How can anyone deny Gary Johnson was the Second Best Candidate in the 2012 GOP Primary?

[Christian Liberty]

This subject was briefly, and off topically, discussed in another thread, but since I haven't seen it in my new posts, I can only assume the thread died.

Now, I'm not asking about voting for Johnson. Everyone has their sliding scale, and I don't believe that Johnson was a particularly wonderful candidate. I don't believe he is genuinely libertarian, even by a soft definition of that word. He's not a constitutionalist either, he doesn't like the 10th amendment.

However, how can anyone seriously say that any of the others were better?

I distinctly remember at least one poster saying Michelle Bachmann rates over GJ. Now, while I will not deny that either candidate is really close to Ron Paul, I'd say Johnson, who does support marijuana legalization, and, more importantly, is not paranoid about Iran, and is willing to cut the Pentagon by 43%.

Again, I can understand why you might not vote for him, but how can anyone deny that he would be better than Bachmann? Or any other candidate in the 2012 primary except for Ron Paul.

Discuss.

 

[pcosmar]

Discuss.

second best? hmm,,,

Outside of Ron,, maybe he was the least worse..
But then,, given power with his clear lack of principles,, there is no telling how bad he could have been.

 

[supermario21]

I don't know, exposure? I think he had dropped out before some of us even really got into the GOP race. Many of us behind Paul were following strictly the GOP race, and Johnson was around for so little of it he really didn't factor in my mind.

 

[compromise]

I ranked Johnson higher than Bachmann, but I'll say this about them:

Johnson knows absolutely nothing about monetary policy.
Bachmann knows a little about monetary policy.

 

[FSP-Rebel]

Ron was pushing us to build our profile in the GOP and Gary could've helped by not wasting his time running for prez and focusing on making his rounds and gearing up for a Senate run in '14. If he would've followed the game plan he wouldn't be left out in the weeds.

 

[Christian Liberty]

second best? hmm,,,

Outside of Ron,, maybe he was the least worse..
But then,, given power with his clear lack of principles,, there is no telling how bad he could have been.

That's true, I can respect that. I'm not a Johnson fanatic. I would have voted for him in 2012, but after some soul searching, I'm not even sure I would do that any more. Given the field of 2012, I'd probably hold my nose and do so to help the LP, but 2012 was a pathetic year all te way around. In 2008 at least you had Baldwin, yeah he was a paleocon and not a libertarian but he clearly had principles, and those principles were probably 90% of mine. In 2004, Badnarik was even better.

But I still don't see how anyone could rate anyone in the 2012 Republican Primary (Other than Ron Paul, of course) higher than Johnson. Johnson was clearly, at least, "Less bad" than Bachmann, Newt, Cain, or anyone else from that field.

A number of people here disagreed with this in another thread, and I'm curious why.

 

[Christian Liberty]

I ranked Johnson higher than Bachmann, but I'll say this about them:

Johnson knows absolutely nothing about monetary policy.
Bachmann knows a little about monetary policy.

Yeah, that's probably a valid point. Bachmann has read Mises (Or at least claims to have), so she'd probably be better on monetary policy. But as a holistic package? I don't know, I guess if monetary policy outweighs the combination of a much more reserved foreign policy, 43% cuts to the Pentagon, a more libertarian (Note that I said "More", I get that Gary isn't where Ron Paul is here), drug policy, and not hating Iran, than yeah, I guess you could prefer Bachmann. That's not where I'm at.

Ron was pushing us to build our profile in the GOP and Gary could've helped by not wasting his time running for prez and focusing on making his rounds and gearing up for a Senate run in '14. If he would've followed the game plan he wouldn't be left out in the weeds.

I agree with you, and Johnson is a self-righteous jerk. I'll admit that I can be that way sometimes, but at least what I say is USUALLY accurate. I'd never dare to compare myself with Ron Paul, and I'm WAY more libertarian than Gary Johnson is (Admittedly, I DON'T know much about economics, I'll admit my own deficiency there, but I know enough to know government screws the crap out of things, as the 1920's proves well enough), yet Gary actually agreed with an interviewer who claimed he was more libertarian than Ron Paul.

But in spite of his personal jerkishness, his policies are still WAY better than anyone other than Ron Paul from the 2012 Republican race. Maybe you could argue Constitution Party's Virgil Goode was better, depending on what you give the most weight to and by how much, but I don't see how you can make a serious argument that Gary wasn't closer to our values than Bachmann, Cain, or anyone else other than Ron Paul from the Republican field.

 

[compromise]

Bachmann was pretty good on Fed hearings.

 

[jkob]

Of course he was the 2nd best candidate in 2012, the rest of the candidates were beyond horrible. He is no Ron Paul tho.

 

[Christian Liberty]

Of course he was the 2nd best candidate in 2012, the rest of the candidates were beyond horrible. He is no Ron Paul tho.

I absolutely agree. As I said, I referred to saying I would have probably "Held my nose" and voted for Johnson, in the general. He's no Ron Paul, not even close. But some here thought that Bachmann and Cain were better. That's what I'm asking about.

 

[pcosmar]

I absolutely agree. As I said, I referred to saying I would have probably "Held my nose" and voted for Johnson, in the general. He's no Ron Paul, not even close. But some here thought that Bachmann and Cain were better. That's what I'm asking about.

I wrote in Ron Paul..

I sure couldn't vote for the others.