Penn Jillette Votes for Hillary Clinton! (In Contested Nevada, in Return for a Dozen Gary Johnson Votes in Democratic States)
"Vote swapping I am convinced is legal. Vote swapping I am convinced is moral. But I don't feel good about it," says the libertarian magician.
Was it really only this July when magician and professional bullshit-detector Penn Jillette told Nick Gillespie that "I will be supporting Gary Johnson all the way"? Which itself came just two months after the libertarian hero moderated a Libertarian Party presidential debate?
Why, yes it was. Which makes the headline confession here downright shocking: Penn Jillette admits to voting for Hillary Clinton, "who I do not agree with on anything"!
And yet in typically disarming and transparent fashion, on his great "Sunday School" broadcast, Jillette explains his conflicted self: He lives in super-contested Nevada, had a bunch of friends prevail upon him that Clinton "is not as apt to blow us to kingdom come with nuclear weapons as Trump" while reminding him "I have personal experience with Trump and don't want him to be president," and furthermore he was able to convince "about 11 or 12 people" in safely blue states like Massachusetts, New York, and California to vote for Johnson, thus inching the party closer to that all-important 5 percent threshold. Still, he volunteers, "I felt pretty shitty. It was not a joyous day."
Watch the confessional here:
One of my favorite all-time political quotes is Jillette's, "I'm even uncomfortable telling people who to vote for," so I'm certainly not here to tell the man he's wrong, particularly after surviving that gambit already once before. But for those similarly agonizing over their vote Tuesday, here are three considerations I might add to the mix: 1) The presidential race is still not close for most voters; 2) Johnson's net presence on a ballot compared to his net absence is almost certainly a boon to Hillary Clinton, due to his Republican supporters outnumbering his Democratic ones 2.5 to 1; and 3) Here is a state-by-state breakdown of what various finishing percentages mean for Libertarian Party ballot access in various states.
Below, watch Gillespie's full interview with Jillette on Gary Johnson, Donald Trump, and losing a bucketload of weight:
Thanks to must-follow Eric Sturrock for the tip.
