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The Daily Beast: Why Ron Paul won't support Gary Johnson

First they pose the question,
Why won’t Ron Paul back Gary Johnson? On a campaign conference call today, campaign spokesperson Jesse Benton said that Paul would not back Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson under any circumstances.  This was the most definitive language used by Benton on a call laced with caveats.  Benton said that Paul was “not likely” to endorse Romney and was “extremely unlikely” to back any third party candidate. But, when it came to Gary Johnson, the answer was a quick and simple no.
And then they answer it:
Johnson may be the most ideologically similar candidate to Paul but there are major differences between the former New Mexico governor and the longtime Texas congressman. Johnson is far more rooted in modern libertarianism than Paul, who is many ways a candidate of what his biographer, Brian Doherty, calls the “Old Right.”  While Johnson is pro gay marriage and pro-drug reform, Paul is still wedded to bugaboos about gold money and combines his laissez-faire economic approach with a streak of social conservatism.
                The differences though aren’t just ideological. Johnson has abandoned the GOP as hopelessly wedded to big government conservativism and the Christian Right after his failed run in the Republican Presidential primary. In contrast, Paul is playing “a long game” to try to remake the Republican Party in his image.  On the call today, Benton stated that one of the major efforts of Paul delegates in Tampa would be to change the Republican Party rules to make it easier for “liberty-oriented” candidates in 2016. (He declined though “to get into the weeds” about what those changes would be.) 
So that's the answer to any folks who thought there was going to be some hedging about the difference between "endorse" and "support."

Comments

Walter D said…
The differences between Gary Johnson (was Republican, now Libertarian), and Ron Paul (was
Libertarian, now Republican) are minute compared to their ideological similarities.

Ron Paul supporters are being set adrift; get in your lifeboats and row wherever you want.

They want direction from their man, they will do what he recommends.

Why not row your lifeboats towards that ship that is on all state ballots, with a candidate with similar, if not identical views.

"Similar but not identical" is a better choice than "totally different and not even close".

"Ron Paul may be playing, 'a long game' to try to remake the Republican party in his image".

In the "short game", without his direction, he is throwing two million plus votes into
the brine.
September 5, 2012 at 8:46 AM
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