alternatives.
In other political news...
Heatstreet:
Chelsea Clinton was campaigning for her elderly mother in North Carolina on Wednesday — and showing off her Clinton-esque taste for expensive, carbon-emitting travel options.
After attending campaign events in Greenville, the former first daughter took a private jet to Asheville, just a five-hour drive away, to attend a roundtable event on “clean energy.” Asheville is a paradise for hippies who love the environment.
The Clinton campaign promised during the Democratic primary that their entire operation would be “carbon neutral” and had some friendly reporters write stories about how even campaign manager John Podesta took the bus.
The campaign doesn’t talk about that pledge much anymore, given the how much the Clintons love flying on private jets...In case you are still on the Global Warming bandwagon, consider that major proponents of this B.S. frequently travel on carbon-emitting private jets even when they could take less carbon-intensive travel options. The fact of the matter is they consider Global Warming to be a problem of the proletariat, and not the bourgeoisie like the Clintons and the Gores. WE THE PEOPLE must make the sacrifices, not them. That should tell you how serious they are about this, which is not serious at all.
This is just more evidence that Global Warming isn't the serious problem which the Left paints it to be.
In business news...
Financial Times:
Hedge funds have started to pull some of their business from Deutsche Bank, setting up a potential showdown with German authorities over the future of the country’s largest lender.If that doesn't tell you how bubbly the world economy is, nothing will. Germany is one of the more responsible countries in the world, yet even their largest bank falls under the sway of Keynesian economics, which creates and bursts bubbles.
As its shares fell sharply in New York trading, Deutsche recirculated a statement emphasising its strong financial position.
European regulators and government officials have kept a low profile in public over Deutsche’s deepening woes. However, in private they have struck a sanguine tone, stressing that in extremis there is scope under European regulation to inject state funds to support the bank, provided it is done in line with market conditions.
It is well past time for a new economic regime. I won't suggest "gold standard", but you economists better come up with something else, and soon.
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