Everyone's Making the Same Joke About Gary Johnson and Libertarians
Something something Aleppo something marijuana something...
You may have heard that Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson committed another unforced error by blanking on the name of former Mexico President Vicente Fox during an MSNBC town hall yesterday.
In doing so, Johnson reinforced the perception held by many that he's not ready for prime time and the unflinching spotlight he would have to endure on a debate stage with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The fact that during the period between Johnson's 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns he was a marijuana entrepreneur, combined with his on-camera brain farts and frequently spacey and goofy demeanor plays right into the stereotype that "libertarians are just Republicans who smoke pot."
When it comes to mainstream perception, it doesn't matter that Johnson has been able to articulate substantive foreign policy differences between himself and the major party candidates, or that his non-interventionism is very popular with active military servicepeople, or that Clinton's and Trump's foreign policy blindspots are far more dangerous than briefly blanking on trivia during a TV interview.
But since it's just easier to make the obvious joke, here's a sampling of some recent "Gary Johnson's a clueless stoner" political cartoons:
As a bonus, here's a Gary Johnson ad parody by comedian Chris Fleming that differentiates itself by actually being pretty funny:
