Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, is the Libertarian Party's nominee for president. Photo by Nick del Castillo
Steve Russell, a member of the Cherokee Nation, examines whether the Libertarian Party ticket would fare any better or worse than Republican Donald Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton or Democrat Bernie Sanders:
Speaking of buying the government, the Libertarian Party has done what had been rumored and nominated the ticket of former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld. The question becomes whether they will be competitive, and that has always been a money question. In the time of one dollar-one vote, corporate persons allowed to buy elections, SuperPACs and dark money, the common question of how to fund a national campaign is on steroids. Now that the Johnson-Weld ticket has passed from rumor to reality, another rumor has floated that the princes of darkness, the Koch Brothers, might throw some money at it. With two successful Republican governors running against the two most hated politicians on the national stage, it would not be terribly expensive to make Johnson and Weld competitive. Johnson, before the Weld for VP idea was above the wild rumor stage, was polling 10 percent. His numbers spiked when the arithmetic turned against Bernie Sanders in the Democratic contest and Ted Cruz bailed out of the GOP contest, leaving a choice between awful and awfuller. Which is which is a matter of taste, but there's not much controversy about the paradigm outside of loyalists for either of the major parties. It takes 15 percent to get on the debate stage. When you start at 10, that's doable.Get the Story:
Steve Russell: U.S. Politics: Dirty Deeds Done Expensively (Indian Country Today 6/12)
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