CNN to host town hall with Gary Johnson on June 22nd at 9 PM Eastern

[William Tell]

Weld said abortion is a "fundamental constitutional right". Just....wow.

 

[younglibertarian]

Lol Gary said he isn't looking to make it easier to get guns.

"we are keeping the IRS."

fantastic right?

 

[William Tell]

Hm, Weld also says the Constitution dictates same sex marriage.

 

[dean.engelhardt]

No one has their $#@! together this year... absolutely no one... not the good guys, not the bad guys, or anyone in between.

He missed a few good opportunities. The Black Lives Matter question was a good opportunity to be a champion of individual liberties. He really needed to hammer the failed drug war. I wonder if they practiced any answers beforehand. It is still early in the campaign, so I hope they can use this a learning experience and prepare better for more questions.

 

[CaptUSA]

What a hot mess. So many missed opportunities you can't even count them.

"The latest CNN poll has you at 9%" The answer should have been, "Well, you work for CNN, how about giving us 9% of your political coverage?!"

Just unorganized, twitchy, and unprepared. Many of those questions were lobs.


Still... Even with all the mess... Still leaps and bounds above both of the front runners.

 

[James Otis Jr.]

Still leaps and bounds above both of the front runners.

Interesting. I would've definitely agreed with that statement before last night. I'm not so sure now.

I'm not at all comfortable with these two as the de facto spokesmen for libertarianism to the American public over the next four and a half months.

 

[pmbug]

I'm thinking that I would rather have watched Austin Peterson handle that town hall. As sound byte packaged as he is, he would have done much better controlling the message and being authoritative in his delivery (instead of meekly deferring questions like GJ did to Weld all night).

 

[CaptUSA]

Interesting. I would've definitely agreed with that statement before last night. I'm not so sure now.

I'm not at all comfortable with these two as the de facto spokesmen for libertarianism to the American public over the next four and a half months.

Neither am I. But STILL better than the other two frontrunners. (That should give you a sense of how bad the other two are.)

 

[Makes Interesting Points]

That was like a 5/10 performance for Johnson at best, which is too bad because I told a few people who could be swayed to vote for him to watch the town hall... Hopefully they didn't think something along the lines of, "so that's what a Libertarian is? Guess I don't like libertarianism too much."

We expect people of all political affiliations to consider voting for freedom candidates, especially when their candidates aren't as good. When citizens vote not just on general political affiliation, but also on how good a candidate is, it prevents one political party from having too much power, because good candidates come and go. If there's ever a time for us not to vote LP, maybe this is it. But then again, the country needs a freedom fighter more than ever... What I will probably do is this: I'll see how Johnson does in the polls before voting day. If he is polling well enough to make a big statement, with 3rd party poll numbers of historic proportions, then I'll vote for Johnson to help make an impact. If by chance I get called by a pollster before election day, I'll tell them that I want Johnson to help with this cause. If Johnson isn't polling well enough to make an impact before voting day however, then I'll vote for Darrell Castle (unless I find a big issue with Castle while researching him, in which case I'll write in Rand Paul).

 

[William Tell]

Interesting. I would've definitely agreed with that statement before last night. I'm not so sure now.

I'm not at all comfortable with these two as the de facto spokesmen for libertarianism to the American public over the next four and a half months.

The next four years if they gets a lot of votes.

 

[jllundqu]

I watched parts of it. Meh.

They could have said and done so much more. And I'm sorry to be the guy to harp on aesthetics... but GJ is such an androgynous weiner. You can't put him next to an alpha male like trump and expect people to vote on substance over style. We are smart enough to hear the message and not so much care about the messenger, but for BOOBUS... GJ ain't gonna cut it.

 

[CaptUSA]

I watched parts of it. Meh.

They could have said and done so much more. And I'm sorry to be the guy to harp on aesthetics... but GJ is such an androgynous weiner. You can't put him next to an alpha male like trump and expect people to vote on substance over style. We are smart enough to hear the message and not so much care about the messenger, but for BOOBUS... GJ ain't gonna cut it.

Yeah, and what's ironic is that Gary used to run a company called "Big-J Enterprises", he's a triathlete, he's climbed the tallest mountain on every continent, he's a world-class skier, and he's an extreme sports guy. And yet, he comes off like such a "weiner", as you put it.

 

[afwjam]

Where's McAfee? I liked his brand better.

 

[speciallyblend]

I am fine with what i heard, Gary Johnson 2016 over the hillaries(trump/hillary). donated

 

[RJ Liberty]

The media has been buzzing since last night. Here are some of MSM articles covering the CNN town hall today:

Politico: Gary Johnson jokes: Election season so strange

ABC: Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson on His Race for the White House

Washington Post: Gary Johnson doesn’t want to talk about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. But he needs to.

NY Post: Libertarian Gary Johnson quit smoking pot to run for president

LA Times: Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson answers questions at CNN’s town hall

Media Research Center: Libertarian Candidate Wants 'Free Market Approach' to Health Care

Newsweek: How well can Gary Johnson and Bill Weld do

CSMonitor: Will voters be swayed by Johnson?

Examiner.com: CNN Libertarian Town Hall gives Gary Johnson much-needed media boost

Albuquerque Journal: Johnson wants no part of name-calling battle between Clinton and Trump

KOAT (NM): Voter opposes Gary Johnson during CNN town hall

 

[ronpaulhawaii]

Google trends following the Townhall

 

[Nirvikalpa]

Google trends following the Townhall

This. No such thing as bad publicity. *thumbsup*

 

[acptulsa]

Johnson's only hope is to carve off enough of the Sanders supporters at this point. Trump's are too loyal, and there aren't enough of the bitter Romney/Jeb-like RINOs to matter. I think he might manage a small contingent of ex-Bernie supporters, but Jill Stein with the Green Party will get the rest. The bulk will still go to Hillary when Bernie himself falls completely in line - he's like 90% of the way there now.

Is the best way to do that by talking about how great and honest Hillary is? The pro-Hillary Sandernistas are going to vote for Hillary anyway.

There are Republicans that don't like Trump, and Democrats that don't like Clinton. And they have enough sense to be looking for someone to coalesce behind.

Just because the MSM thinks they're The Voters Who Must Not Be Named doesn't mean they don't exist. Once upon a time, this forum would have been happy about them, before the spammers made people bored with this place.

 

[RJ Liberty]

Google trends following the Townhall

Nice!

Google Trends also shows Gary Johnson trending 650% higher this June than in June in 2012, despite the fact that the month isn't yet over.

 

[DamianTV]

There are Republicans that don't like Trump, and Democrats that don't like Clinton. And they have enough sense to be looking for someone to coalesce behind.

Just because the MSM thinks they're The Voters Who Must Not Be Named doesn't mean they don't exist. Once upon a time, this forum would have been happy about them, before the spammers made people bored with this place.

I read an article recently that the reason that people support either Hillary or Trump is not because they actually like their chosen candidate, but because they only hate the opposing candidate that much more. Truly baffled by their choice to try to make sense of the choice between the lesser of two evils.