'Is 2016 the moment Libertarians have been waiting for?' Matt Welch Asks at CNN Opinion

'Johnson may not have maximized his opportunity last night, but the fundamentals he brought, which have placed the party on the threshold of success, remain firmly in place'

Was last night's somewhat awkward performance by Gary Johnson fatal to the Libertarian Party's prospects in 2016? Not so fast, I argue at CNN Opinion. Here's how the column begins:

Like teenagers on New Year's Eve, libertarians are conscious enough about their shaky social status that they tend to become over-invested in individual moments.

Watching your long-marginalized political bloc step out blinkingly into the national spotlight, as former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former Massachusetts governor William Weld did Wednesday night at CNN's Libertarian Town Hall, can be fraught with expectation and not a small amount of dread.

Johnson's halting performance last night had many party faithful lunging for the panic button, almost certainly prematurely given this year's unprecedented opportunity for and interest in the country's leading third party.

But his often defensive posture in the face of challenging questions stems from an intra-Libertarian divide that the ticket is going to have to address more forthrightly if it wants to meet the 15 percent polling threshold to get into this fall's presidential debates.

Read the whole thing here.

Previous Reason coverage of the Johnson/Weld town hall:

* "Nice Guys Finish Third: Gary Johnson's Awkward Night," by Matt Welch

* "Gary Johnson/William Weld: 'Skeptics' of Intervention That Will Involve Congress in Decisions on Military Action," by Ed Krayewski

* "Drug War Ringer Pushes Johnson to Explain Reality of Prohibition," by Scott Shackford

* "What Gary Johnson Should Have Said About Heroin," by Jacob Sullum

* "Gary Johnson: The Presidential Candidate for Non-Crazy Americans," by Robby Soave

* "As Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson Was an Early Advocate for School Choice," by Tyler Koteskey

* "Gary Johnson on Tonight's CNN Town Hall: 'It can't be bigger. I mean, really, this is really, really big,'" by Matt Welch

* And "CNN's Libertarian Town Hall in 3 Minutes," by Zach Weissmueller & Justin Monticello:

Comments

[Spencer]

Eternally optimistic on the outside... but we know the dark truth behind the glasses.

[UnCivilServant]

Is 2016 the moment Libertarians have been waiting for?

No.

The Tea leaves read populist, not libertarian.

[mashed potatoes]

I've never understood this. Libertarianism could be very populist. Fuck the elites and authoritarians screwing your lives... why not?

[mashed potatoes]

Granted some economic education is needed to understand why you're being screwed.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Because there is nothing wrong with being "elite", per se, granted that "elite" is a man of ability who is free to act and reach his full potential.

As Ayn put it:

The advocates of collectivism are motivated not by a desire for men's happiness, but by hatred for man . . . hatred of the good for being the good; . . . the focus of that hatred, the target of its passionate fury, is the man of ability.

And that's all populism is, hatred of the good for being the good. The tall poppy syndrome writ large. The rest of the kindergarten class knocking down your block tower because it was the tallest and coolest looking.

I have no desire to stand ranks with that.

[Hyperion]

Yep, it's our year. Democrats trying to take our guns, Republicans trying to take our privacy, SCOTUS on a nut punch marathon, cops get away with murder again in Baltimore. A sure bet on either the Donald or Hitlary being POTUS, Gary Johnson and his statist VP making a laughing stock of the LP. Libertarian fucking moment! Do libertarians get our own holiday, like Festivus? Fuckstickus? Nutpunchus?

[Clint Eastwoodchipper]

I like "Nutpunchus."

[TANSTAAFBOW]

I'm afraid Gary Boy doesn't have it. Don't think he'll even survive a debate between the Trump/Hillary.

Too bad. I had so much faith in Gary. Still going to vote for him anyway.

[Clint Eastwoodchipper]

Too bad. I had so much faith in Gary. Still going to vote for him anyway.

I'm also going to vote for him, but I never really had any "faith" in GayJay to begin with. I'm quite young but I've been following/reading about the guy since before he ran for the GOP nomination in 2011/2012.

What is true about him now was true back then: the guy is a wet blanket who freezes up/gets nervous and can't properly articulate the cause he believes in. Instead he tries to give a technocratic answer, which is similarly what dogged Mitt Romney (among other things).

[ant1sthenes]

If by that, you mean the year that libertarians lose with a slightly higher percentage of the vote, before being sent to the camps in 2017 by Trump and/or Clinton, then, I guess?

[Clint Eastwoodchipper]

You know who else sent people to camps?

[The Fusionist]

Lots of parents every summer?

[juris imprudent]

Girl scouts?

[DenverJ]

The U.S. Army?

[Rich]

President Hillary?

[Robert]

Allan Sherman?

[The Fusionist]

Important if true - a deal to end the fighting between the Columbian government and FARC guerrillas

[Dances-with-Trolls]

I didn't know that was even still a thing..

[The Fusionist]

See a hilarious comedian totally PWN our do-nothing, blood-on-its-hands Congress!

/sarc

[bagoh20]

I thought I was a libertarian. If these guys are libertarians, then I must have been confused. I'm something entirely different. Who the hell wants to put their faith in that soggy toast. How many Democrats do we need in this race?

[SIV]

Libertarians are nothing but jack boot-licking statists now. Don't be a "libertarian" if you love liberty.

[Clint Eastwoodchipper]

Remember to bring lube and paper towels with you to the voting booth before you vote for Trump.

[The Fusionist]

Gene Healy of Cato is on Vox, giving the Commission on Presidential Debates a well-deserved beatdown.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley as died

Death finally declined to pass him over another year

[JeremyR]

The LIbertarian Party, maybe

But libertarians, not so much.

[GILMORE?]

Like teenagers on New Year's Eve, libertarians are conscious enough about their shaky social status that they tend to become over-invested in individual moments.

that sounds nothing like my teenage new year's parties.

[UnCivilServant]

HEY!

Where did our Brexit Thread Go?

[Dances-with-Trolls]

Hey, the Brexit thread just vanished.. ironic.

[UnCivilServant]

Oh good, it's back.

[straffinrun]

Best two out of three?

[GILMORE?]

1775 37 minutes ago

As far as I can tell, the so-called Libertarian Party is socially liberal and fiscally conservative - sort of anti-good. Good people are extremely generous with their money and possessions, and extremely moral and honest personally. In other words, social conservatives, fiscal liberals. So if you are evil, anti-good, you would be a Libertarian? Greedy, and immoral?

Wow. Way to exceed my expectations, CNN. Only 3 comments, and the very first is a level of concentrated-derpitude which is worth at least 50 merely quasi-retarded remarks.

[Clint Eastwoodchipper]

[?] and the very first is a level of concentrated-derpitude which is worth at least 50 merely quasi-retarded remarks.

I'm trying to think of who fits the "socially conservative, fiscally liberal" bill.

Uhhh... Strom Thurmond?

[Dances-with-Trolls]

Huckabee

[Clint Eastwoodchipper]

Ah.

[Trigger Warning]

I, for one, am tired of the inanity of this premise. There is no libertarian moment. Most people find libertarianism uncomfortable and too difficult. Most people think that libertarianism means a hippie who likes money.

You "libertarian moment" journalists and thinkers need to keep focusing on the evil drug war, posotive versus negative rights, federalism, property rights, free association, and criminal justice reform. Which you largely do, I guess. Just divorce it from this libertarian moment bullshit. We're having a Trump moment followed by Billary round two in the Oral Office.

[tz]

It shows that the LP should go the way of Reform which I remember correctly dissolved after Buchanan's run using it - and he was better in so many ways than the current crop. See libertyone.com - Jason Stapleton's analysis.

The belipsticked pigs were on display on network TV and proved they were boaring.

Given that both are intrusive, big government warmongers (force Jews to bake nazi cakes, nuke the mideast) I'm not sure if it would have been worse if it was a member of NAMBLA and someone who was smoking weed live. At least the latter I could believe wanted to shrink government.