Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson recently had a very successful money bomb. As of this writing, the campaign has raised $1.76 million over the past 24 hours and claims to have raised over $2.7 million so far in August.
Before the successful fundraising numbers were reported, The Federalist’s Robert Tracinski wrote a column arguing that Gary Johnson and his running mate, Bill Weld, were missing the opportunity of the century with disaffected conservative voters.
Related: Here we go: the neoconservative attacks on Gary Johnson begin
Johnson and Weld are doing their best to drive us away—and they’re doing it by not even being good at being Libertarians.
Johnson badly flubbed a question about religious liberty, for the second time, coming out in favor the state’s right to coerce you into compliance with its notion of what your religious values ought to be. He wrapped up by declaring, “I just see religious freedom, as a category, as just being a black hole.” This sort of thing is Libertarianism 101, and Johnson just flunked it.
Then in the past few days, we got Weld sounding like a Massachusetts liberal on gun control (which he basically is), making hysterical claims about imaginary gun parts like “clips” and “pins” and calling the AR-15 a “weapon of mass destruction.”
Tracinski says the reason why Johnson-Weld are alienating conservatives is because Libertarians are at their core, a bunch of leftist hippies. He also claims that this is why they prefer to reach out to Bernie Sanders supporters.
Reason’s Nick Gillespie responds by saying that both Johnson-Weld have reached out to conservatives but they have rejected them. Long story short, libertarians don’t need or want conservatives.
Then again, all of this is taking conservative concern trolling of Johnson and Weld way too seriously. After all, the last thing most contemporary conservatives and Republicans want is a strong, thriving libertarian movement and Libertarian Party, both of which are doing pretty well of late. As Gallup tracks American attitudes, libertarians now outnumber conservatives, liberals, and populists […] And now conservative Republicans are stuck with a candidate who embarrasses them because he often takes conservative positions too seriously.
Gillespie is right that the Republican Party is dying and he’s right about the reasons as well. But he might be overstating how many Americans are libertarian.
The Pew Research Center found that only 11 percent of Americans were libertarians in 2014 and actually knew what the word meant. The Public Religion Research Institute in 2013 actually screened respondents on their political ideology and found that only 7 percent of Americans identified as libertarian. But while there are few libertarians, it is fair to say many Americans hold libertarian leanings.
But Tracinski is also wrong to suggest that Johnson is blowing his opportunity. Johnson’s higher fundraising numbers and media profile than 2012 say otherwise.
Related: Gary Johnson isn’t a perfect libertarian. Here’s why that doesn’t matter.
Johnson is doing well not because libertarianism has all of a sudden become popular. He’s doing well because he’s not Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Johnson actually comes off as human and likable. This year, that will be enough to make an impact.
As much as it frustrates me as a political commentator, most people don’t vote on the issues. They vote on personality, likability, and character. That has been the key to Gary Johnson’s success so far, particularly when contrast with his major party opponents.
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