Mitt Romney Believes Gary Johnson Belongs On Presidential Debate Stage
The fact that former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes Gary Johnson belongs on the presidential debate stage with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton speaks volumes about the Libertarian candidate’s platform and his broad-based appeal across party lines. This type of establishment support could sway the debates commission to consider bending its strict rules of 15 percent support in five select polls to include the two-term governor of New Mexico.
While Romney’s disdain for Trump could be at play here, he also has a connection to the Libertarian candidate in that Johnson’s running mate, Bill Weld, was a two-term governor of Massachusetts. Romney held this post from 2003-2007, while Weld was in office from 1991-1997.
Mitt Romney declared his desire for Gary Johnson to make the debate stage via Twitter.
I hope voters get to see former GOP Governors Gary Johnson and Bill Weld on the debate stages this fall.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) September 7, 2016
While Johnson and Weld have been running a slew of ads and making a sustained push to reach the 15 percent polling threshold put in place by the presidential debate cartel, the latest numbers suggest a more optimistic outlook than is being portrayed by the mass media.
In a Washington Post poll, Johnson has an average across all 50 states of 12.9 percent when the math is done with equal weighting for each state. This may not seem that significant, but the timing of Mitt Romney backing Johnson’s inclusion in the first presidential debate set for September 26 seems too coincidental to be an accident.
What also could be a factor here, according to Politico, is that Romney realizes the mistakes of his campaign four years ago in which his adversary Trump claims he “choked like a dog” in his loss to Barack Obama.
The youth vote went overwhelmingly to other candidates in the 2012 election, as Romney was largely thought to have alienated that demographic with his policies and his demeanor as a whole. But as the Inquisitr points out, the exact opposite is true for Gary Johnson, who is on even ground with Clinton and Trump in terms of the millennial vote.
This is certainly significant, given that the primary factor holding Republicans back, the party with which Johnson was once affiliated, is their inability to court younger voters. Romney seems to be pledging his allegiance to a better tomorrow by supporting the candidate who has the biggest pull among the younger demographic.
Although Romney spoke highly of Johnson in his first Twitter sighting in a few months, the former Republican candidate still refuses to officially endorse the Libertarian for president. Johnson spoke of Romney potentially coming on board as a supporter to USA Today at the Democratic National Convention.
“We have spoken with him,” Johnson said. “I appreciate how someone who has been an elected Republican or Democrat or is elected in those positions, how difficult it is to cross over that line.”
So while even Mitt Romney, a former establishment candidate, says that the debates should be a three-way affair, and more than 50 percent of voters agree with him according to polls by Quinnipiac University and Morning Consult, as of now the choice remains no choice at all with two sides of the same coin on stage.
Governor Johnson himself has conceded that not making the debates would be “game over,” as pointed out by the Politico, but there’s still hope it won’t come to that.
And even if the support Mitt Romney pledged to Gary Johnson has more to do with Romney’s fondness for Bill Weld, the fact the Johnson promised Romney a spot in his administration, or his hatred for Donald Trump, what isn’t in question is that a known establishment commodity coming out in favor of a third-party candidate’s inclusion in the debates cannot be a bad thing. This Twitter stunt from Mitt Romney may actually help to improve Johnson’s polling numbers enough to get the Libertarian a podium to himself on September 26.
[Photo by George Frey/Getty Images]
