Evan McMullin says Johnson's not a libertarian; Johnson responds

Gary Johnson Responds to Evan McMullin’s He’s-Not-a-Real-Libertarian Critique - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Matt Welch:

October 25, 2016 - "Independent conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullin ... is once again championing his own libertarian bonafides in contrast to Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson ... to The Weekly Standard, the neoconservative magazine that has been as enthusiastic about the McMullin campaign as it has been hostile to libertarian ideas over the years.

"Gary Johnson is not actually a libertarian," McMullin told TWS at a press event. "He has tax policies that are not libertarian, his stance on religious liberty is not libertarian." […]

McMullin is pro-life, while Johnson believes in a right to abortion. "If Gary Johnson were a real libertarian, I probably would not be in this race," McMullin said.

"I caught up with Johnson this afternoon just after he had finished a Facebook Live video to promote his new book Common Sense for the Common Good: Libertarianism as the end of two-party tyranny ... and asked him about McMullin's comments.

"'Well, all I can point ... to on my libertarian bonafides is that I've been the nominee of the Libertarian Party two cycles,' he said. 'And that is the libertarian hardcore that … decides that. So I don't know how you can get any more bonafide than that.'

"(This answer was a milder echo of what Party Chair Nicholas Sarwark told me two weeks ago: 'I trust the judgment of dedicated Libertarian Party members from around the nation somewhat more than that of an unremarkable Capitol Hill staffer.... The day I take advice on who's a real libertarian from a former CIA operative who was an insider in Washington and at Goldman Sachs, being propped up by dead-end neoconservatives like Bill Kristol and shameless Republican political consultants like Rick Wilson, is the day I'll resign as Chairman of the Libertarian Party.')

"What about the religious-liberty charge, which has dogged Johnson throughout 2016? 'I would have signed the Civil Rights bill of 1964, and I think that that's in essence what he is pointing out, that a real Libertarian would have vetoed that, or not signed it. I would have signed it.'"

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2016/10/25/gary-johnson-responds-to-evan-mcmullins
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Johnson & Weld offer character and experience

Drew Clark: Johnson and Weld bring experience as well as character for Utah voters | Deseret News:

October 14, 2016 - "Politics is about more than policy positions. When electing our president, we also need to choose a candidate who brings character and experience in governance.

"Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, and Bill Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, are the only candidates this year that meet all of these necessary qualifications. They are on the ballot in all 50 states. Among independent voters, they are leading in the polls over Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"As a Utahn who believes in common-sense conservative solutions, I’ve noticed a number of my friends express some interest in Provo native Evan McMullin, the former CIA agent who declared his candidacy for president in August. He seems to be a conservative, and his positions are superficially appealing to people of my political background.

"But here’s why I’m supporting Johnson, not McMullin: The presidency is about more than one’s positions. Executive experience in government matters, as does honesty. And while Trump and Clinton fail on both of these tests, McMullin fails on experience. He and his newly-named vice-presidential candidate Mindy Finn, a Republican political consultant, don’t have presidential-level credentials.

"By contrast, both Johnson and Weld were two-term governors. But that doesn’t mean they came to government via politics, the way Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did. Johnson was a handyman entrepreneur who grew from a one-man shop to a 1,000-employee construction company in New Mexico. He ran for governor as a political outsider, and won.

"Weld’s first elective office was also governor. But he brought experience as an attorney at the highest levels of government, heading the criminal division of the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan. He came home to upset the Democratic lock on the statehouse in the land dubbed 'Taxachusetts.' Like Johnson, he also upset the state’s high-tax reputation. That was a great benefit to another former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney.

"In fact, Romney has said he would vote for Weld for president....

"McMullin isn’t even on the ballot in enough states to have even a mathematical chance at winning the White House.... According to Ballot Access News, he’s on the ballot in grand total of 11 states.... The electoral votes of those states total 84, not even one-third of what a candidate will need to win.... And his vice presidential pick will be on the ballot in exactly zero states.

"Instead, the McMullin presidential campaign has all the trappings of a vanity effort seeking to raise the profile of a person rather than speaking to a principled set of beliefs."

Read more: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865664793/Johnson-and-Weld-bring-experience-as-well-as-character-for-Utah-voters.html?pg=all
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U.S. TV news 'blacking out' Johnson, 3rd parties

MRC Study: Challengers to Clinton and Trump Get Just 0.03% of TV News Airtime Rich Noyes, MRC Newsbusters:

September 6, 2016 - "Not since Ross Perot in 1996 has a third-party presidential candidate polled as strongly as Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson is right now.... In spite of this, the broadcast network evening newscasts are essentially blacking out the existence of alternatives to Clinton and Trump....

"MRC analysts examined all 1,713 campaign stories on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from January 1 through August 31 (1,472 full reports, 104 brief items and an additional 137 stories on other topics that included some discussion of the campaign or candidates).

"Not surprisingly, Trump has drawn most of the attention: 1,773 minutes of evening news airtime during the first eight months of the year, far ahead of Clinton’s 1,020 minutes of coverage. Since the primaries ended on June 7, the networks’ focus has stayed on Trump, who received 705 minutes of coverage — much of it about various controversies — vs. 437 minutes for Clinton....

"Johnson has received a mere 11 seconds of evening news coverage — just a single sentence on the NBC Nightly News as he was formally nominated back in May. That means Clinton has received more than 5,000 times more coverage than Johnson, while Donald Trump garnered nearly 10,000 times more evening news airtime than his Libertarian challenger.

"To date, neither ABC nor CBS has mentioned Johnson’s candidacy on their evening newscasts, although  ABC has hosted him on This Week, and he’s been discussed on CBS’s Face the Nation and CBS This Morning.

"Green Party candidate Jill Stein has fared even worse, drawing a paltry three seconds of discussion in August on the NBC Nightly News. Stein’s name wasn’t even mentioned.... While Stein was a guest on ABC’s This Week, like Johnson, ABC and CBS evening news viewers have yet to hear about her candidacy.

"The story is similar for conservative independent Evan McMullin.... When he launched his candidacy in early August, ABC’s World News Tonight devoted 32 seconds of a larger campaign segment to McMullin.... Constitution Party candidate Darrell Castle, who is on the ballot in 29 states, has received zero coverage from the Big Three evening newscasts.

"There’s been some coverage of these candidates on cable news (CNN has hosted town halls for Johnson and Stein, for example), but the totals pale in comparison to the coverage of Trump and Clinton. And entrepreneurial voters who want to learn more about these candidates can get additional information from alternative news sources, social media and/or the candidates’ own Web sites.

"But it’s the day-to-day mass media coverage that validates candidates in the eyes of most voters.... Without significant media coverage, most voters probably won’t even consider the alternative candidates of 2016, no matter how dissatisfied they are with the two major party nominees."

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2016/09/06/mrc-study-challengers-clinton-and-trump-get-just-003-tv-news-airtime
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Why is Evan McMullin running for President?

#NeverNeverTrump: What’s Evan McMullin Really After? - Thomas Knapp, Counterpunch:

August 10, 2016 - "For months, voices from the #NeverTrump movement have confidently promised Americans a fifth credible presidential candidate.... Echoing those promises, a shadowy group calling itself 'Better For America,' funded by Mitt Romney associate John Kingston III, has been doing prep work for that unnamed candidate.

"On August 8 the suspense, such as it was, came to an end. The candidate is David Evan McMullin, a name unfamiliar to voters but well-known on Capitol Hill. Starting as an adviser to congressional Republicans on national security issues, he rose to the position of GOP House policy chief. Now he’s running for president.....

"The conventional wisdom says that he’s there to keep Trump out of the White House – even at the cost of a Hillary Clinton presidency – by giving anti-Trump Republican voters somewhere else to go.

"I think the conventional wisdom is wrong. When we look at what McMullin and Better For America are up to, and where, two far more likely reasons leap into focus. Those reasons are:

"First, to help Trump get elected, but with plausible deniability so that the GOP wins the White House without #NeverTrump leaders having to lose face by kissing the ring ('we did our best but he won anyway, guess we have to live with it').

"Secondly, to ensure that Libertarian Gary Johnson doesn’t become the first independent or third party presidential candidate to carry a state since ... 1968.

"McMullin is custom-made for Utah – a native, a Mormon and a graduate of Brigham Young. Better for America seems focused on promoting him there. The organization [has] also made a seemingly unsuccessful ballot access attempt in New Mexico.

"Johnson is the former two-term Republican governor of blue New Mexico. He’s going toe-to-toe with Trump and Clinton in Utah’s polls and endorsements contest. If he’s going to win anywhere, it will be in New Mexico or Utah.

"The most likely purpose of the McMullin campaign is to fragment the anti-Trump vote in New Mexico, Utah and perhaps other states, allowing Trump to win those states with smaller pluralities than he’d need in a race with fewer significant opponents – and to contain the threat of a third party breakout that might carry over into, and expand in, future elections."

Read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/10/nevernevertrump-whats-evan-mcmullin-really-after/