Life’s been good: former GOP rep seeks to oust Trump

In a move akin to tilting at a windmill, former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh announced his intention to run for President on the Republican ticket. And he spared no harsh words for the titular head of his party:

I’m betting you’re tired of having an unfit con man for a president. A president who sides with foreign dictators over our intelligence community. A president who spews hate virtually every time he opens his mouth. A president who is teaching millions of American children it’s okay to lie and it’s okay to bully.

See, Donald Trump doesn’t represent us – he represents the worst of us. He hasn’t delivered on his promises, he thinks he’s above the law, and he’s tweeting us into a recession, as we speak.

You know it, I know it, we all know it: We can’t afford four more years of Donald Trump. No way.

Joe Walsh for President website

To be honest, I’m not really seeing the con here when it comes to Trump: to me it’s been baked into the equation since 2016. I think Republican voters had a pretty good idea about what they were getting. As for me, I knew better than to expect the second coming of Ronald Reagan, and in many respects I’ve been correct: I’ve neither been shocked nor surprised when he does things like keep the ethanol mandates in place, resist the idea of reforming Social Security, or speak about increasing gun restrictions. On the other hand, Trump has cut regulations at a faster pace than I ever imagined and exhibits a solid America-first foreign policy.

So when former Rep. Walsh maintains he’s in the race as an honest alternative to Donald Trump, the naysayers contend he’s the last but maybe not best hope for the #NeverTrump movement to throw a wrench into his plans. But Walsh is a somewhat flawed candidate himself, having to put up his own mea culpa regarding statements he’s made over the years.

Furthermore, Walsh’s campaign is simply based on opposition to Trump the person, but the wild card is whether he opposes Trump on policy and, if he does, where. Presumably Joe would be supportive of the issues he ran and won upon as a TEA Party-backed darling back in 2010, but some of those issues have been addressed over the last decade and others are unlike what the TEA Party dealt with. We don’t know from his website and not many folks have taken the time to listen to his radio show, which airs on a handful of stations in the late evening.

So Republicans now have a third choice, as Walsh joins President Trump and former Massachusetts governor (and 2016 Libertarian VP candidate) William Weld, who covers the liberal Republican end of the spectrum. But the Trump nomination will likely unfold in the minimum number of states required to clinch, with neither Walsh nor Weld being able to secure a convention delegate or a nomination at the 2020 GOP convention.

Libertarians select two ex-Republicans

You know, for the bad reputation Republicans have politically they seem to get around.

As expected, the most major of the various “third parties” nominated onetime New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson to repeat as their Presidential standard-bearer and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld as his running mate. The biggest surprise seemed to be that both Johnson and Weld won on the second ballot, both coming up just a few votes short of a majority on the first.

It sets up an interesting situation for the party, for there are a number of purists who may be a #NeverJohnson faction of the party, although the total number of Libertarians in the country is but a small percentage of the electorate. But for those who are not thrilled with the choice of Trump vs. Clinton, Johnson has some appeal in the following ways:

  • Budget.  Johnson pledges to “submit to Congress a truly balanced budget. No gimmicks, no imaginary cuts in the distant future. Real reductions to bring spending into line with revenues, without tax increases. No line in the budget will be immune from scrutiny and reduction.” After the collective heart attack on K Street, we will certainly watch Congress begin to play the game with him and bring on a budgetary crisis.
  • Taxes. He also “advocates the elimination of tax subsidies, the double taxation embodied in business income taxes, and ultimately, the replacement of all income and payroll taxes with a single consumption tax that will allow every American and every business to determine their tax burden by making their own spending decisions. Taxes on purchases for basic necessities would be ‘prebated’, with all other purchases taxed equally regardless of income, status or purpose.” I’m cool with this, as I’ve advocated the FairTax for years. It would be something for the second term, though, and you can bet the lobbyists will fight that to the last man as well.
  • Term Limits. “Johnson is a strong advocate of term limits. Run for office, spend a few years doing the job at hand, and then return to private life. That’s what Gary Johnson did as Governor, and that’s what Senators and Representatives should do.” The libertarian purists wouldn’t be down for this since it arbitrarily limits choice, and I used to feel the same way. But since the Constitution allows for Presidential term limits (thanks to Republicans jealous of FDR) it should also allow for Congressional ones, too.
  • Role of Government. This is where Johnson takes a page from Trump’s promises to clean up Washington, but means it. “Government regulation should only exist to protect citizens from bad actors and the harm they might do to health, safety and property. Regulation should not be used to manipulate behavior, manage private lives and businesses, and to place unnecessary burdens on those who make our economy work.”
  • Foreign Policy. Johnson is not a neocon to be sure. “The U.S. must get serious about cutting off the millions of dollars that are flowing into the extremists’ coffers every day. Relationships with strategic allies must be repaired and reinforced. And the simplistic options of ‘more boots on the ground’ and dropping more bombs must be replaced with strategies that will isolate and ultimately neuter those who would, if able, destroy the very liberties on which this nation is founded.” It’s a nicer way of calling the last few military actions errant than Trump did.
  • Education. “Johnson believes there is no role for the Federal Government in education. He would eliminate the federal Department of Education, and return control to the state and local levels. He opposes Common Core and any other attempts to impose national standards and requirements on local schools, believing the key to restoring education excellence in the U.S. lies in the innovation, freedom and flexibility that federal interference inherently discourage.

Certainly there is a lot of debate whether the Johnson/Weld ticket would be good on social issues, as they dance around the idea of Judeo-Christian values. But there is the hope that Johnson will be added to the Presidential debates in order to bring these differences out to the voting public.

By virtue of being the Libertarian Party standard-bearer, Johnson is automatically included on the Maryland ballot.

The third party alternative

For decades, millions of Americans have complained that their Presidential choices consist of someone more evil against someone slightly less evil. Since we don’t have compulsory voting, those people have taken the option to skip voting altogether, with Presidential election turnout in 2012 estimated at 57.5%. Put another way, “none of the above” trounced both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama as they each only picked up around 29% of the registered voters.

But the fact that neither Democrats nor Republicans seem to be completely pleased with their presumptive nominees has brought out those who believe the Libertarian Party is best poised to make a little bit of inroads among the voting population. This seems to happen every cycle, but by the time the votes are cast the Libertarians are usually stuck with between 1/2 and 1 percent of the vote, By comparison, independent efforts from Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 garnered a vastly larger percentage of the vote, and those of us who are a certain age recall liberal Republican John Anderson and his 1980 Presidential bid, which got 6.6% of the vote against incumbent Jimmy Carter and eventual winner Ronald Reagan. (Perot received 18.9% in 1992 and 8.4% in 1996, both times denying Bill Clinton a majority of the vote.)

Of course, with the unpopularity of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, who both have significant shares of voters on the principled edges of their respective parties declaring their intentions to not vote for the nominee, there is the luster of an independent run by a conservative like Ted Cruz or a socialist like Bernie Sanders. The idea falls apart, though, thanks to early ballot access deadlines in several states and “sore loser” laws preventing defeated Democrats or Republicans from going back on the ballot a second time in a particular cycle for the same office.

So here in Maryland there are only four party lines: Republican, Democrat, Green Party, or Libertarian. Each has a place on the ballot, and since I’m nowhere near caring who runs for the Green Party my focus for this is on the Libertarian ticket, where their nominating convention will be held in Orlando this weekend. Their field of 18 recognized candidates actually exceeds the original GOP field, but for all intents and purposes the balloting is going to come down to three: Gary Johnson, John McAfee, or Austin Petersen.

Johnson has the highest profile, but I suspect the purists of the LP are a little leery of him because he ran and governed as a member of the Republican Party. He originally sought the GOP nomination in 2012, but left early on to pursue and secure the Libertarian nod, getting the LP past the million-vote barrier in a Presidential election for the first time. He’s already selected former Massachusetts Governor William Weld as his running mate, making it a ticket of two former governors.

John McAfee is the guy whose name is synonymous with computer software, and in some respects is the Trump of the Libertarian field. He seems quite brash to me and of the three I would give him the least chance of winning. But it’s a convention and anything can happen.

There are a number of conservatives openly rooting for Petersen to win (Erick Erickson is the latest) for various reasons, not the least of which is a platform which is rather tolerable to those Republicans disgruntled with Trump. (One example: “Encourage a culture of life, and adoption, and educate Americans about the ‘consistent pro-life ethic,’ which also means abolishing the death penalty.”) I could get behind the pro-life portion, although I differ with Petersen on the death penalty believing there are circumstances where one forfeits his right to life by committing heinous deeds. Another more in a mainstream libertarian vein (that I can agree with): “Allow young people to opt out of Social Security.” I give Petersen the outside chance of winning, but I suspect there’s just enough support for Johnson/Weld to give them the nod.

Regardless of who wins, though, the pattern will probably work this way: over the summer the LP will poll in the high single-digits and may crack 10% nationally in some polls. But sometime around October these campaigns reach a point where voters decide they really want to back the winner, not some guy polling 10 percent. They’ll forswear their allegiance to the LP for the chance to say, yes, I backed Trump or Clinton in the election. Or in a lot of cases they’ll just say, “screw it, I’m staying home because my guy has zero chance.” Given that the support for the LP seems to be coming more from the Republican side right now, that attitude could lose the Senate for the GOP.

So on Tuesday we will know just who the LP nominee is, and the #NeverTrump group will have to decide if he (or, the slight possibility of she) is worth losing party privilege over.