From the Archives: Gary Johnson presidential campaign racks up endorsements

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 26, 2016, during the Libertarian Party's national convention in Orlando, Florida.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued Friday, July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Gary Johnson presidential campaign racks up endorsements

In a bare-bones press release distributed on May 25, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson's campaign for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination unveiled a list of endorsements by celebrities, political activists, and Libertarian notables.

The list includes Nirvana bass guitarist Krist Novaselic, magician and TV personality Teller, professional football player Rudy Carpenter, podcaster Ben Kissel, and former CIA analyst John Kiriakou.

Other endorsers are 1980 Libertarian presidential nominee Ed Clark, Cato Institute founder and former president Ed Crane, 2014 Florida gubernatorial candidate Adrian Wyllie, 2012 Michigan congressional candidate Emily Salvette, and former Harris County (Texas) LP chairman Guy McLendon.

Duke University political scientist Mike Munger is also on the endorsement list, as is Tom Palmer, author of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice.

From Virginia, Robert Sarvis, who in 2013 earned more votes in his campaign for governor (against Ken Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe) than any other statewide Libertarian candidate, endorsed Johnson, as did former LP national chairman and 2008 Virginia U.S. Senate candidate Bill Redpath.

In his endorsement statement, Sarvis said:

"Only Gary Johnson has the resume, the experience, and the credibility to combine with our party’s inspiring message of peace, prosperity, and freedom."

Johnson, he continued, "has a fundamentally libertarian outlook and a track record of furthering libertarian goals in office. He has a realistic and likeable approach to politics that attracts open-minded voters to a libertarian message. And he has the kind of credibility that cannot be bought or faked, that can only be earned through admirable personal and professional achievements."

Redpath, who has also served as chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, said in endorsing Johnson:

"2016 presents the greatest opportunity nationally for the Libertarian Party in many years. For us to seize this opportunity, it is essential that our presidential candidate be credible, serious and a widely-recognized champion of small government and greater freedom. We are fortunate to have such a candidate in Governor Johnson. I am proud to support him, and look forward to working with him toward historic success in November."

Redpath also added that he is "grateful for Governor Johnson’s work, often behind-the-scenes, to help ensure that Libertarian candidates are not unfairly denied ballot access. The fight against those who try to keep us off the ballot never ends, and Governor Johnson has been and continues to be a great supporter of our efforts."

In an interview with The Libertarian Vindicator, Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, pointed out that a Johnson presidential candidacy would enhance the Libertarian Party's efforts at gaining ballot status in several states. "With 2%, we could be a qualified party for the first time in Iowa and Kentucky," Winger said, "and with 1% in Connecticut (but for president only for the 2020 election). We have never done that in any of those 3 states." (Winger had put himself on record as endorsing the Johnson campaign.)

With Gary Johnson's naming of former Massachusetts Governor William Weld as his running mate last week, the campaign has won unprecedented attention from the mainstream media, with interviews on CNN, ABC News, and MSNBC, and stories in POLITICO, The Hill, The Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, and other news outlets.

(Full disclosure: Writing in a personal capacity, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner also endorsed Gary Johnson for President.)

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Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/gary-johnson-presidential-campaign-racks-up-endorsements

From the Archives: Libertarian Party chair Nicholas Sarwark predicts ‘epic’ national convention

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 26, 2016, during the Libertarian Party's national convention in Orlando, Florida.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued Friday, July 1, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Libertarian Party chair Nicholas Sarwark predicts ‘epic’ national convention

In an interview on the eve of the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominating convention in Orlando, Florida, today, the party’s national chairman, Nicholas Sarwark, predicted that the weekend is “going to be epic.”

Sarwark told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner in an exclusive interview at the Rosen Centre Hotel that “this may be the biggest Libertarian national convention that we’ve ever had. There are a couple, like 1979 in Los Angeles, that may be similar in size.”

Considering the space in the convention hall, he said, “we will be close to our theoretical maximum for delegates. For observers, we’re probably pushing 500.” The number of delegates, he said, will be more than 950 and possibly as many as 1,000.

As a result of the gathering – which has delegations from every state except Oregon, where the affiliate chose not to send delegates to the national convention – “ Orlando is the center of the American political landscape,” said Sarwark. “This is the eye of the storm. This is the biggest thing happening in politics right now, so I expect it’s going to be very exciting.”

‘Toughest and best choice’
Referring to the presidential contest, which includes former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, software entrepreneur John McAfee, and former Fox News producer Austin Petersen as well as about a dozen others – Sarwark said that the field includes “some of the best candidates that I’ve ever seen vie for our nomination and these delegates have probably the toughest and best choice in my memory.”

The Libertarian Party is also attracting a lot of attention from the news media, he said.

“I have not been off the phone with reporters for the last three weeks. Ever since Cruz dropped out after Indiana,” Sarwark explained, “it has been non-stop. I’ve talked to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Hill, POLITICO, Reason.” He said he had an interview scheduled with C-SPAN and another with CNN later in the day.

“Every minute of my time at this convention that’s not at a business session is basically booked with interviews,” he added.

The attention is well-earned, he noted.

‘Our time to shine’
“It’s been 45 years that we’ve been waiting for this opportunity, doing the hard work of building the state parties, getting ballot access in all fifty states, and this is our time to shine.”

The party aims to have at least 1,000 candidates on the ballot across the United States in 2016, “including president, senate, congress, governor, state house, state senate, dog catcher.”

The LP, Sarwark said, has been trying “to fill the ballot every state, every election, all the time, because every American deserves to have a Libertarian option on their ballot.”

The “wasted vote” that some people warn about, is “when a person wakes up and says, ‘You know, I’m not going to vote for the two old parties anymore. I’m just done with it. I’m tired of them lying to me. I’m tired of the bullying, I’m tired of the fear tactics, I’m going to vote Libertarian’” but when they get into the voting booth and “there’s not a libertarian on their ballot – that’s a wasted vote. Those are the wasted votes that I want to catch.”

The Libertarian Party convention continues through Memorial Day. The presidential and vice presidential nominations will take place on Sunday morning, May 29, following a nationally televised debate on C-SPAN Saturday evening, May 28.

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Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/libertarian-party-chair-nicholas-sarwark-predicts-epic-national-convention

From the Archives: Gary Johnson optimistic about Libertarian nomination prospects, praises Weld

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 27, 2016, during the Libertarian Party's national convention in Orlando, Florida.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued Friday, July 1, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Gary Johnson optimistic about Libertarian nomination prospects, praises Weld

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in 2012 and he is looking to repeat that in 2016. In an exclusive interview today with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner at the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando, Johnson praised his proposed running mate, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, and talked about his appeal to both conservatives and liberals, and raised the prospect of being invited to the presidential debates this fall.

Asked about his expectations for the convention this weekend, Johnson stated flatly: “I hope to be the Libertarian nominee for president, and I hope the Libertarian Party chooses Bill Weld as the vice presidential candidate. I really believe that we have an opportunity here to actually get elected.”

He explained that he and Weld came together based on a common bond forged in the 1990s, when both were serving as governors of their respective states.

'Smartest guy in the room'

“I connected with Bill Weld when I first became governor” of New Mexico, he said, explaining that they met at his first meeting of the National Governors Association.

At that time, he said, Weld had the reputation of being the smartest guy in the room. When he got to the NGA meeting, Johnson said, “Yeah, he was the smartest guy in the room but along with being the smartest guy in the room, he was classy, and classy was based on humility.”

Becoming ticket-mates for the Libertarian presidential campaign “didn’t involve a sales pitch on my part,” Johnson said, adding that Weld “was really enthusiastic. Thhe intention here is to actually be a team. He doesn’t want a staff as Vice President of the United States because staffs divide people. I think that speaks volumes about what the two of us can accomplish.”

Noting that the libertarian Cato Institute had rated both him and Weld highly on their “report cards” of the nation’s governors, Johnson said “That’s what we are carrying forward: I mean, genuine libertarian representation, fiscally conservative, socially liberal. These have been our careers, both of us.”

Remembering their years as governors of New Mexico and Massachusetts, he added that “for me, I always tried to emulate Bill Weld. Bill Weld was on a pedestal for me.”

It was, Johnson said, “Beyond my wildest dreams, [that] Bill Weld be a part of this ticket, running for President of the United States. I just hope we emerge from the weekend with this intact,” with the vote of the convention’s delegates approving the two as a ticket.

Asked what voters he and Weld will be aiming at in the general election campaign against Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, Johnson said that “by ‘aiming at,’ I think there will be enough attention given to us that, given the message, and given the experience, this is going to be more of a phenomenon of people just understanding what it is that we represent, and I think that it has absolutely broad-based appeal.”

Siding with Bernie
He pointed out that, when he takes the quiz at ISideWith.com, aside from the other candidates for the Libertarian nomination, he is closest to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

“I side with Bernie 73 percent of the time,” Johnson said, pointing out that “those same Bernie Sanders supporters are going to find the reverse being true. They’re going to find themselves philosophically siding with me more than they do Hillary Clinton.” He conceded, however, that “when it comes to Bernie, look, we agree on so much but when it comes to economics we get to a ‘T’ in the road: he goes one way, I go the other.”

In response to attacks from National Review and other conservative outlets that have expressed fear that a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Hillary Clinton, Johnson acknowledged that it is a myth that Libertarians draw more votes away from Republican candidates than from Democrats.

“I think it’s an equal draw from both sides. I describe libertarian as being the best of both worlds. In the three national polls where my name has appeared, they have actually done an analysis and determined that I draw more from Hillary. At the end of the day,” he said, “I think it ends up being 50/50.”

A debate invitation?

Public opinion polls are fundamental as to whether Johnson and Weld get into the televised presidential and vice-presidential debates in the weeks before the November election. The Commission on Presidential Debates has set a 15 percent threshold in survey support for issuing invitations to participate in the forums.

“Rick,” Johnson said, “I don’t think there’s any question that we will be at 15 percent if we’re in the polls. That’s really the key, is being in the polls.”

What’s additionally significant to being in the polls, he said, “is that the Libertarian nominees, president and vice president, are going to be the only [third-party] candidates on the ballot in all fifty states,” which gives them more than a theoretical chance of winning electoral votes, or even the election.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/gary-johnson-optimistic-about-libertarian-nomination-prospects-praises-weld

From the Archives: Gary Johnson optimistic about Libertarian nomination prospects, praises Weld

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 27, 2016, during the Libertarian Party's national convention in Orlando, Florida.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued Friday, July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Gary Johnson optimistic about Libertarian nomination prospects, praises Weld

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in 2012 and he is looking to repeat that in 2016. In an exclusive interview today with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner at the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando, Johnson praised his proposed running mate, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, and talked about his appeal to both conservatives and liberals, and raised the prospect of being invited to the presidential debates this fall.

Asked about his expectations for the convention this weekend, Johnson stated flatly: “I hope to be the Libertarian nominee for president, and I hope the Libertarian Party chooses Bill Weld as the vice presidential candidate. I really believe that we have an opportunity here to actually get elected.”

He explained that he and Weld came together based on a common bond forged in the 1990s, when both were serving as governors of their respective states.

'Smartest guy in the room'

“I connected with Bill Weld when I first became governor” of New Mexico, he said, explaining that they met at his first meeting of the National Governors Association.

At that time, he said, Weld had the reputation of being the smartest guy in the room. When he got to the NGA meeting, Johnson said, “Yeah, he was the smartest guy in the room but along with being the smartest guy in the room, he was classy, and classy was based on humility.”

Becoming ticket-mates for the Libertarian presidential campaign “didn’t involve a sales pitch on my part,” Johnson said, adding that Weld “was really enthusiastic. Thhe intention here is to actually be a team. He doesn’t want a staff as Vice President of the United States because staffs divide people. I think that speaks volumes about what the two of us can accomplish.”

Noting that the libertarian Cato Institute had rated both him and Weld highly on their “report cards” of the nation’s governors, Johnson said “That’s what we are carrying forward: I mean, genuine libertarian representation, fiscally conservative, socially liberal. These have been our careers, both of us.”

Remembering their years as governors of New Mexico and Massachusetts, he added that “for me, I always tried to emulate Bill Weld. Bill Weld was on a pedestal for me.”

It was, Johnson said, “Beyond my wildest dreams, [that] Bill Weld be a part of this ticket, running for President of the United States. I just hope we emerge from the weekend with this intact,” with the vote of the convention’s delegates approving the two as a ticket.

Asked what voters he and Weld will be aiming at in the general election campaign against Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, Johnson said that “by ‘aiming at,’ I think there will be enough attention given to us that, given the message, and given the experience, this is going to be more of a phenomenon of people just understanding what it is that we represent, and I think that it has absolutely broad-based appeal.”

Siding with Bernie
He pointed out that, when he takes the quiz at ISideWith.com, aside from the other candidates for the Libertarian nomination, he is closest to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

“I side with Bernie 73 percent of the time,” Johnson said, pointing out that “those same Bernie Sanders supporters are going to find the reverse being true. They’re going to find themselves philosophically siding with me more than they do Hillary Clinton.” He conceded, however, that “when it comes to Bernie, look, we agree on so much but when it comes to economics we get to a ‘T’ in the road: he goes one way, I go the other.”

In response to attacks from National Review and other conservative outlets that have expressed fear that a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Hillary Clinton, Johnson acknowledged that it is a myth that Libertarians draw more votes away from Republican candidates than from Democrats.

“I think it’s an equal draw from both sides. I describe libertarian as being the best of both worlds. In the three national polls where my name has appeared, they have actually done an analysis and determined that I draw more from Hillary. At the end of the day,” he said, “I think it ends up being 50/50.”

A debate invitation?

Public opinion polls are fundamental as to whether Johnson and Weld get into the televised presidential and vice-presidential debates in the weeks before the November election. The Commission on Presidential Debates has set a 15 percent threshold in survey support for issuing invitations to participate in the forums.

“Rick,” Johnson said, “I don’t think there’s any question that we will be at 15 percent if we’re in the polls. That’s really the key, is being in the polls.”

What’s additionally significant to being in the polls, he said, “is that the Libertarian nominees, president and vice president, are going to be the only [third-party] candidates on the ballot in all fifty states,” which gives them more than a theoretical chance of winning electoral votes, or even the election.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/gary-johnson-optimistic-about-libertarian-nomination-prospects-praises-weld

From the Archives: William Weld cites Hayek’s ‘Constitution of Liberty’ as libertarian inspiration

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 28, 2016, during the Libertarian Party's national convention in Orlando, Florida.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued yesterday and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.


William Weld cites Hayek’s ‘Constitution of Liberty’ as libertarian inspiration

William Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts who is seeking the Libertarian Party’s nomination to be the vice-presidential running mate of former Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico, spent Saturday morning and early afternoon meeting LP convention delegates one-on-one and in small groups, asking for their votes in Sunday’s balloting.

Weld and Johnson together took questions from a sometimes skeptical audience upstairs from the convention floor, where a debate over changes in the party platform was going on. Johnson invited “hardball questions” posed to him and Weld, and fielded them enthusiastically.

Media attention

After the Q&A session in the Johnson campaign suite, the two former governors waded through the crowd of delegates in the exhibition hall of the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, chatting with delegates even as they were surrounded by a scrum of reporters, TV camera operators, and radio microphones. Johnson had pointed out that at the LP convention in 2012, there were 20 requests for press credentials; this year, he said, there were more than 250 such requests, indicating an unprecedented level of interest by the news media in the Libertarian presidential and vice presidential nomination contests.

Governor Weld spoke briefly with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about how he came to be a libertarian, what he accomplished in office in Massachusetts, and how he plans to help build the Libertarian Party as a vice presidential candidate in 2016.

Weld discovered he was a libertarian in law school, he said, reading Friedrich Hayek’s books The Constitution of Liberty and The Road to Serfdom.

“I had been thinking about the size and role of government ever since reading political philosophy at the college level but I would say that thinking crystallized with those two books in law school,” he explained, eventually leading to his formulation that “the government should stay out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom.”

LGBT equality
As governor of Massachusetts, he said, “I most certainly did make the government smaller and less intrusive than it otherwise would have been.”

One policy area in which he is most proud, he explained, was in the expansion of the rights of gay and lesbian citizens. He pointed out that he had appointed Margaret Marshall, a refugee from apartheid-era South Africa, to a seat on the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Marshall eventually wrote the decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which acknowledged that the Massachusetts constitution forbid discrimination against same-sex couples in terms of marriage rights, and the law could not prevent lesbian or gay couples from marrying.

“I was pushing gay and lesbian equality in office in the early ‘90s when no one else was touching that,” Weld said. Consequently, he added, “marriage equality is now the law of the land, largely as the result of a judicial opinion written by a woman that I appointed. So yeah, we got there -- two decades later but we got there.”

Growing the Libertarian Party
When asked how he plans to use his candidacy to promote and build the Libertarian Party, Governor Weld said that he had “told Gary one thing I very much enjoy – this is, if nominated, if Gary and I are nominated – one thing I really enjoy is fundraising, particularly at the national level. I think the Libertarian Party can be helped by that.”

He added that he also plans to campaign alongside other Libertarian candidates for public office, whether for Congress or state and local offices, to help them win recognition and election.

“My intention,” he said, “is to try to help down-ballot candidates as well as ourselves.”

The Libertarian convention will hear nominating speeches for presidential candidates this afternoon (Saturday, May 28) and the vote for both presidential and vice presidential candidates is scheduled to take place by noon on Sunday, May 29. The convention continues with Libertarian Party business through Memorial Day on Monday, May 30.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/william-weld-cites-hayek-s-constitution-of-liberty-as-libertarian-inspiration