The 'other' presidential debate: Third-party candidates make their cases (+video)

Here are the four third-party candidates – and their issues – that you can expect to see vetted in their lone presidential debate in Campaign 2012. 

3. Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party)

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, running as the Libertarian Party candidate, has qualified to be on the Nov. 6 ballot in 48 states.

He also competed in the Republican presidential primary, entering the race in April 2011 and bowing out in late December after getting no traction in the early-voting states.

Mr. Johnson’s views are classically libertarian: a noninterventionist in foreign affairs, a fiscal conservative, and a believer that government should refrain from dictating to people about their personal behavior.

Johnson has said he would aim to cut the federal budget by some 43 percent in his first year in office. That includes shrinking the size of the military. He has also compared America’s current financial situation with Russia’s economic crisis in 1998, saying it can be resolved only by a balanced budget. He pledges to submit a balanced budget to Congress during his first year as president and to veto any expenditures that are not matched by revenues.

On social issues, he supports legalizing prostitution and gay marriage, and he favors a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who want to work. He would legalize online gambling.

Many analysts do not expect Johnson’s candidacy to be much of a factor in the presidential election, though he might “steal a couple of votes from [Mitt] Romney,” says political scientist Matthew Hale, an associate professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J.

“Other than proving that America is still the land where any young boy or girl can grow up to run for president,” Johnson has “little relevance” in this election, he says.

The Washingon Post’s The Fix blog gives the Johnson factor a bit more credence. “If the race between Obama and Romney is very close in some key swing states that have independent and libertarian streaks, Johnson’s presence on the ballot could affect the Obama-Romney matchup,” writes The Fix’s Chris Cillizza. “In particular, Colorado, New Hampshire and Nevada are the battlegrounds where Johnson could prove a nuisance to his major party competition.”

Still, the GOP’s Mr. Romney has taken care to protect his right flank. “Romney picked a far right-wing darling for a running mate and then walked the far right wing walk all the way up to the first debate,” says Mr. Hale.

Romney has now pivoted to the center, but it is too late in the game for a third-party candidate with strong conservative credentials, such as Johnson, to catch fire, Hale adds.

Such a possibility is made even more difficult by today’s campaign-finance rules. When Ross Perot ran for president in 1992 with the Reform Party, he could essentially self-finance his campaign and still compete. But that’s harder to do now, because a host of other billionaires are out there pouring money into efforts to elect the mainstream candidates – courtesy of the US Supreme Court ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case, says Hale.

 Gloria Goodale, staff writer

3 of 4

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.