What happened at the contested Libertarian convention — and how it could reshape the 2016 election
Remember when it looked like 2016 would (finally!) be The Year of the Contested Convention? The Republican Party, hopelessly divided between hostile-takeover artist Donald Trump and master delegate manipulator Ted Cruz, was destined to descend into civil war in Cleveland, while the Democratic Party — its head with Hillary, its heart with Bernie — seemed to be careening toward its own squabble in Philadelphia.
But alas, Cruz surprised the political world by deep-sixing his campaign immediately after Indiana, Sanders’ path to the nomination basically disappeared when Clinton clobbered him in state after Eastern state and contested-convention aficionados — like yours truly — were forced to set aside their dreams for yet another election cycle.
Then came the Libertarian Party convention in Orlando, Fla.
If you missed the fireworks, fear not. Sane people have better things to do over Memorial Day weekend — like eating, honoring fallen heroes, and/or watching actual fireworks — than watch C-SPAN as a second-tier political party with 250,000 registered members struggles to select a nominee.
But for those of us craving an honest-to-God contested convention — i.e., a convention where it takes multiple ballots for a standard-bearer to emerge — the Libertarians offered up the only fix we’re likely get this year.
What’s more, the ticket they eventually settled on — former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson for president and former two-term Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld for vice president — could be the first third-party pairing to actually influence a presidential election since Nader-LaDuke in 2000.
Here’s a quick convention recap for readers who were too busy barbecuing to tune in. Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s 2012 nominee, had long been favored to reprise his role in 2016. But the party’s self-described “radical” wing balked when Johnson revealed in late May that he’d invited Weld, a Libertarian newcomer, to join his ticket, and several rivals challenged Johnson in Orlando: party activist Austin Petersen, “Free State Project” activist Darryl Perry, Silicon Valley entrepreneur John McAfee, physician Marc Allan Feldman and self-styled “average guy” Kevin McCormick. (The Libertarian Party doesn’t hold primaries, so all winnowing occurs at the convention itself.)
On Saturday morning, roughly 750 delegates submitted “tokens” to decide which candidates would debate on live TV Saturday night and appear on the final ballot Sunday. With 226 tokens, Johnson led Petersen (106), Perry (104) and McAfee (97) — but he was still a more than a hundred shy of a majority.
Then the campaigning began. As Dave Weigel of the Washington Post detailed in aseries of stories, the process was hardly a cakewalk. Amid glad-handing, strong-arming, and “Never Johnson” protests on the convention floor, Larry Sharpe, a business consultant from New York who was running against Weld for vice president, mocked the idea of “Republican-lite” candidates, asking whether “one Republican governor is not enough.”
Meanwhile, Petersen denounced Weld as a “horrible statist” and accused him of “trying to build up his reputation after multiple business ventures that failed and multiple novels that failed;” at one point, Petersen chased and confronted Johnson in full view of many of the 200 reporters covering the convention.
During Saturday night’s debate, Johnson was loudly booed when he said that he supported the idea of driver’s licenses and would have signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act — positions that each of the other top-five contenders rejected.
And when it came time for the first ballot — after candidate speeches that included McAfee pontificating while flanked by two performance artists on stilts; Perry ceding his time to fellow radicals such as Starchild, a costumed male prostitute; and Feldman rapping about how “Republicans and Democrats are wack” — Johnson again fell short of the majority necessary to clinch the nomination, this time by six votes. It took a second ballot for Johnson to get over the hump.
“I’m not Republican-lite,” Johnson declared. “And we’re not just a couple of ‘old white guys,’ OK?”
Getting Weld nominated turned out to be an even heavier lift. Throughout the weekend, Weld and Johnson fended off charges of opportunism and impurity — Weld’s apostasies include supporting gun control and endorsing John Kasich — by arguing that Weld alone would attract the donations and media attention the party will need to be competitive in the fall.
But that wasn’t enough to prevent another first-ballot failure.
“This is someone who sold his soul to the GOP and sold our ballot access in New York City,” said one of Weld’s veep candidate rivals. “He had his opportunity to prove himself, and he failed.”
“When you go with individuals who have violated the Constitution in any fashion, you have sold your soul to them,” added another.
Like his running mate, Weld eventually prevailed on the second ballot — but by a much slimmer, 32-vote margin. The Bay Stater crowed anyway.
“This is a national ticket,” Weld told the delegates. “We can offer something meaningful and realistic to the country.”
So why should you care? Because Weld may actually be right.
Given the odd dynamics of the 2016 presidential contest — and the unprecedented experience and credibility of the newly minted Libertarian ticket — it’s entirely possible that Johnson and Weld could have a Nader- or even Ross-Perot-like effect in November.
As you’ve probably heard by now, Trump and Clinton are the two least popular major-party nominees in the history of political polling. Clinton’s unfavorable rating currentlyaverages nearly 56 percent; Trump’s currently averages 58 percent. Their favorable ratings are much lower: 37.6 percent for Clinton, 35.4 percent for Trump. These numbers — along with the difficult and divisive battles they’ve both had to wage to win their parties’ nominations — could make alternative candidates an alluring option for at least three groups of voters come fall: Bernie-or-bust types who refuse to back Clinton; movement conservatives who can’t stomach the idea of Trump taking over the GOP, and well-educated moderates who rejected The Donald during the Republican primaries.
Whether any of these voters defect to Johnson and Weld remains to be seen. Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol is reportedly trying to convince conservative lawyer David French to mount an independent bid for the right-wing #NeverTrump vote. But even then, it’s not crazy to think that a socially liberal, fiscally conservative pair of governors could still make modest inroads among moderate Republicans and hardcore Hillary holdouts. Three recent polls showed Johnson earning 10 or 11 percent of the vote in a three-way race with Trump and Clinton — and that was before Johnson had won the nomination or named Weld as his running mate. If Weld boosts Johnson to 15 percent in the polls — possible financial support from the libertarian-leaning Koch brothers may help with this as well — both he and Weld will appear on stage alongside their Democratic and Republican rivals in the fall debates.
In that case, who knows what might happen next? The answer, of course, could be “nothing”: Johnson is quirky, Weld is rusty, and no Libertarian candidate has ever captured more than 1 percent of the presidential vote. Even if the party did pick a particularly “meaningful and realistic” ticket in Orlando, it will be hard-pressed to win any electoral votes in November; that honor is historically reserved for third-party insurgents — like Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond in 1948 or anti-Civil Rights crusader George Wallace two decades later — with lots of fans in one state or region.
Yet, as things stand right now, Johnson and Weld have a better chance of siphoning support from the Republican and Democratic nominees than any of their Libertarian predecessors. If they deliver, they could reshape the election.
As Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic goes, so goes the nation?
