Gary Johnson, Part 1

For those Americans who don't know who Gary Johnson is, he's the 2012 nominee for President of the Libertarian party. Although from a minor party, his stardom is on the rise, and as he successfully gets on the ballot in most if not all of the states he may play a decisive role in the election. Especially since the recent Obamacare ruling, and Obama's major opponent, Mitt Romney, in a questionable position on the healthcare issue himself (being the one who enacted a similar bill in Massachusetts), Johnson is garnering more support from the anti-Obamacare crowd.

One advantage that Gary Johnson has over the last minor-party candidate to have a significant role in an election, Ralph Nader in 2000, is that unlike Nader who was essentially a more extreme version of a major-party candidate (Al Gore) and thus often accused of "spoiling" the election to Bush (since most people who voted for Nader would've voted for Gore if Nader weren't on the ballot), Johnson this year being a libertarian can draw in voters from both sides (namely giving those who are socially liberal but fiscally conservative, a rising group, an alternative that more closely resembles their ideology). Thus if Johnson starts to show stronger support, it could turn the 2012 election into a true three-way race; I'll discuss more in an upcoming post on a good way for him to get closer to a win with minimal fear from voters on their vote backfiring (and how the Electoral College, which many say hampers third parties, could give Johnson a better chance than if we had a straight plurality popular vote).