Gary Johnson Has Great Ad, Plus Interviews With Stephen Colbert & Samantha Bee

Gary Johnson Third Party

While the two major parties won’t be choosing their nominees until later this month, after spending months on a primary process to find the two worst people in America, the Libertarian Party chose its nominee, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, last month. Johnson, and his running mate, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, have come up with a catchy new ad:

They are also out on the talk shows. Stephen Colbert interviewed Johnson and Weld last month:

As did Samantha Bee, who agreed with ever other one of his positions:

Samantha Bee also showed how he won the Libertarian Party nomination despite heretic views such as supporting the Civil Rights Act and requiring drivers to have a license to prove competency to drive:

By their own admission, they are fringe candidates. They are not racists like Donald Trump or warmongers like Hillary Clinton, which makes them worth looking at. While I also disagree with many of their positions, they certainly look like more credible candidates than a dishonest buffoon with a totally dysfunctional campaign like Donald Trump, and they didn’t spend three hours talking to the FBI as the target of a criminal investigation as Clinton did today–something which in normal years might also be disqualifying.

Jill Stein still seems to be the favorite of Sanders supporters assuming Clinton is the Democratic nominee and Sanders ends his campaign. Nationally, Johnson is the strongest of the minor party candidates, polling at ten percent–taking away support from both Clinton and Trump. Polling at ten percent in two recent polls gives hope that they might reach the fifteen percent threshold which is required to participate in the presidential debates. In a normal year I would predict that voters would eventually fall in line with their party, and support for Johnson and Stein would diminish. However, this is no ordinary election year. With candidates as awful as Clinton and Trump, it remains possible that more voters will seek out an alternative. After all, Johnson or Stein would be preferable to a giant meteor hitting the earth, and many voters think that would not be as bad as Clinton or Trump being president:

More than 1 in 10 voters say they’d prefer a giant meteor hitting earth over supporting Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

The left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) offered the hypothetical “Giant Meteor” option in its latest survey. Forty-three percent picked Clinton, 38 percent picked Trump and 13 percent picked the Giant Meteor hitting earth. Another 7 percent were unsure.

The Giant Meteor has support across the ideological spectrum, with 23 percent support among somewhat or very liberal voters, 16 percent among moderate voters and 21 percent among somewhat or very conservative voters.

It will be interesting to see if, after seeing the nominees at the conventions, more or less people prefer the giant meteor hitting the earth.