Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson joins the Libertarian Party, seeks their presidential nomination

Gary Johnson launches Libertarian bid

What has been speculated about for weeks now has officially happened. Johnson will be seeking the LP's presidential nomination after being shut out of most of the Republican debates using a case of Catch-22 logic even Joseph Heller would find amazing.

As a member of the Libertarian Party, I'm a bit skeptical about all of this but Johnson doesn't carry nearly the same amount of baggage as Bob Barr did. If Johnson wants to help the LP long term than hopefully this is the beginning of something great.

To the inevitable "BUT HE'LL SPLIT THE VOTE AND OBAMA WILL WIN" crowd, please. I know the mainstream media likes to portray the LP as Republican lite but it is far from the truth. Most legit polling shows the LP gets just as much support from people from the left as well as the right. I'm sure plenty of people who supported Obama in 2008 because of vague promises to end the war on terror will gladly take a look at Johnson's anti-war stances.

If Johnson gets the Libertarian nomination, then it will be a huge blow to the Ron Paul campaign.

I am certain that Paul is hanging his hopes upon the Libertarian ticket (he very well knows he has no shot at the Rep. nomination).

If the Libertarians have already made their nomination, then there is no other party out there that could/would get RP on the 2012 ballot in all 50 states. Not if, but when, RP gets denied the Republican nomination, that will effectively end "Paul 2012".

And yes, any Libertarian ticket would take votes from the R's much more than the D's. Sure, some D's might vote Libertarian, but not nearly the percentage as compared to the R's.

On a side note, I'm now kind of hoping that Donald trump throws his hat in as well...That would insure a Republican failure in 2012...Heck, it might create a situation where the R's get ~30% (or less) of the American voters.

Ron Paul has said repeatedly he will not run on a 3rd party ticket, and if he didn't accept the LP's offer in 2008 he won't this year.

Is a Mitt Romney/Newt Gingrich presidency any better than what we've had the last 12 years? No.

The concept of "dividing the vote" is a fallacy. It pretends some votes belong to a certain candidate or party, which is utterly false. No vote can be stolen from one candidate and given to another. Every vote is earned by a candidate. Every one. The notion of a “spoiler” candidate presumes only the members of two political clubs should be involved in government.

Lesser of two evils = evil
Best of a bad lot = bad

Libertarians understand that the 2012 Republican candidates and the Democrat incumbent are all virtually indistinguishable in terms of citizen liberty and limited government. They are all failures.

Johnson was a small-l libertarian as governor and he enjoyed practically the same amount of approval from Democratic and Republican voters. I know it is hard to believe, but some registered Democrats care more about civil liberties than getting free money from the government.

If you firmly believe that your goals for government can best be met by promoting the campaign of a Republican Party candidate in the late winter of his career, then you are of course free to ignore any invitation to cooperate with the Libertarian Party. If you believe that the future of citizen liberty and limited government will never be achieved through Republican-Democrat stranglehold on government, then the LP might be a good organization for you when your favorite Republican politician loses, dies or retires.

Although I don't ever see myself voting Libertarian, I think it's encouraging that they've got a Presidential candidate. The real scramble they'll have is trying to get enough votes to put him on the ballots in all the states. As I recall, they've had a very modest success in state and local politics.

The LP has had a presidential candidate in every race since being founded in 1971. Odds are whoever the LP presidential candidate is (that will be decided at the national convention in May 2012), they will be on the ballot in at least 47 states.

As for the state and local level, it is a mixed bag. Ironically, the LP has had its best success in electing candidates to state/local offices in states that don't allow candidates to run under the LP banner.