Third Party Candidate: Gary Johnson, anyone?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson

I can't believe I'm just now finding-out about this guy. Former Republican governor of New Mexico, currently running as a Third Party candidate (Libertarian).

I heard him today, and want to do some research on him----in the meantime, anybody have an opinion?

One of his controversial ideas is that he supports "open borders".

I don't agree with him on everything, but I like him overall. Better than Hillary or Trump (not that that's saying much).

not a fan of his politics. I am leaning more towards the Prohibition Party candidate, Jim Hedges.

I voted for him in 2012, he's a great guy, one of the only politicians I've ever seen who will straight up tell you he got something wrong, apologize, then change his position accordingly. I may vote for him again come November, depending on how things look at that point.

I don't think there is any party that 100% represents my ideas, but it seems like the Libertarian party is kind of the best of both major parties. They believe in a small government that doesn't have so much control over people's lives.

I have major differences with Johnson and the LP – but as things stand I'll be voting that way anyway. Again.

My opinion:

The good:
He is adamantly in support of LGBT rights
He is adamantly in support of free trade
He is adamantly against the death penalty
He wants to end the War on Drugs

The bad:
- His economic policy of cutting federal expenditure by 40+ % across the board is unrealistic and irresponsible. There isn't empirical evidence to suggest that a country would be competitive at such a low level of government expenditure.There are several crucial government services that could probably not be adequately provided under Gary Johnson's public expenditure proposals. This especially applies to the already chronically underfunded US criminal justice system.
- His tax policy proposals could be highly regressive
- His policy proposals wrt. education and health care are both intellectually lazy: He basically says: Let the market fix this. But why hasn't the market fixed them already, then?
- His environmental policy is insincere. Gary Johnson - unlike a large part of the Libertarian crowd - actually acknowledges the existence of anthropogenic climate change, but his policy response is basically: Do nothing (and build coal power plants) ...

I find his foreign policy positions too inconsistent to evaluate properly, though...

As it stands, Gary Johnson appears to be a highly "theoretical" candidate. He has a lot of ideas that ought to work on paper (and unlike some Libertarians, he appears to some insight into serious economic theories (and not just Randian pseudo-science) like the Tiebout model).

.... However, Gary Johnson doesn't appear to have a realistic plan for dealing with real world-problems when the theoretical assumptions don't hold up. As such, he appears to suffer from the typical (and apparently almost universal) Libertarian illness of "market-failure-myopia"; the tendency to underestimate both the scope of market failures and the policy responses necessary to correct them.

... oh, and a final remark:

Gary Johnson is one of the supreme architects of the private prison industry in the US. Not only did he massively expand the use of private prisons as governor of New Mexico, he attempted to quash an independent investigation of violence at a private New Mexico prison built when he was governor.

EDIT: Typos and grammar.

http://fortune.com/2016/06/04/libertarians-hillary-clinton-donald-trump/
A snippet:

"The threat to Trump posed by a serious Libertarian ticket cannot be dismissed, but the threat to Clinton may be more substantial. Libertarian principles have disproportionate appeal to younger voters."

All we need now is for the Koch brothers to bankroll the Libertarians as they are reluctant in helping Trump. It takes waaay too much money to win elections, this is why people have not heard much about them.

Thanks for responding, everyone!!

The "open borders" thing concerns me. I'm not familiar with Prohibition Party candidate, Jim Hedges; so, I'll have to look into that, as well. When Dox said he had voted for him, I sat-up and took notice cuz I know Dox would put alot of research into a decision like that.

GGPViper: Excellent post----alotta good information, there----thankyou SO MUCH----I devoured every word!!

Shrapnel: Thanks for posting that link----it was a help, as well!!

Well, it looks like I've got more homework.....

You all have less than 14 hours to convince me that voting for Gary Johnson will provide some direct personal benefit for me.

He's my favorite, not going to try to do a lesser evil play with trump or clinton. Gary won't win, but at least my interests will be noted in history. It kind of doesn't matter if he's more theoretical or even how his policies would work out, he just won't win - but it's symbolic.

The only other person I'd vote for is http://andy2016.com - his big appeal is that he's a time traveler and has advised many past presidents. His platform isn't bad actually, why not declare Sasquatch an endangered species?

Given that Gallup polls show just 29 percent of voters are registered Republicans and 26 percent are registered Democrats, while 41-43 percent are unaffilliated, even the mainstream media has taken to describing this phenomenon as a chance for a third-party or independent presidential candidate to do well in the general elections. By "well," it is unlikely that such a candidate could win the presidency, but rather, could rob one of the top two candidates from achieving his or her own victory.

That said, this is the second Libertarian Party nomination of former Republican New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. Let us remember that Johnson's vice presidential nominee is former Republican Massachusetts Gov. William Weld who was fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Weld recently compared Trump's intentions to the former Berlin Wall, so we can presume he supports Johnson's idea, too.

It is true that Johnson is among the small number of Libertarians who would seek an "open immigration" status (most of his new-found party cohorts oppose the idea), but, let us also remember that it is the members of the Congress (and, the federal courts) who hold sway over such public policies. Johnson wold have the same level of difficulty in accomplishing an "open immigration" law as would Donald Trump in accomplishing a border wall.

But, the largest voice in this matter remains with the plurality of American voters who are the 41-43 percent of voters who want to eschew the status quo and find a material change in federal politics. By comparison, the once-huge Democratic and Republican parties are now mere pip-squeaks in the face of a near-majority of voters who simply won't play along anymore. The giants in this election are the unaffilliated non-partisans. They are the people we need to watch.

Johnson's national campaign offices are, once again located in my community. I voted for him last time (after swallowing hard on some of his policy ideas and realizing that my differences with him were matters over which he would have little influence in the grand scheme of things in Washingon), and I might do it again ... though I plan to avoid voting in federal races altogether.