With many conservatives disgusted at a Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump general election matchup, this could have been the moment for the Libertarian Party to shine and put forth a ticket that conservatives could vote for. However, the ticket of Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, and Bill Weld, the former Massachusetts governor, is not going to win over conservatives. Here are five reasons why.
1. Johnson and Weld have both paid lip service to Clinton. On CNN, both candidates gushed about the former Secretary of State. Johnson praised her as “a wonderful public servant,” and Weld called her an “old friend.”
“Nice kid. Knew her in her 20s,” Weld said of Clinton. “We shared an office in the [Richard] Nixon impeachment, real bond, lifelong. Seriously. Not kidding.”
In an interview with The Washington Examiner, Johnson brushed off Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct her business as Secretary of State.
“I don’t think there was criminal intent on her part,” Johnson said. “But so many others have looked at this and will continue to look at this, and I just don’t need to devote any time in it whatsoever.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Weld responded “Yes” when asked if he thought that Clinton did a good job as Secretary of State and said “No” if he thought that Clinton’s email server “was a legitimate issue.”
Back in February, Weld said on Boston Herald radio, “I’ve never bought that e-mail thing. I don’t think anything was classified when she did it, it got classified later. . . . I don’t think she would lay a lot of stuff on the table that she thought would compromise our national security.”
Conservatives can’t get a behind a ticket that heaps this much praise onto Clinton, especially given her horrific foreign policy record as Secretary of State and that her use of a private email server was in fact illegal.
2. Weld seems to like judicial activists on the Supreme Court. When discussing the Supreme Court with ReasonTV, Weld said, “I don’t think you have to panic and say it has to be a way lefty or way righty. Steve Breyer has been a good justice. He was appointed by Democrats.”
Weld then praised Judge Merrick Garland as “a very good pick” by President Barack Obama to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Johnson, at least, talked of appointing “people that look at the Constitution of original intent” in the same interview, but Weld’s gushing about Breyer, a hero to the judicial activists on the left, as well as Garland, who would be one of the most activist members on the court if confirmed, is a huge turnoff to conservatives. And as the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro pointed out, “Johnson didn’t correct” his running mate on his love for Breyer and Garland.
3. Johnson is weak on religious liberty. Johnson was asked in the Examiner interview if a photographer should be penalized for refusing to participate in a gay wedding, and his response was:
“Look. Here’s the issue. You’ve narrowly defined this. But if we allow for discrimination — if we pass a law that allows for discrimination on the basis of religion — literally, we’re gonna open up a can of worms when it come stop discrimination of all forms, starting with Muslims … who knows. You’re narrowly looking at a situation where if you broaden that, I just tell you — on the basis of religious freedom, being able to discriminate — something that is currently not allowed — discrimination will exist in places we never dreamed of.”
Johnson later said that such a law would be “analogous to [a] hate crime”:
Convict me on the act of throwing a rock through somebody’s window. But if you’re going to convict me on my motivation for doing that, now you’re back to religious freedom. I mean under the guise of religious freedom, anybody can do anything. Back to Mormonism [ed.: Johnson explained this comment later]. Why shouldn’t somebody be able to shoot somebody else because their freedom of religion says that God has spoken to them and that they can shoot somebody dead.”
This is completely nonsensical. Refusing to conduct an act that is antithetical to one’s religious beliefs is not all comparable to shooting someone because of “freedom of religion,” since that would be a violation of the individual’s right to life, whereas the couple could have simply found another photographer for their wedding.
Religious freedom is an issue that is sacrosanct to conservatives, so Johnson’s disdain for a law protecting it will not go over well with many conservatives.
4. Both Johnson and Weld are pro-choice. When asked about his stance on abortion in the Examiner interview, Johnson said: (emphasis bolded)
“The law of the land is Casey v. Planned Parenthood. I have no intention of changing the law, and Casey v. Planned Parenthood says, ‘you, woman, you have the right to have an abortion up to viability of the fetus.’ And the Supreme Court has defined viability of the fetus as being able to sustain the life of the fetus outside of the womb, even by artificial means. That is the law of the land.”
The fact that Johnson said he has “no intention of changing the law” suggests that he’s perfectly comfortable with abortion being legal nationwide, although he has supported partial-birth abortion bans as well as “parental notification” and “counseling” and has opposed taxpayer-funding of abortion in the past.
Weld has a lengthy history of supporting pro-abortion stances, which includes:
- OpEd: pro-choice stance means ineligible for ambassadorship. (Aug 1997)
- Partial-birth abortion is terrible, but don’t ban it. (Aug 1997)
- Pro-choice point of view is shared by the GOP majority. (Sep 1996)
- Support a woman’s right to choose as an individual freedom. (Jun 1996)
- Establish state pro-choice laws in case Roe gets overturned. (Oct 1991)
5. Weld has a tendency to like establishment Republicans. When asked in the ReasonTV interview who in Congress he and Johnson could “work with,” Weld immediately named Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Susan Collins (R-ME) as congressional members they could work with.
When ReasonTV‘s Nick Gillespie asked if Johnson disagreed with libertarians and Republicans who view Collins as a “wishy, washy kind of country club conservative,” Weld responded: “Yeah, I do.”
RedState‘s Leon Wolf noted “that Susan Collins is one of the most terrible people in Congress, from both a conservative and a Libertarian perspective” and blasted Weld for viewing her as someone to work with.
“Weld is just engaging in rank nostalgia for the days when he and his fellow country club, big government Republicans had a constituency,” wrote Wolf. “Well, guess what? They don’t, and Weld’s idiotic pining is alienating possible voters from both the left and right side of the spectrum.”
Indeed, Kirk and Collins have liberty scores of 17 percent and 10 percent, respectively, from Conservative Review.
It’s only fitting that Weld would like Kirk and Collins given his lengthy history of supporting leftist stances, including gun control, abortion, gay marriage and endorsing Obama in 2008. Conservatives are tired of candidates like Weld.
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