Post and Courier: Debate Commission Should Include Johnson and Weld
From South Carolina’s Post and Courier…
Beyond Trump and Clinton
Last Sunday, a presidential nominee stated these general principles that he shares with his running mate:
■ “We’re going to always support taxes going lower. We’re going to always support being in business being easier. Rules and regulations not getting worse, getting better.”
■ “Being fiscally conservative, socially inclusive.”
■ “We’re really skeptical about intervening militarily to achieve regime change that I think has resulted in a less-safe world. So I think that we represent about 60 percent of Americans with that philosophical belief.”
No, those reasonable-sounding perspectives didn’t come from Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
They came from Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
Mr. Johnson also pointed out that he and running mate William Weld are “two former Republican governors re-elected in heavily Democrat states [Mr. Johnson in New Mexico, Mr. Weld in Massachusetts].”
Of course, the Libertarian ticket faces a political mission impossible against the major-party monopoly on the White House.
But when Mr. Johnson is included in polls, he’s been tracking up to 10 percent in national surveys and above 15 percent in some states. And Green Party nominee Jill Stein has been drawing from 4 to 6 percent.
So the Libertarian ticket retains a long-shot chance of meeting the unreasonably high 15 percent national poll-average minimum required by the Commission on Presidential Debates to be included in the three presidential and single vice presidential debates.
That would give each of those debates a third voice that many Americans would welcome, considering the remarkably elevated public “disapproval” numbers that polls have long been showing for both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton.
The Libertarian nominees, if included in the debates, might even be able to shift the focus away from the tiresome trading of insults between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton and toward substantive discussion of policy issues.
That doesn’t mean most Americans buy the Libertarian Party’s specific pitches advanced as part of its “Maximum Freedom, Minimum Government” mantra.
And no, the Johnson-Weld ticket won’t win the election on Nov. 8.
But the debate commission should still include Mr. Johnson and Mr. Weld.
They could expand the ideological reach of those events — and maybe even elevate the tawdry tone of this down-and-dirty campaign season.
Source: Beyond Trump and Clinton – Post and Courier
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