Gary Johnson Vows to Never Again Run for President

America's fittest presidential candidate is loving that slope life.

Former New Mexico governor and two-time Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson has "vowed to never again run for the presidency," according to the Albuquerque Journal's Michael Coleman. He will, however, maintain Our America Initiative, the between-campaigns 501(c)4 Johnson started in 2009, and continue to push for the liberalization of marijuana laws.

Johnson disclosed his decision to Coleman while shredding gnar pow on the slopes of Taos.

Comments

[$park? don't care bout yo mom]

Well that's a relief.

[XenoZooValentine]

He ran for President?

[CE]

4 million votes baby. 300 percent better than anyone previously.

[Fancylad]

Remember the time Gary Johnson pretended to be a Libertarian? It was back then.

[Unemployed Armenian Tranny]

That's what I was thinking.....and then I Imagined the LP nominating Bill Weld.

Now I'm going to jump off a mountain, with Gary.

[A Cynic's Guide to Zen]

while shredding gnar pow on the slopes of Taos.

Now that is some hard hitting journalism brah.

[kV]

These euphemisms....

[Bob K]

How many Gnar points does he get if can answer where Aleppo is while skiing in his birthday suit, burning a fatty?

[Zeb]

I'm pretty sure he has Aleppo's location and relevance ready to go at this point.

[WakaWaka]

Libertarian moment?

[CooterBrown]

Old news is better than FAKE NEWS I guess.

[Zeb]

That's nice.

He would have been a fine president, but as a symbolic candidate with no chance of winning, he was a poor choice.

[some guy]

I really would have liked to see him in the general debates.

[Zeb]

I would too. But I worry that he would have had a hard time articulating what he wanted to say. He did get a few good ones off in the Republican primary debates last time, I guess.

[CooterBrown]

I would have too, in theory. But I think Trump would have totally ragged on him. Donnie's so confidant on stage that he can just say whatever the fuck he wants and doesn't care. And his fanbase never cared when he said something completely retarded. Which was often.

Gary had no such luxury. He had two, maybe three, really bad moments on live TV, was smart enough to know he screwed up, and the entire world rips him a new asshole.

[Unemployed Armenian Tranny]

Me too, but lets be honest. Hilldabeast would have ignored/marginalized him, and Trump would have frustrated him with idiotic banter until, flustered, he said something stupid and tanked his debut. Libertarian just a Moment ago.

[JFree]

LP needs to come to grips with the reality that the best Prez candidate is almost never the best 'party builder' candidate and the best party builder is NEVER the purest ideologue (and often not even a good candidate). Esp for Libertarians who you'd think would be the least likely voters to be searching for a hero riding in on a white horse to rescue them.

Organize neighborhoods and precincts and districts to deal with actual local school and road and police and governance issues. Do that in enough places and it will be easy to find/select the candidate/pol who also has the experience/marketing savvy to organize the top-down stuff needed for a national candidate.

Johnson was the best Prez candidate the LP has ever had. I don't think he was really motivated enough this cycle. His mistakes were the result of sloppiness and lack of preparation. But the harsher reality is that the LP is, after 40+ years, nowhere near ready for primetime and it never will be as long as the smalltent purists are exercising their purity to keep the tent small so they can remain the big fish [/metaphor massacre]

[ChipToBeSquare]

That's a great summary of my feelings on his candidacy as well. There would have been so much more to like than from any other "serious" candidate this cycle (Rand perhaps excluded), but he articulated some of the fundamental principles very poorly, and whatever seriousness Weld brought was nullified by his shilling for Hillary. I was willing to forgive some of his departures from orthodoxy, but not when they were seemingly designed to bring in the Bernie wing of progressives, who are mostly incompatible with liberty in their current form and abandoned him the moment the media portrayed him as "not serious"

[some guy]

Can't wait to see who takes his place. Bob Barr, maybe?

[Tman]

He's just stepping down to make room for that well known defender of libertarian values........

.............WILLIAM WELD!!!

/thisiswhywecanthavenicethings

[Fascist loofa-faced shitgibbon]

"Former New Mexico governor and two-time Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson has "vowed to never again run for the presidency"

I'd vote for that.

[Zeb]

So, I guess Reason's style guide is silent on the matter of split infinitives?

[Carl_b]

I'd rather have a spliff initiative than a split infinitive. - Johnson 2020

[Hugh Akston]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpHv3iuASsk

[GILMORE?]

(polite applause)

[sarcasmic]

When they say "fittest" do they mean "fit for the office" or "this guy climbs mountains"?

[Citizen X - #6]

Yes.

[sarcasmic]

+ 1 inclusive or

[A Cynic's Guide to Zen]

In Merry Old Britrabia, that word also means "sexually arousing."

[Fist of Etiquette]

That's a vow. If he went the other way, it would have been a threat.

[sarcasmic]

Vow

[BunkerBill]

Good! Now maybe the Libertarian Party can nominate a actual libertarian for a change.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

Johnson disclosed his decision to Coleman while shredding gnar pow on the slopes of Taos.

Can someone please translate that sentence for a white person who is clearly not as white as Riggs. Thanks.

[Citizen X - #6]

Homeboy went skiing.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Johnson strikes me more of a boarder, what with all the weed and what not.

[Zeb]

As a counterpoint, I'd point out that he's old.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

So am I, and I board. Believe it or not, our nation is old enough where people who were skateboarding in the 1970s are now on social security.

[Hugh Akston]

Actually it's probably the whitest sentence ever published on reason.com/blog. It refers to skiing (or shiing), but in a western hippie patois.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

You are knocking the links out of the park.

[Citizen X - #6]

And THAT is how you masturbation euphemism.

[Hugh Akston]

You're too kind.

[Not a True MJG]

But was he blazing some of that dank kush and getting friggin' zooted?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Johnson disclosed his decision to Coleman while shredding gnar pow on the slopes of Taos.

My wigga...

[Brandybuck]

I think he might have actually broken 5% of the vote, if only his own Libertarian Party base hadn't actively campaigned against him.

"Not an anarcho, not one of us! Not one of us!" (screamed by LP members who ended up voting for Trump)
"Wedding cakes, not one of us! Not one of us!" (screamed by LP members who ended up voting for Clinton)

This is why I haven't rejoined the LP after leaving the GOP.

[WakaWaka]

"Wedding cakes, not one of us! Not one of us!" (screamed by LP members who ended up voting for Clinton)

These people must not have been paying attention to the election if they ended up going for Clinton over wedding cakes. Maybe they just didn't think he went far enough in his opposition to freedom of association and freedom of religion?

[DOOMco]

I said that and voted for him.

[Brandybuck]

Well I thought his wedding cake policy was shit too. But I didn't turn around and start actively campaigning against him. Because between Trump, Hillary, Stein, and Johnson, only Johnson promised a reach around. I am not so naive as to expect perfect LP candidates. Yet for every one Trumpa Loompa laughing at Gary over his Aleppo gaffe there were five LP members screaming about wedding cakes.

[Zeb]

And it's not as if anyone else was campaigning on repealing anti-discrimination laws for public accommodations.

[JFree]

I don't know what the drill-down results are in other places - but in my state, the results were (as always):

Clinton got virtually 100% of the registered D's
Trump got virtually 100% of the registered R's.
Registered independents DID NOT VOTE in significant numbers.
Registered L's do not matter.

L's have got to stop trying to attract D's and R's via principle/philosophy. The D's and R's know exactly how to fearmonger their own registered voters back into the fold by election day. And independents are pragmatic not ideological which means they just aren't very receptive to LP ideologues (on a personal basis).

[Loss of Reason]

Or if his running mate didn't shrill for the D

[KBeckman]

With two of the worst major party candidates ever how did Johnson NOT get 5%?

Because he was dealing with the two worst major party candidates ever. At the end of the day the election was more about voting against a candidate than for one. If either candidate had been slightly less repulsive Johnson would have likely broke 5%.

[CE]

Exactly. People say, how could he not get 5% (or 10% even) if Hillary and Trump were so hated? Because the other side hated them and voted against them. Throw in the celebrity billionaire angle and the first major party female candidate angle, and it's amazing Johnson cracked 2%.

[Rebel Scum]

Gary Johnson Vows to Never Again Run for President,

Praised be the gods.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

"America's fittest presidential candidate"

Fit as, say, a bull moose??

[Citizen X - #6]

I suppose you could say "fittest presidential candidate in living memory," but Mike Hihn still remembers the TR years so that wouldn't be accurate either.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

Bully for you!

[Citizen X - #6]

Bully!

[Citizen X - #6]

On a side note, Teddy Roosevelt was a mediocre president whose philosophical inheritance has led to an entire century of political fuckuppery, but damn if it isn't awesome that he cured his own asthma through sheer willpower.

[WakaWaka]

He also began every morning in the White House with a sparring session. He also charted a river in South America that had previously been unexplored (post-retirement) and nearly died on the trip. His policies can be criticized, but he remains the most bad ass president of all time.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

Agreed. Related: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is a fantastic book.

[CE]

Not to mention a neocon before they had neocons.

[Jerryskids]

Oh good god. From Trump's new executive order:

The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit to the President a report on the results of the worldwide review described in subsection (a) of this section, including the Secretary of Homeland Security's determination of the information needed from each country for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information, within 20 days of the effective date of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide a copy of the report to the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence.

Trump campaigned on the issue of immigration vetting being too lax and he vowed to bigly extremify the vetting process - and he's only now getting around to issuing an order that a review of the vetting process be done? Dude, you could have picked up the damn phone and told these guys to do it, you're their boss, you're allowed to give them instructions. You don't need an executive order to give your underlings a task and why wasn't this task assigned to them the day you took office? How big a damn deal is this "extreme vetting" shit supposed to be if you yourself can't be bothered to even get started on it until now? You're an asshole.

[albo]

Hope he snowboards better than he campaigns. Homeboy had the charisma of a turnip. He makes Shailene Woodly look excitable and over-caffeinated.

[Citizen X - #6]

Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[american socialist]

http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....dates.html

Kasich being dishonest

[american socialist]

"Kasich vetoed the bill two days after Christmas. In a statement released with the veto, the governor said "Ohio cannot afford to take a step backward on the economic gains that we have made in recent years ? and arbitrarily limiting Ohio's energy generation options amounts to self-inflicted damage to both our state's near and long-term economic competitiveness."

Uh getting rid of renewable energy mandate to 12.5 percent or face penalties is not limiting economic competition or arbitrary limits on energy generation

[IceTrey]

The LP's problem is how do you get people to vote for something they don't think should exist.

[Domestic Dissident]

The best fucking news since election night.

[John Titor]

If the LP is lucky they might end up with a candidate next round who actually knows how to run as a third party.

[junyo]

Yeah, like all the other times they've done that.

Goofy motherfucker that he is notwithstanding, when your alternatives were Clinton and Trump and the vast majority of so called libertarians didn't vote for him over some imperfection (as opposed to the glaring imperfection of being a statist asshole, or their opponent, the ... other statist asshole) it basically cemented the my perception that most "libertarians" are a)Republicans that want to look/sound cool but when it comes down to the come down reliably pull the lever for Team Red or b) people that just like to whine. Neither of those categories will ever allow the nomination of a serious candidate. So the next round, the LP will nominate some quixotic, ideologically pure(r) simp, who will go out and get 0.5% of the vote.

[CE]

They will end up with an underqualified ideologue the media will ignore, or a has-been former major party politician who will struggle to break 1 percent again.

[CooterBrown]

Austin Peterson?

[DOOMco]

Petersen. I think he will run for senate this round.

[CooterBrown]

As a Republican? It'd be awesome to have him in there.

[Spiny Norman]

I, too, vow to never again run for president.

[Citizen X - #6]

Fuck! [cancels order for 10,000 Spiny Norman 2020 yard signs]

[colorblindkid]

#KMELE2020!

[JeremyR]

I would say good riddance, but this presumably just clearing the way for Weld to be the top of the ticket!

[SparktheRevolt]

Nah dude. Going for purity next time around so it'll be a sovereign citizen who won't actually give his name.

[SparktheRevolt]

This news is about 5-6 months old.

[Laird]

Johnson merely saved himself the embarrassment of being rejected at the 2020 Convention. I don't know anyone who was a delegate in 2016 who would vote for him again. NOTA would beat him in 2020. On paper, he was the best candidate that LP has had in years, perhaps ever. In reality, not even close. He was a waste of a terrific opportunity.

[Johnimo]

His desire to appear "cool" and his failure to clearly stand for libertarian principles, made him look foolish. Too bad he didn't do better. He's a great guy; but we're don't EVER want to see him run for President on the LP ticket again.

[CE]

In reality, Johnson was the best candidate the LP has ever had. Check the vote totals.

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Yaaaaaaa!

[Bill Goode]

I thank God for this announcement from Gary Johnson. Perhaps in 2020 the Libertarian Party can get back to nominating real libertarians like Michael Badnarik, Harry Browne and Ron Paul. I sincerely hope the Libertarian Party can get away from nominating fake libertarians such as Gary Johnson and Bob Barr for the sake of their name recognition instead of real libertarian philosophy.

[MarconiDarwin]

Harry Browne is dead.
Ron Paul is and remained a Republican, but retired.

WTF IS MICHAEL BADNARIK AND WHY WILL PEOPLE VOTE FOR HIM? Oh the guy who came up with "Make abortion illegal but leave it to the states"

[Guy Montag]

5% or more of the popular vote??!!

The long term damage to the Libertarian Party from running a clown like Johnson is far greater than his benefactors at Reason will ever admit.

[suyumo]

I quit my office job and now I am getting paid 96 Dollars hourly. How? I work-over internet! My old work was making me miserable, so I was to try-something different. 2 years after?I can say my life is changed completely for the better!?2..Check it out what i do?
_+_++_+__________+_+ https://www.cashneways.com

[MarconiDarwin]

A bit of a letdown. I voted for him and wished he'd continue (Harry Browne style) till somehow that matching federal funds barrier was met.

reason.com must be overjoyed, now it can unabashedly support Drumpf and normalize Republicans as libertarians.