Party Time - Great for Democracy

[KeithE]

The ended today. Gary Johnson/Bill Weld both governors are the nominees. They have receive hardly any press coverage before 5/17 and still because of the Never-Trump and Never-Hillary attitudes, 3 polls (March 17 thru May 17) gave an average 3-way result of:

Clinton 41%
Trump 38%
Johnson 8.3%
Undecided 12.7%

It will stand to reason that Johnson will get a bump from their convention. If the press gives them a fair shake in terms of non-discounted stories (like they did with Sanders at first), they will get a larger percentage (say 20%) most of it taken away from Trump. That would make the result be something like:

Clinton 40%
Trump 30%
Johnson 20%
Undecided 10%

Now before Hillary celebrates, she and the DNC better take a long look at Sanders-like platforms and campaign true to them. The Green Party just may take Sanders as a Pres/VP nominee or chief cheerleader . Their convention is Aug 4-7 and two weeks after the DNC’s which ends July 25 (RNC ends July 17). Green Party may take away votes from both Clinton (mostly) but some populist-leaning Trump supporters as well particularly if they adopt a Reagan style supply-side economic platform (this is ). Of course that would be subject to debate which I will not enter here (but you already know where I stand).

My point is that is would be great for democracy if we had a four way race (all parties getting a fair share of press coverage from this time forward). Trump/Clinton might very well fight it out for third; remember neither are very popular.

[Sandy]

A four way race might be fun to watch, and exciting, and I agree, good for democracy. If Bernie were one of the four, I think he's have the best shot at winning the popular vote, though I think the election might get thrown to congress at that point.

But Bernie isn't going to run for the Green Party. He's got a five member delegation on the platform committee, Hillary has six, plus he has two "concession" appointments made by Wasserman-Schultz. He will come out of the convention high profile, and I think his presence, and support, will be just exactly the right measure of push to the left to get her in a position to win.

Johnson may just pull enough establishment Republicans away from Trump to create at the very least an electoral landslide for Hillary.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]