The Third Podium — Gary Johnson Debates Whether You Want Him to or Not

The Libertarian nominee for president wasn’t invited to the first Presidential Debate but that didn’t stop him from participating.

After the Commission on Presidential Debates ruled that Libertarian nominee for President Gary Johnson hasn’t been popular enough to appear in the first of three presidential debates, Johnson decided to take part in a less conventional way.

That’s right. Johnson (along with the official twitter account of the Libertarian Party) decided to live-tweet the debate from Twitter’s headquarters in New York, and they got to work quickly.

Less than 10 minutes into the debate, they pointed out that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had brought up tax increases twice — an issue that stands as a keystone of the Libertarian platform.

But don’t worry, they didn’t just have their sights set on Clinton. Republican nominee Donald Trump also took some hits.

Johnson was also quick to point out that although there was a lot of talk about cutting taxes and increasing taxes, neither candidate addressed the other side of the equation.

If you got tired of hearing the two candidates bickering and changed the channel for a few minutes, you probably didn’t miss any actual policy discussion.

As with the federal budget, Johnson felt it was important to sound off on the issues that Libertarians strongly support.

It wasn’t all disputing the two pundits on the stage, though. Johnson also found some common ground with the candidates.

Finally, the post that was probably Johnson’s strongest case yet on why he’s qualified to be the next President of the United States of America:

Whether you agree with his platform or not, Gary Johnson is a part of this November’s election. Maybe it was the comfort of watching from New York, but Johnson brought a kind of focus to the real issues at hand — even with only 140 characters — that Clinton and Trump tried their hardest to steer clear of. And though he was excluded from this first debate, if his popularity in national polls rises, Johnson just might be participating in the next debate from behind a podium rather than from behind his computer.