9-State Contender Evan McMullin Says Gary Johnson is 'Not a Serious Candidate'
'He spends his time advocating for legalized prostitution,' the #NeverTrumper contends, inaccurately, while seizing on the Aleppo gaffe
Earlier today I discussed the establishmentarian habit of dismissing politicians with unorthodox-for-Washington policy views as insufficiently "serious," no matter how many mistakes the Very Serious People have made or supported over the years. Right on cue, #NeverTrump favorite Evan McMullin, the ex-CIA/Goldman Sachs character favored by the Bill Kristols of the world, has seized on Gary Johnson's Aleppo blunder by telling CNN this afternoon that Johnson is "not a serious candidate." Excerpt:
He has no knowledge of foreign policy. He spends his time advocating for legalized prostitution and for a drug culture here in America, rather than dealing with problems that are really big, like our economy and national security and government reform….Gary Johnson just is not a serious candidate. What we really need to be talking about is Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
A few notes on "seriousness":
* Johnson is on 49 state ballots plus Washington, D.C., and is expecting to achieve ballot access in Rhode Island any day, which would give him theoretical access to all 538 Electoral College votes. McMullin's name is reportedly on nine state ballots, which between them account for 71 electoral votes.
* Johnson has consistently polled around 9 percent all summer, avoiding the typical third-party fade, and representing the best outsider polling results since Ross Perot in 1992. McMullin has registered a blip on exactly one national poll, a one percent showing late last month by PPP.
* McMullin believes that the U.S. military is "on a path to almost $1 trillion in cuts compared to projected needs," and his website's "national security" page has nothing to say about interventions, current deployments, or really anything having to do with foreign policy.
* Gary Johnson does not, as a matter of fact, spend his time "advocating for legalized prostitution." The question quite obviously makes him uncomfortable. And I have never heard the Libertarian not emphasize "our economy and national security and government reform." He talks about that stuff more than he does about legalizing weed, in my experience.
I suspect McMullin's real problems with Johnson, aside from trailing him so badly, is that he has different ideas about the policies they both care about. Which is obviously the point of political competition. But by resorting to the "serious" card, the Great #NeverTrumper Hope not only subjects himself to unflattering comparisons, he demonstrates that old establishment habits die hard even in the absence of power.
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Great example of why entertainers like Moby should never get into politics.
*golf clap*
Nice.
Who is this Ewam McMelon guy?
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Is this becoming a food fight at the kids’ table?
Yes. The Very Serious neocons made a complete hash out of foreign policy. Repeatedly. And now they can’t figure out why no one is buying what they’re selling anymore. Go home, assholes. You don’t get another chance.
How can you support a candidate who doesn’t want to bomb any countries?
What is an “evan mcmullin,” and why is this article illustrated with a picture of a Sontaran?
Ronald McDonald without the makeup.
So, just some pederast?
I had an evan mcmullin for breakfast this morning. Of course the cafeteria can’t call it that for copyright reasons, but I can’t tell the difference.
“They’re called ‘McDonald’s,’ we’re called ‘McDowell’s.’ They’ve got the Golden Arches, we’ve got the Golden Arcs.”
+3 Bathing girls.
Lou: I went to the McDonald’s over in Shelbyville the other day.
Chief Wiggum: The Mc-what?
Lou: Yeah, I never heard of it either but they say they have over 2,000 locations in this state alone.
Eddie: Hmm… Must’ve sprung up over night.
Lou: But you know, it’s the little differences.
Chief Wiggum: Example.
Lou: Well, at a McDonald’s you can get a Krusty Burger with cheese. But they don’t call it a Krusty Burger with cheese.
Chief Wiggum: Get out. What do they call it?
Lou: A “Quarter Pounder” with cheese.
Chief Wiggum: “Quarter Pounder” with cheese? Well, I can see the cheese but? do they have Krusty’s “Partially Gelatinated, Non-Dairy, Gum-Based Beverages”?
Lou: Yeah, they call them “shakes.”
Eddie: Huh. “Shakes.” You don’t know what you’re gettin’.
Funny, I took an evan mcmullin not long after breakfast.
He’s a Talosian.
smdh at your lame attempts at identification.
Nerd.
It is difficult to believe that any commenter on a libertarian website could possibly be a nerd.
“He spends his time advocating for legalized prostitution”
If only
I had no idea that Aaron Paul was undergoing chemotherapy.
God Speed Jesse!
Yo, bitch.
Right….
found Peyton’s forehead twin
Eli?
Matt, Much as I appreciate your attempts to drag Gary Johnson closer to the finish line (or less far from it if you prefer), I think it might be time for Reason to put a little more emphasis on covering real news and a little less emphasis on the unimportant and irrelevant theater that is the current presidential election.
At this point it feels like only ENB and Bailey are doing real journalism. I wouldn’t be surprised if that weren’t the case, and I were being unfair a couple of other writers who are doing real journalism, who haven’t been diverted from working productively to wasting their time and talents to producing articles that will instantly be forgotten. It is, however the impression I’m left with; that until the first Tuesday in November, much of the Reason staff will be wasting their and their reader’s time, and the subscriber’s and donor’s money on something about as wasteful as Friedman’s sarcastic suggestion that mining be done with spoons.
This article is really plumbing a new low. It’s covering the cheap shots taken by an irrelevant politician at another irrelevant politician. You could have gone for a walk or taken your wife out for a suprise coffeee date with the time you took to pen it. Instead you’ve thrown away 20 minutes of your life.
And in two years, I’ll bet this article will be long forgotten…
Your magazine once got Corey Maye of death row. It’s time it put down the childish election and start doing adult things again.
Tarran, there’s only so many ways (and times) you can tell Venezuela, “It won’t work”.
Eventually, you move onto PokeMon Go.
And then you walk into traffic and get hit by a bus.
Yeah, this kind of seems to be giving this guy the attention he’s obviously craving, but in no way deserves.
Well, you also got Lenore reporting on parents getting busted or ostracized for the SJW’s wide (as in distance from Earth to Pluto) definition of “child neglect”.
“He spends his time advocating for legalized prostitution”
Monster.
May I take a moment and say something?
You’re gonna come at me looking for my vote…looking like that? You don’t realize you’re incredibly off-putting and look like you couldn’t organize a bake sale? I wouldn’t let my dog chew on your face for fear of what she might contract.
You’re pretending to be a god damned presidential candidate, at least put on appearances. That’s the easiest part of the job.
Which candidate are you referring to? Either way, I agree.
The Founding Fathers would look at McMullin and say, “you see, this is why men need to wear wigs.”
Bombing Middle Easterners and putting soldiers in body bags. That’s what serious people do.
If the only tool you have is a leppo, every problem looks like a raq.
“He spends his time advocating for legalized prostitution and for a drug culture here in America, rather than dealing with problems that are really big, like our economy and national security and government reform”
If this guy weren’t such a serious and well-informed person, I’d think the above statement of his was a lie.
Putting people who haven’t harmed anyone in rape cages is a pretty serious issue.
Bottom line: It is not true to say Johnson spends his time advocating for legalized prostitution.
Yet McMullin said it anyway.
I suspect you are wrong on this one. I suspect the McMullin has exactly zero concept as to either Johnson’s or the Libertarian Party’s ideas about the policies he cares about. I suspect that his problem with Johnson is that he isn’t McMullin and McMullin thought that being the “third choice” in this election would vault him to prominence nationally.
Obviously, that ain’t happening. The third choice is Johnson this time around. Which means McMullin is going to be remembered for being that idiot that thought he was a 3rd party candidate back in 2016 when he was only on the ballot in 7 states.
It’s nine! One more and I run out of fingers, so… infinity.
If a fly landed on this guy’s head would it have enough strength to escape its gravitational pull? Sweet Jesus, what a cranium.
Separated at birth?
As posted just a few minutes ago by Richard Winger on his site Ballot Access News, Johnson was certified as a candidate in Rhode Island. He is now on the ballot in all 50 states plus DC.
“For you see, Mr. Johnson, as La Rochefoucauld observed, “humility is the worst form of conceit.” I do hold the winning hand because I am not conceited in that way.”
I always wondered what happened to that guy from Inspiral Carpets.
Can’t McMullin at least wear a tie? That would look more Presidential.
At least McMullin is on the ballot in Minnesota. That might be more than Trump can say.
McMullin can be a flashy dresser if he wants to be
McMullin may have run out of hair, but I haven’t run out of jokes
OK, one more
He is so ugly.
Needs moar Fusionist posts.
That better not be sarcasm, or I’m telling Dear Leader.
Who?
Billy Corgan’s leukemia-patient brother.
“McMullin’s name is reportedly on nine state ballots, which between them account for 71 electoral votes.”
Among them. ‘Between’ is two, ‘among’ is more than two.
Oh, look at Mr. “Columbia School of Journalism” over here
“McMullin’s name is reportedly on nine state ballots, which between them account for 71 electoral votes.”
Among them. ‘Between’ is two, ‘among’ is more than two.
There wer sqwrlz at work between my posts.
He might actually end up on zero ballots. I heard yesterday on NPR that he has yet to select a running mate, which disqualifies him from Utah, and presumably other states. Well, actually he picked some random guy who he claims is a close friend, but who nobody has ever heard of: Nathan Johnson:
http://www.politico.com/story/…..ate-227803
I might vote for him if he had picked Navin Johnson. The slogan could be “What’s Another 2 Jerks Gonna Hurt?”
I’m sorry. Nathan Johnson is a placeholder, his actual VP pick is TBD
How serious is a candidate for POTUS when he and his supporters can’t even collect 275 signatures to get on the ballot in Tennessee or 1000 signatures needed in Mississippi or Rhode Island?
So McMuffin is all butthurt that Gary remembers Mi Lai and the bombing of Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Iraq instead of this week’s Cecil B de Mille Crusades hospital bombing target. Sombody fetch a hankie for the poor man!
What a delusional, hypocritical motherfucking statist.
Gary Johnson has officially made it on all ballots as of a few hours ago. He’s on all 51(states + DC) ballots now.
Politicians and candidates call each other names all the time. Why give this never-heard-of-him loser any further publicity for what amounts to a weaksauce attack? Let him go earn his own media with his supposedly awesome policies…
MSNBC Snob: What about McMullin? McMullin?
Johnson: What is McLovin?
MSNBC Snob: You’re kidding?
Johnson: No! McLovin or did you say McMuffin?
MSNBC Snob: HAHAHAHA! You’re a funny clown Gary
Johnson: Now you’re just confusing me you fat slob!
MSNBC Slob: McMullin is the Independent Party Candidate that no one’s heard about. Kinda the same position you were in up until the whole ALPO fiasco.
Johnson: Got it! GOT IT! How you like me now?
Johnson/Weld 2016!
McWho?
McMuffin is only in the race so that Johnson will not win Utah, the only state that he actually had a chance. He would have been the first third party candidate to capture an electoral vote in decades.
When statists like Romney are openly saying that they are considering voting for Johnson you know the Republican party is doomed. It’s fracturing along several lines – religious conservatives, war now war forever neocons, Constitutionalists and libertarians.
The Democrats are united by the welfare state, egalitarianism and identity politics. The Republicans have nothing to unite them save a hatred of Democrats for being better at politics than they are. We’re in for a long period of assaults on liberty and like the old Carpenters’ song, “It’s Only Just Begun”.
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McMullin is a joke, but so is Gary Johnson’s low-energy campaign. Johnson had a chance for the first 6 weeks after the
Republican convention to energetically go after #NeverTrump Republicans. But he never said one thing that would
attract a conservative-minded person. Legalize pot? What was Johnson’s strategy to get to 15%? Emphasize on was. He failed. If ever there was a year the LP could have broken through to national attention, it was 2016. Was. On Nov. 9, our president will either be Statist Leftist Hillary Clinton Foundation or Incoherent Strongman Donald Trump. Say goodnight, Gary.
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