February 18, 2012. Santa Fe. Take a look at the attached election map. Observers will notice that in addition to the usual red and blue states, quite a few are colored in yellow. The last time American voters split their Presidential vote three ways in enough numbers to create a three-colored election map was 1968 with the candidacy of George Wallace. Come November, Americans may once again be treated to an exciting, three-way race for President.
This time around, the third candidate in addition to the Republican and Democratic candidates will be the Libertarian Presidential nominee Gary Johnson. The former New Mexico Governor and former Republican candidate for President is already polling 10 percent in national polls and is poised to play a major roll in the November general election.
Two days ago, Yahoo News projected that President Obama would easily coast to re-election this year, capturing an estimated 303 electoral votes. That’s quite a bit more than the 270 needed to win. One factor the announcement didn’t take into account was the candidacy of Gary Johnson. Read the article, ‘Johnson Rocks GOP with Switch to Libertarian Party’ detailing the possible ramifications of Johnson’s Libertarian bid. There is no doubt that the popular, former two-term Republican Governor will take a large number of votes away from the eventual GOP nominee. But how will his candidacy affect President Obama’s support?
According to candidate Gary Johnson, his candidacy will pull just as many votes from the Democratic Party as it will from the Republican Party. Your author tends to agree. According to a Wednesday article from In These Times and distributed by the Johnson campaign, the publication warns, "The Libertarian Presidential candidacy poses a problem for Barack Obama”. From the article, “Gary Johnson is, in some important ways, the candidate that the Left once hoped Barack Obama would be. He vocally opposes the death penalty, the use of torture by the U.S. military, and the indefinite detention of people charged with a crime – even suspects charged with terrorism.” Those are just some of the many broken Obama campaign promises.
The authors also cite a number of other issues and positions where the President has seemingly flip-flopped since his election, but the Libertarian Johnson still holds firm. Among them are reproductive freedom, defense cuts, bringing home American troops from a multitude of foreign countries, marriage rights for all, and the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana, instead of imprisoning cancer victims, AIDS patients and our nations' wounded warriors, as President Obama ceaselessly continues to do.
Gary Johnson still possesses the love and support of the Constitutionalist wing of the Republican Party. Feeling betrayed by the GOP’s assault on freedom, liberty and the very document they’re sworn to protect and defend – the US Constitution – they’ve deserted the GOP in droves along with Johnson. Instead they argue, the Republican Party has become the party of the Constitution-killing Patriot Act, the internet-killing SOPA legislation, the party of unending war, and the party dedicated to global empire.
Strangely enough, Democrats campaigning for President Obama’s re-election are shocked to realize those staunch Republican platforms are the very issues their Democratic Party nominee has pushed so vigorously and the policies they’re now forced to somehow defend. That’s not an easy request for a progressive Democrat to swallow.
And that is the exact dilemma for the Democrats that Johnson will attempt to exploit. According to the candidate’s synopsis, a typical Democratic Presidential candidate will be positioned on the left while his Republican opponent will position himself on the right. Generally, whichever candidate moves closer to the center wins.
This particular election, according to some analysts, President Obama is actually positioned to the right of the Republicans. With his support of numerous foreign wars, his attacks on the working and middle class, his bailouts of the richest one one-hundredth of the richest one percent, his authorization of the murder of American citizens without trial or charge, his assassinations of American citizens, his authorization of the military occupation of America, his authorization of the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens in military jails without trial or charge, his assault on free speech and the internet, his endless ties to pay-to-play corruption, and his cuts to senior citizen benefits – have all moved President Obama to the right of the Republicans.
The political conclusion is that with President Obama and the Republican nominee each moving toward each other philosophically to capture the middle ground, they’ll still be sitting way off on the right wing. That leaves the moderates and progressives without a candidate. And that, as much as anything else, is Gary Johnson’s key to victory in November.
Take another article published yesterday titled, ‘Fun Interactive red blue State Election Map’. The column is focused on the fun, do-it-yourself, red and blue interactive election map available online (see the article to create your own election scenario and corresponding map). One of the three possible outcomes the author arrived at was a Gary Johnson victory in the general election.
The author’s explanation suggests that the final outcome, and a Johnson victory, depend on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney being the Republican nominee. As they put it, “All the prerequisites necessary for a Gary Johnson upset victory are slowly falling into place.”
The explanation from the above Whiteout Press article concludes, “With Barack Obama and Mitt Romney running against each other – two versions of the same elite, establishment agenda – the Libertarian reformer Gary Johnson could unite the populist wings of both the Democratic and Republican parties. With the conservative Tea Party and the liberal 99 Percent united with the 42 percent of Americans who identify themselves as independents, Gary Johnson could easily find himself the next President of the United States.”
The key to Johnson’s victory is one state – California. While Democrats on the east coast and the rust belt of the Great Lakes region typically vote Democrat due to allegiances to organized labor, government employment or government welfare, western Democrats tend to support the party for its ‘peace and freedom’ position. But today’s Democratic Party, passionately led by President Obama, no longer supports the ‘peace and freedom’ cause. And as the above article reminds us, nowhere do those peace and freedom Democrats exist in larger numbers than in California.
With support radiating out from his home state of New Mexico, where Johnson is still very popular, the Libertarian candidate would need to capture much of the idealistic west, including the delegate-rich states of California and Texas. Anti-war and anti-Wall Street Democrats will aid his efforts in California, while disenfranchised Republican supporters of conservative Texas Congressman Ron Paul will help him in Texas.
If Johnson can unite California progressives with Texas conservatives, he would find a winning combination. In short, this author agrees with the above article’s final conclusion, “While the rich, powerful and elite of both parties split their vote between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, main street America could very well unite under the Libertarian Party banner and put a real outsider, a real reformer, into the White House. Visit the candidate’s website at GaryJohnson2012.com for more information. Or read the Feb. 11 edition of this column titled, 'Interview with Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson'.
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