I think we have tor remember with him that he was a celebrity for a long time before he became a politician, and at times still acts like one. He clearly loves the adulation/applause and is probably reluctant to give that up any time soon. He's a business man too, so losing would be like losing out on a big deal. He acts too much like the godfather or mafia kingpin too.

I did hear this morning on Morning Joe that Bill Clinton and Trump talked on the phone before he announced he'd run and Bill urged him to do so... :)

what a minute, is that supposed to be a serious article from the Onion? what is this world coming to? :)

I kept looking for an indication that this one was a spoof. Outside of the source being one I'm not familiar with, I didn't find any.

How much money would it take for Donald to walk away? 10 mil? 100 mil? 1 billion?

And how much would it be worth to GOP donors to make him walk away? I'm thinking a billion to get him out would be worth it for all parties.

Seems like Joe Scarborough is the source of this story. It'll be interesting to see if this gets picked up or if it's just a rumor.

Trump asks "Why can't we use nuclear weapons" - YouTube

Senior GOP Officials Exploring Options if Trump Drops Out - ABC News

It's so bad right now the GOP is starting to make contingency plans in case he drops out. It sounds like it would have to happen in the next month or Hillary would basically end up running unopposed in November.

Trump Allies Plot Candidate Intervention After Disastrous 48 Hours - NBC News

Yeah I saw it live this morning when he mentioned the story.

Not that Scarborough has an ax to grind with Trump, but it's always questionable when you hear a story relayed from an unnamed source. Though it is concerning if true.

Which would be a saavy move by Bill, if true.

Worst case, Trump adds a bit of crazy to the early nomination process that taints an eventual nominee.

Middle case, he stays in the primary race for a while and turns it into a circus (and not in a good way).

Best case, he becomes the nominee, and what we're seeing happen, happens.


Say you have a friend who's a misogynist who thinks he has game with the ladies but really, really, does not. At a bar, he says he should go over and chat up that group of hot ladies. You tell him he should definitely do it because of the hilarity when he crashes and burns.

Trump managed to do all this in just 24 hours.

List of controversial moments surrounding Trump and his campaign in the last 24 hours. https://t.co/dwrgBotCI0 pic.twitter.com/Cxch2FJdas

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) August 3, 2016

Imagine what he could manage to accomplish in the next 97 days. :popcorn:

Gary Johnson has to be loving this. He could get a real boost from people looking for an option outside of Hillary. Comes at a great time too where he could get into the debates with a small boost.

I'm far from knowledgeable in this stuff, but it would seem to me that Johnson needs money, something to get him some time somewhere to really get his name out there. I'd figured that we'd already reached a point with the internet/social media etc. that it would be much easier for a fringe candidate to get recognition but I'm not seeing it yet.

In my opinion we are close to Mitt Romney endorsing the Libertarian ticket. (The VP candidate and Romney are close from their days as governors in Massachusetts).

Mitt Romney: I wish Bill Weld were at the top of the Libertarian ticket

This will likely cause two things...

1. A big swing in the polls from Trump and big donors coming board.
2. The end of the libertarian party as we know it. I would guess not many people that voted for Johnson in 2012 would vote in 2016 with Romneys endorsement.

It's interesting that nobody has flipped from Trump to a basically social liberal republican lite. I think it says as much about the despiration for some to hold onto the two party system at all costs. Why else would they endorse Clinton for president who holds basically none of their views? (Maybe I'm naive and the war mongers would prefer Clinton even if that is the only view she has in common with them?)

So NBC goes to the trouble of putting together that list ... and the most troubling thing on it is, what, the crying baby? Which should have been taken out of the room by a responsible parent in the first place.

If the list is that laughable to someone who isn't going to vote for the guy, imagine how comical it seems to people that are.

Perhaps the issue isn't the medium(s) but rather, oh ... the message?

At some point it should seem rather obvious that the issue with our fringe parties isn't "the system" or tactics but rather that they are taking positions that are simply not appealing to the vast majority of the U.S. voters.

It'll be obvious when the playing field is anything near equal and nothing changes. Then I'll concede your point.

I think he's been too nice. Running the typical smaller party just happy to be here campaign. He's got a platform tonight on CNN. I hope he goes hard at both candidates. Actually try to look like a serious candidate in the election and not just a protest vote.

I think the Libertarian Party hampers his campaign though. Would be better if a candidate was just an Independent.

I have two thoughts...

1) I'm not going to claim there is some sort of silent majority of Libertarian minded people being held down in this country by the two party system that would somehow make up 40-50% of the electorate. But by the same token its a load of shit to think that only a fraction of one percent hold their views on smaller government, ending the drug war, etc. It's clearly a lessor of two evils system.

2) Which brings me to point #2. You are the poster child for why the two party system is so effective. It is so much easier for somebody to view the world as black and white and say "look at JiMGa that's why I vote Democrat" or "look at Steve Bollea/Mrs. Bigglsworth and thats why I vote Republican". You are likely the most replied to poster on this board and it's not because you hold some interesting nuanced view on politcal topics. You are extreme and people feel good thinking you represent "the other side" Start throwing in 4-5 choices and now it doesn't have to be Jon vs nol, but actual real choices. They do it in both parties primaries and weed out candidates it's insane that they refuse to do it in the general election.

This comes from Jeb Bush's national security guy. He's no moderate either. Staunch conservative and very hawkish.

Ballot access is the hardest part of being a non-two party candidate in the US and we make it harder with the myriad rules, systems and deterrents to letting more people into the race.

So the best bet is to align with a third party that's already got ballot access or a ground game to make such access possible. And in contrast to say, Bob Barr, Johnson is actually plausibly Libertarian in some of his stances so it's not exactly an odd fit.

{shakes head} If that fantasy makes you happy, by all means, stick with it.

But reality is that 80-90 percent of the U.S. (and even more of the likely voters) are neither neo-anarchists like the damned fool Johnson nor utterly batshit crazy like Stein.

I actually doubt that. I don't think Romney is going to back someone who is for same-sex marriage and legalizing weed, regardless of how much he doesn't like Trump.

And yes, for Libertarians and Greens the message is holding them back. If their message was more appealing to people, they'd be prominent Republicans (and Johnson was a minor stature Republican at some point) or Democrats, not running on a third party. The fact is that there isn't much mainstream support for those views - it would have been adopted by the major parties if there was.

If nothing else, Trump really has exposed how little support there is for the libertarian republican message of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.

As I posted before, a system that would let someone win 34-33-32 or 22-21-20-19-18 is an incredibly stupid system. We need electoral reform if we want that many parties involved. Our system is dumb enough with the two parties we have. I like that Maine ranked candidate initiative.

Also, we really need to overturn Citizens United if we want that many parties. With it in place, the corporate parties will always rise to the top.

I would say they hold a lot of views the majority of Americans hold there are just gutless politicians on both sides who need a landslide of Americans to voice those views before they jump in and claim them as new and fresh...

Open border immigration policies?
Campaign finance reform?
Gay marriage?
Ending bailouts?
Consumption tax?
Privacy from government spy agencies?
Marijuana legalization?
Staying clear of the Middle East?

Libertarian Party members booed Johnson for saying he supported the Civil Rights Act and the concept of Drivers Licenses.

Sure they might support some things the public likes, but they also support a bunch of batshit crazy stuff the public doesn't like.

You're kind of leaving out the big ones of eliminating Social Security, Medicare and the IRS.

In the GOP primaries, you had a candidate who, yes, didn't back all of these, but was definitely very pro-libertarian on a lot of these in Rand Paul. He got destroyed.

Also eliminating the minimum wage.

And Johnson might not want to fight a war in the Middle East but he said he wants to go to war with North Korea. So he isn't an isolationist by any measure.

I could be mistaken but I believe the Libertairian party is the only party that actually would keep social security out of the general fund. People don't seem to have a problem with labor union employees having their own retirement system why can't smaller less politically connected individuals make the same choice?

So what? Every party has nut cases. The GOP has Donald Trump running for president!

How popular do you think semi-privatizing social security is?

That's the problem when Libertarians say lots of people like their platform; for the really unpopular stuff they shift goalposts REAL FAST.

I worked on one Libertarian campaign when I was in college. It's probably telling that the weirdness of the party turned me off, as I'm hardly normal. But there were just some crazy ass kooks. I can get along with a good chunk of the libertarian philosophy but the rest is just so completely off the rails that they are no longer even a consideration for me.

Platform | Libertarian Party


Uh uh. I'm SURE that would happen.

I think he just wants a declaration of war from Congress. (Who are too gutless to risk relegation) Instead of some emperor like statement that every military action in the Middle East falls under some end around of the war powers act.

I loved the story from last week where William Weld said that Johnson would appoint justices like Merrick Garland and Stephen Breyer. Breyer's entire judicial philosophy is almost the direct opposite of Libertarian.

Johnson himself has said he would favor someone with an "original intent" approach, which makes Johnson a non starter for me, even if I didn't already disagree with him on a number of other issues.

Again, lol. I don't know -- a lot of this platform seems to rely on people and corporations self-policing for the cause of the common good. That's...rather pollyanna.

You don't say.




Of course it would, just like the free market would have ended segregation, business discrimination, and ensured minority voting rights.

I mean we have direct evidence that it works when the financial industry self-policed themselves after many of their regulations were loosened. Why wouldn't it work everywhere else?

And on the other side pro-choice and anti-death penalty eliminates a good 30-40% of the population.

This would be better if he poured raw milk over himself.

Johnson is also against net neutrality and mandatory vaccinations.

Letting companies police themselves trusting them to do what's best for the people is naive.

Allowing stupid people to not vaccinate their kids so that mostly dead viruses can reach their highest outbreak levels in 100 years is criminal.

Of all the stupid things in this stupid election, only having one candidate be unequivocally pro-vaccination is the stupidest.

Why would they when the D's and R's will bend over backwards to bail them out?

Psh, I think you guys are just trying to drag down Gary Johnson's strong FOFC polling numbers with your negative attacks.

I did see my first Jill Stein ad this morning, where she spent most of the time bashing Clinton and saying you didn't have to pick the lesser of two evils.