Gary Johnson, Libertarian

[takoma]

I will be voting for Hillary, but part of me would like to see Gary Johnson win. There are a lot of things I, as a liberal, disagree with him about. Although I agree with him about legalizing marijuana, I suspect that won't happen, so it's probably not a big argument in his favor. The main thing about him that attracts me is that he is not hated by a large segment of the country as HRC and DJT are.

I don't know whether it is an unavoidable aspect of the two-party system that it tends to evolve toward the extremes, where each party is likely to nominate someone who is anathema to the other party, rather than choosing one who is likely to attract votes from the other side. Looking back, I see lots of examples to contradict this thesis: Obama was best known for his centrist speech at the 2004 convention. Romney had a centrist career as governor of Massachusetts, McCain was a "maverick" who sometimes collaborated with Dems, Kerry's military background was supposed to attract Republicans, GWB was a "compassionate conservative", Bill Clinton a "New Democrat", etc. So perhaps it's a fluke that Demagogue Donald hijacked the GOP in the same year the Dems are nominating a long-time target of GOP propaganda (whom I view as fairly centrist, by the way).

In any case, even if Gary Johnson turned out to be an incompetent, I think he might give us a vacation from the partisan warfare of recent times. Or maybe I'm being naively over-optimistic. In any case, his election is not likely. Nevertheless, I figured I'd toss these thoughts out to see how people react.

[Anonymous]

No, two party systems tend to evolve toward the middle. Clinton is a moderate, which is not to say she is likable, but she is a moderate.

Donald Trump is the result of a dysfunctional Republican Party. Once it functions again, they will produce candidate which tend toward the middle.

My prediction is that this will happen in 2024. Because in 2016 the right will say that Trump's demise was due to lukewarm support among evangelicals. So the right will try in 2020 to put up a religious conservative. Only when that one fails will the party be ready to acknowledge a need to change.