While Gary Johnson is the only candidate I have endorsed, I am a realist about his chances of winning the nomination. However, that does not mean I shouldn’t reiterate my support, especially right now, when he is being inexplicably shut out of the debates.
And I do mean inexplicably, for he is excluded despite the fact that he polls ahead of candidates who are included:
According to the latest CNN/ORC survey, former two-term Gov. Gary Johnson (R-N.M.) is polling at 2 percent, neck-and-neck with pizza magnate Herman Cain and ahead of former Gov. John Huntsman (R-Utah) and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).
Yet while Cain, Huntsman, and Santorum will mix it up with Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas), former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.), and Reps. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) at the next GOP candidates debate on September 7, Johnson has been told to stay home once more. This latest exclusion has prompted writers at National Review, which isn’t particularly amenable to Johnson’s libertarian-leaning platform, and elsewhere to wonder what’s going on with the selection process.
What I think is going on is that they (and I include those who failed to cover him in when he was in my area) simply don’t want the public to hear him. As a popular two-term governor, he has shown himself able to do what he says in a way that none of the other candidates can.
And don’t miss Reason’s interview with him by Nick Gillespie:
He says we’re bankrupt, and the solution is to balance the budget. As I have said before, he would do it.
At this stage of the primary process, I think it is important for people to support whatever candidates they support without feeling obliged to jump on media-fueled bandwagons. Otherwise, the primary will be over before the primary voters have had their say.
Comments
6 responses to ““We are bankrupt” (And other things candidates can’t say….)”
At this point Johnson is the equivalent of a 3rd party candidate with all the right positions but practically no following. The presidential race has become ever more a Barnum & Baily show. Pathetic.
The former governor of New Mexico would have a much harder time balancing the federal budget than he did as governor of a state that gets an almost 200% payback in federal spending.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html
We just barely survived an administration of a former popular governor, so that doesn’t count so much for me anymore. I agree it’s too bad that Johnson is covered so little; I’d like to hear more about and from him. He was no orator at the original debate, but that’s not a shooting offense.
We have a 20% ‘consumption tax’ in the UK and it’s not really ‘fair’. The problems come with the business-to-business exception. People can claim all sorts of things as business expenses like lunch, their car, second homes, etc… by channelling them through a wholly-owned business.
This means business owners, contractors, etc… do better under the tax system, dodging tax even more successfully than before while screwing wage earners.
It also directly discourages consumption which is the life-blood of the economy.
One thing that interests me about libertarian candidates like Gary Johnson is the unwillingness or inability to explain positions. Palin and Johnson will stake out their beliefs but won’t back them up with arguments, as if what they say is self-evident. That works OK with people who are libertarian and have investigated and studied. But it’s another thing with average voters.
For instance, on the issue of free enterprise and free trade, anyone who has a clue from reading Friedman or Mises will naturally believe that free trade leads to better, cheaper, and more abundant products. But then try to explain why China’s economy is booming while we have high unemployment with thousands of factories shut. It might be a little obvious now to point out regulations, union work rules, environmental excesses, high taxes, and a welfare system that encourages some people not to work. But the average person sees closed businesses here and prosperity in China, India, & South Korea, jobs created there at our expense.
So when someone like Johnson says the answer to our problems is to balance the budget and everything will work out, I wonder just how much he takes for granted. Short of a reversal in labor law, the elimination of double taxation on business (ending corporate taxes), the elimination of capital gains taxes, a wholesale simplification and downsizing of burdensome regulations, and the exposing of environmentalism as quack science, we won’t have a competitive labor and business climate.
The Gibson Guitar Factory scandal would be a perfect starting point for someone like Johnson. He should camp out on their door, organize a protest rally, and start explaining why HE should be nominated instead of crony capitalists like Perry or Romney who can’t argue from principle against the thuggish, socialist policies of Obama. Either that or admit he’s not a serious candidate and go home.
We are not bankrupt, we have excessive debt and expenditure,
but assets far exceed debt.
To be bankrupt debt must be equal to or greater than assets.
[…] can I say? I have supported Gary Johnson from the start. A lot of Ron Paul supporters have complained that Johnson is some sort […]