Flipping through channels last night, I decided to stop on my local news. When I stopped there was a guy apologizing for not knowing what Aleppo is. Aleppo is a city in Syria that is undergoing a civil war right now and the US is somehow involved. I was familiar with the name but I had to do a little research on foreignpolicy.com. However, the man who did not know what Aleppo is was a man named Gary Johnson and Mr. Johnson turned out to be a Libertarian nominee… for the president of the United States.
This was all quite amusing to me. First of all, I had no idea there was a new candidate and second, he had no idea about this current issue in the foreign policy. I felt bad for the poor guy but seriously, you have to be knowledgeable of the country’s global standing in order to lead it. It was hilarious to hear the reporter respond, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” following Johnson’s question, “and what is Aleppo?” Gary went on to later defend himself saying he “blanked” and that he understands how important Aleppo is and what he would do…blah blah blah.
Gary Johnson’s mishap isn’t all that bad to me. His mistake gave Trump no cool points in my book. My favorite part is Gary got this negative publicity immediately and you know what they say about publicity. All publicity is good publicity, especially when you’re a presidential candidate that’s trying to get your following up. After watching the news I was anxious to know a little more about Gary Johnson and what all he does know.
According to ballotpedia.org, Gary Johnson received the Libertarian nomination at the party’s convention in late May of this year. He is an author, business and former Republican Governor of New Mexico, serving from 1995 to 2003. He became a Libertarian after running for president in 2011 as a Republican and not receiving much support. He supports same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization and abortions. He opposes the Affordable Care Act, the IRS and stricter immigration laws. Ontheissues.org has a nice layout of his views.
Johnson is currently at 13% in the national polls and only needs 15% in order to debate in the General Election. If Gary Johnson is smart, he will definitely use this attention to increase his following. After all, nothing can top some of the horrendous statements Donald Trump makes. Johnson could have an amazing team and this whole thing may have been planned for exposure. Whatever the case may be, Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton just gained one more thing to stress about. Many people think their options are limited to worse and “worser.” Gary Johnson may just be the answer…. Or this could just be Bernie Sanders all over again.
