VIEWS John Stossel But Weld also supported the Iraq War, saying George W. Bush had “grown in office.” As Massachusetts’ governor, he backed the drug war and restrictions on gun ownership. Why did he push gun regulation? “There are a lot of bills kicking around in Massachusetts. I’ve been a hunter my entire life, a gun owner my entire life. I really consider myself a Second Amendment guy.” Today, Weld said he’s ready to legalize marijuana. Johnson goes further, “I’m not advocating legalization of other drugs, but if we legalized all drugs tomorrow, the world would be a better place. Ninety percent of the drug problem is prohibition-related.” Both candidates sounded pretty libertarian to me. “We don’t buy the dog food that either party is selling,” said Weld. “We don’t buy government making decisions for people in their private lives, part of the Republican Party platform, and we don’t buy the Democrats’ penchant for spending money that we don’t have.” Do Libertarians have a chance?
Early polls show Johnson getting 10 percent of the vote, even though most Americans don’t know who he is. Once people get to hear him, that number will grow. Lots of people want to elect someone other than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. “If Mickey Mouse were the third name, Mickey would get 30 percent,” said Johnson, “but Mickey’s not on the ballot in all 50 states.” Good point. Libertarians are the only third party likely to be on the ballot in all the states. Trump calls Libertarians and Johnson “a fringe deal.” “Spot on!” replied Johnson. “Totally fringe! Small government, fiscally conservative, socially liberal.” What else do Libertarians stand for? Speeches at the nominating convention offer a sample: “A conservative will fight to live free. A Libertarian fights for everybody to live free.” “There exist in America more laws than an average reader could read – reading 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 600 years.” “The alcohol, tobacco and firearms industry ought to be a store, not a government agency.” Are Libertarians “isolationists?” No. They want to intervene in foreign coun-
tries. “We just believe in intervening by dropping philanthropy, tourism, free speech and free trade on other countries instead of bombs,” said one convention speaker. “When Donald Trump talks about deporting 11 million illegal immigrants, that’s just wrong,” Johnson said. “When he talks about building a fence across the border, that is just wrong. When he talks about killing families of Muslim terrorists, that is just wrong.” Johnson has a long list of disagreements with Trump: “When he talks about free market but he’s going to force Apple to make their iPads and iPhones in the United States, that’s just wrong! When he talks about a 35 percent tariff, that’s just wrong! When he says he’s going to bring back waterboarding or torture or whatever, that’s just wrong!” He can level just as many complaints about Hillary Clinton. The trial comes in November, and voters are the jury. I hope they decide to grant Americans liberty in both the personal and economic realms. Clinton and Trump are punishments we don’t deserve.
John Stossel is host of “Stossel” on Fox News and author of “No They Can’t! Why Government Fails – But Individuals Succeed.”
VIEWS
Chances are, Trump and Hillary may have already persuaded you By JONATHAN BERNSTEIN Bloomberg View
We’re now out of nomination politics (barring any late-breaking “dump Trump” effort), and the general-election campaign is on. If there was any doubt about that, Barack Obama’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton on Thursday will be the flag to start the race. What happens now? Slate’s Jamelle Bouie, in referring to the veepstakes, gives a great introduction to the larger subject of what campaigns really do at this point: “I guess this is a ‘hot take,’ but it is a waste of resources to mobilize base voters who by definition are *already mobilized*.” In one sense, presidential general-election campaigns are enormous undertakings to mobilize those most susceptible to being mobilized. Remember, most voters have barely been paying attention so far. Hillary Clinton received almost 16 million votes in primaries and caucuses, and a little more than 13 million voted for Donald Trump. Barack Obama received about 66 million votes to win
in November 2012. So both Clinton and Trump need to find more than 53 million new votes. Most of those votes, fortunately for them, are easy to secure. Some will come from people who supported a different candidate for the nomination, but who always intended to support their party’s eventual nominee. There are also the party loyalists who skip primary elections, but who will turn out in November. What about the rest of the electorate? Lots of people need some nudging and other help. Campaigns provide that. Voters who like candidates who talk about health care for all or equality for all, for example, may not describe themselves as dyed-in-thewool Democrats, or even as Democrats at all. Yet they’ll notice from the news coverage and paid ads that Hillary Clinton uses this language and Donald Trump doesn’t. That’s why electioneering efforts such as Obama’s endorsement video “work”: Few people will automatically do whatever the president says, even if they like him a lot, but lots of Democrats will see some or all of it and more fully associate
Clinton with people and ideas they like. Voters will also be reminded of what people like themselves generally do in elections. Thus, many Christian conservatives have aligned with Trump since he won the Republican nomination, not because he supports them on policy, or because he said things they like to hear, but because Christian conservatives generally support the Republican ticket. Once a voter leans in one direction, strong cognitive biases reinforce that direction: We all tend to listen with (at least) open minds and to give the benefit of the doubt to candidates we support, and to close our minds to those we oppose, even to the extent of finding them strongly repellent by November. The ubiquity of the campaign does a lot of that work. If you oppose Trump, you can’t just file that away until Election Day. Even if Democrats may not be thrilled with Clinton for any number of reasons, almost all of them will not only wind up supporting her; they will become genuinely enthusiastic – at least for the
duration of the campaign season. And the same will normally be true of Republicans for the Republican nominee, and probably will wind up being true for many this year, even with Trump. This dynamic helps explain why a candidate’s choice for a vice president makes so little difference. For people even marginally engaged in politics, the rest of the presidential nominee’s campaign is more than sufficient to mobilize them. And those who are so estranged from politics that it takes heavy lifting for the campaigns to get them to turn out aren’t going to be swayed by the choice of a running mate, because they don’t really know who Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Gov. John Kasich is. So campaigns aren’t about making the best arguments to convince the other side. They’re about finding the best cues to teach us to vote for the candidate we “should” be voting for in the first place – the candidate that “people like us” vote for.
• Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View columnist covering U.S. politics.
• Saturday, June 11, 2016
Finally! Voters have another choice. The Libertarian Party nominated two socially tolerant but fiscally conservative former governors, Gary Johnson and Bill Weld. Weld? Isn’t the former Massachusetts governor just another Republican? He didn’t act like one when he and Johnson sat for an interview. “This is the dream ticket for me,” began Johnson. “He doesn’t look like a dream,” I responded rudely. “He’s not thought of by us libertarians as Libertarian.” “Weld got the A from Cato Institute,” said Johnson, referring to the libertarian think tank. “Weld was declared the fiscally most conservative governor in the country. ... First day in office, Bill Weld furloughs 8,000 employees.” I hadn’t known that. “Nine percent of the state workforce,” said Weld, “and I never received a single postcard asking, ‘Where are those essential 8,000 employees?’ I cut the budget 14 percent my first two months. Piece o’ cake. ... I’d love to see the federal government receive cuts like that.” Me, too. Johnson added that his running mate was “pro-gay, pro-choice and pro-medical marijuana at a time nobody else was talking about this stuff.”
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OPINIONS | Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com
Third party gives better choice than Trump, Clinton