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Old 03-26-2016, 10:29 AM
AynMisesLibertarian AynMisesLibertarian is offline
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Default Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

15% gets you in the Presidential debates.

And now you have this
http://imgur.com/NOyOvc7

My dream scenario is this:
Trump wins the GOP nomination. Many GOP higher ups bolt from the party and openly support the LP candidate (hopefully Johnson).
Clinton easily wins the Democratic nomination, but is indicted in the September-October time frame. It's now too late for the DNC to pick a new candidate.
Jill Stein or Sanders decide to run 3rd party.
NO ONE gets 270 electoral votes. The decision who should be president goes to the House, and the GOP dominated House elects Johnson ( The Constitution states that the HoR will decide between the top 3 Presidential candidates.). The Senate, also Republican controlled, picks the sanest vice-presidential candidate during the election.

Food for thought.
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Old 03-26-2016, 10:43 AM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Barring a political realignment that would make this year’s election look completely orthodox, a third-party candidate will never win a presidential election in a first-past-the-post system like ours for the simple reason of Duverger’s Law. Your masturbatory fantasies remain as lacking in credibility as ever, particularly because the odds of Clinton being indicted for anything remain statistically indistinguishable from 0%, and because the Republican Party elite would no sooner support a lolbert than they would support Drumpf; indeed, lolberts diverge even more radically from Republican Party orthodoxy than the short-fingered vulgarian does. (There is even less chance of Sanders mounting a third-party run than of Clinton being indicted, by the way; he has made it eminently clear that he will endorse Clinton and drop out of the race if she wins the nomination).

Here’s a little bit of anecdotal evidence based in objective data about the candidates’ political positions. My agreement with Johnson is measured by ISideWith as being 66%; my agreement with Drumpf is 28%; my agreement with the Republican Party is 3%. (Most of the individual candidates were admittedly higher; Kasich is at 28%, the same level as Drumpf, and Cruz is at 13%, while even Rubiobot, the candidate with whom I was measured as disagreeing the most, was at 5% before they removed him). Even the lolbert with whom I disagree most, Austin Petersen, is measured at 46%. (The lolbert with whom I have highest agreement, John McAfee, is at 71%). The Libertarian Party itself is at 51%.

All of this is largely irrelevant to the discussion in and of itself, but what is relevant is how far the cluster of libertarians is from the cluster of Republicans. If we accept the framing of the parties as accurate, 48% is an ideological chasm far too vast for any lolbertarian candidate to bridge; that is very nearly half the American political spectrum. (Admittedly, the American political spectrum is quite narrow compared to the range of political opinions in other Western democracies, but to Republicans they might as well be commies).

I will add an additional caveat that I don’t entirely trust this site’s categorisation of my politics, as I found a lot of the questions to have unsatisfactory answers and thus it has me pegged as being more economically centrist and less libertarian than I actually am (though it does at least fairly accurately have me categorised as 92% socialist), but I see little reason to significantly distrust its ranking of the candidates, since it provides clear citations for their positions. Why would the Republicans vote for someone they disagree with even more than Drumpf to keep the short-fingered vulgarian out of office? Rand Paul, who was much less of a libertarian than anyone running for the Libertarian Party nomination (my agreement with him was measured at around 35%, iirc), couldn’t get any traction with his views in the Republican Party primary. The views of actual lolberts are far more foreign to them than his, particularly since part of the reason Drumpf so offends the reactionaries who make up the Republican establishment is that he says things like that the Iraq war was a mistake, which libertarians have been saying for ages. Barring the remote possibility of every credible establishment Republican candidate and Drumpf suddenly being murdered with Light Yagami’s Death Note, there is no conceivable scenario in which the Republicans credibly realign themselves behind a lolbert.

If the establishment wing of the Republican Party launches a third-party run, it will be with a candidate like Paul Ryan or Marco Rubiobot, and it will very likely divide the right-wing electorate so thoroughly that Clinton or Sanders will have a very credible chance of winning all 50 states plus the District and Puerto Rico.

Sanders still has a much more credible shot at winning the presidency than any lolbert does, by the way, especially given a recent Bloomberg Politics poll showing the Democratic race in a statistical tie.

I will probably agree with you on one thing you didn’t say in your post, but you are highly likely to believe: any of the candidates running for the Libertarian nomination would very likely be much better presidents than any of the candidates running for the Republican nomination, purely because they aren’t dreadfully wrong on as vast an array of issues as the Republicans are. However, that’s a very small hurdle to clear.

edit: A much more relevant and significantly less anecdotal comparison is this, of Drumpf vs. the Republicans, and this, of the lolberts vs. the Republicans. (For example, I agree with Drumpf and Kasich equally according to the test, but they have significant areas of disagreement with each other on 27 issues, if I counted correctly). Note how much more the Republicans disagree with the lolberts than with Drumpf (protip: they are listed as disagreeing with the short-fingered vulgarian on the many issues on which he has not taken a stance, and when one disregards those 31 issues, the true proportion becomes more readily apparent. Again, if I counted correctly, they disagree with Trump on 25 issues; they disagree with the lolberts on 46).

edit 2: In the interest of being as thorough as possible, I should note that ISideWith does have some oddities when it categorises answers as being in agreement or disagreement with each other; for example, it has my stance of “Yes, and we should create more social programs to help prevent and rehabilitate criminals” on whether solitary confinement should be banned for juveniles as being in disagreement with McAfee’s answer of “Yes, this should be banned period” despite, you know, the identical first words of those answers. (This, incidentally, also speaks to my dissatisfaction with some of these answers; I would both like solitary confinement to be banned for all prisoners and for more social programs to be created to rehabilitate criminals and reduce recidivism, but there was no answer reflecting that stance, and inputting one’s own answer simply results in disagreement with all candidates. I faced similar issues with several different questions). I would categorise these as being at least “partially similar” positions. That said, I did not notice any of these anomalies in its comparisons of Drumpf or the lolberts with the Republicans, and while there may be one or two I did not notice, the overwhelming disparity between their positions means it wouldn’t make much of a difference.

edit 3: You owe us €200, by the way.
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Last edited by The Man; 03-26-2016 at 03:35 PM.
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Old 03-26-2016, 02:45 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

:rofl:

Thanks for the laugh AML
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Old 03-26-2016, 02:49 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Quote:
Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian View Post
(The Constitution states that the HoR will decide between the top 3 Presidential candidates.)
That's the top three electoral vote recipients. To garner electoral votes one must win the popular vote in one or more states. The last third-party candidate to get any electoral votes was George Wallace in 1968. Before that it was Strom Thurmond in 1948. Unless Johnson supports using the full weight and power of government to keep the coloreds from pestering decedent, law-abiding white folk - and he wouldn't be much of a libertarian if he did - he's not getting any electoral votes.

Of course, Johnson did win two statewide election in New Mexico, but he did that as a Republican. Running as the Libertarian candidate for president in 2012 he got less than 4% of the popular vote.

Electoral college and House of Representatives fantasy scenarios make good clown punching material for political wonks, but that's about it.
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Old 03-26-2016, 03:28 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Quote:
Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian View Post
My dream scenario is this:
Trump wins the GOP nomination. Many GOP higher ups bolt from the party and openly support the LP candidate (hopefully Johnson).
Clinton easily wins the Democratic nomination, but is indicted in the September-October time frame. It's now too late for the DNC to pick a new candidate.
Jill Stein or Sanders decide to run 3rd party.
NO ONE gets 270 electoral votes. The decision who should be president goes to the House, and the GOP dominated House elects Johnson ( The Constitution states that the HoR will decide between the top 3 Presidential candidates.). The Senate, also Republican controlled, picks the sanest vice-presidential candidate during the election.
:lol: Where did you copy and paste this dumb shit from?
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Old 03-26-2016, 06:21 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian View Post
(The Constitution states that the HoR will decide between the top 3 Presidential candidates.)
That's the top three electoral vote recipients. To garner electoral votes one must win the popular vote in one or more states. The last third-party candidate to get any electoral votes was George Wallace in 1968. Before that it was Strom Thurmond in 1948.
I can’t be arsed to pin down all the details, but I think a couple of states designate electoral votes proportionately; i.e., a losing candidate or candidates can get some electoral votes, though the winner will receive most of the votes.

A more complicating factor is that of the “faithless elector.” Members of the electoral college are not required to vote for the winning candidate in their states; I believe any electors can vote for anyone they like, including themselves. There is no federal law against doing so, though I believe some states have laws banning the exercise of a faithless electoral vote. Not sure how that’s enforced, though, or what the penalties are supposed to be.

Finally, just doing a little research, I discovered the surprising fact that in 1976, a faithless elector in Washington State jilted Gerald Ford, who had won the state, and voted for Ronald Reagan. There are any number of such examples scattered throughout history. In 1960, Harry Byrd received 15 electoral votes, including all the votes of Mississippi, even though, so far as I know, he was not even on the ballot anywhere, and if he was, he certainly did not carry any state by popular vote.
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  #7  
Old 03-26-2016, 06:52 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

It's Maine and Nebraska that can split their electoral votes.

They assign 1 each to the winner of each congressional district, plus 2 to the statewide winner (corresponding to their senatorial electoral votes).

The effect of this is similar in locking out 3rd parties. A 3rd-party candidate would still need to win the plurality of votes in one of Maine or Nebraska's congressional districts. Getting an even 20% across Nebraska won't win you shit 1 of their 5 electors.

Anyway, to the subject of the OP... AML's "evidence" from Frank Luntz is possibly evidence that Libertarian Gary Johnson has a real chance of being the next... participant in the general election presidential debates. It doesn't even guarantee that.

But winning any states, much less the election? 3rd-party candidate support tends to collapse relative to the polls. Expressing support in a poll carries no cost, but in the voting booth you're more likely to consider whether your candidate can win. It is a sensible strategy to express support in polls, since that will make it clear whether the candidate is viable before voting begins. But when their support is well below viability, like I said, their election day results tend to disappoint. And 11% is well below viability.

Gary Johnson might be able to break 5% in a Trump-Clinton matchup. But win the election? :lol: no.
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Old 03-26-2016, 07:11 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Several times, most recently of course in 2000, the winner of the popular vote lost the electoral college. What has never before happened – but which is theoretically possible under this screwed-up system – is that a candidate wins the both the popular vote and the electoral vote, but when the electoral college actually votes, faithless electors defect to the losing candidate and grant him an electoral college majority that he failed to actually earn in the national election. The bottom line is that under our Constitution, it is the electoral college, and not the people, who elect the president.
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Old 03-26-2016, 07:27 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChuckF View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian View Post
My dream scenario is this:
Trump wins the GOP nomination. Many GOP higher ups bolt from the party and openly support the LP candidate (hopefully Johnson).
Clinton easily wins the Democratic nomination, but is indicted in the September-October time frame. It's now too late for the DNC to pick a new candidate.
Jill Stein or Sanders decide to run 3rd party.
NO ONE gets 270 electoral votes. The decision who should be president goes to the House, and the GOP dominated House elects Johnson ( The Constitution states that the HoR will decide between the top 3 Presidential candidates.). The Senate, also Republican controlled, picks the sanest vice-presidential candidate during the election.
:lol: Where did you copy and paste this dumb shit from?
Reddit. :laugh:
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Old 03-26-2016, 07:38 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Interesting Electoral College stuff here and here

So in 1960, it turns out voters in Mississippi could vote for unpledged electors, and unpledged electors actually defeated both Kennedy and Nixon. Those electors all voted for Byrd. Alabama, as the articles explain, had its own weird system. Of the 15 electoral votes Byrd received, only one was actually from a faithless elector. The time bombs lurking in the Electoral College system in case of a very close election appear to be legion!

Which raises the possibility that should the Orange Dunderhead win the electoral college by a squeaker, one might expect enormous behind-the-scenes pressure on his pledged electors not to vote for him, with the hope of at least throwing the election to the House.
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Old 03-26-2016, 07:52 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

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Originally Posted by davidm View Post
Finally, just doing a little research, I discovered the surprising fact that in 1976, a faithless elector in Washington State jilted Gerald Ford, who had won the state, and voted for Ronald Reagan.
And in 1972, John Hospers received an electoral vote from a faithless elector from Virginia, making him the only Libertarian Party candidate to ever receive an electoral vote.

RISING!

What's even funnier is that they made the faithless elector, Roger MacBride, their 1976 Libertarian Party candidate.
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Old 03-26-2016, 08:15 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

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Originally Posted by Nullifidian View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
Finally, just doing a little research, I discovered the surprising fact that in 1976, a faithless elector in Washington State jilted Gerald Ford, who had won the state, and voted for Ronald Reagan.
And in 1972, John Hospers received an electoral vote from a faithless elector from Virginia, making him the only Libertarian Party candidate to ever receive an electoral vote.

RISING!

What's even funnier is that they made the faithless elector, Roger MacBride, their 1976 Libertarian Party candidate.
Indeed, as Ayn-what’it never tires of reminding us, Libertarians Am Rising Everywhere! :freakout:

But if so, what happened to that kewpie doll Rand Paul? :shrug:

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, his real name is Randy, not Rand; I had always assumed he was named after Ayn Rand. But his wife shortened his name to “Rand” (sez Wikipedia). I guess she was afraid “Randy Paul” would be an especially unfortunate name in case of sex scandal. :lol:
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Old 03-26-2016, 08:28 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
I can’t be arsed to pin down all the details, but I think a couple of states designate electoral votes proportionately; i.e., a losing candidate or candidates can get some electoral votes, though the winner will receive most of the votes.
erimir's correct about Maine and Nebraska and how they divvy up their electoral votes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
A more complicating factor is that of the “faithless elector.”
That's definitely a possibility, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a complicating factor. There's been something like 150 FEs in U.S. history, and a grand total of 9 since 1948. The most recent FEs have engaged in dumbass potato bullshit like flipping presidential and vice presidential votes or turning in a blank ballot.

Still, the idea that the entire Electoral College could go rogue if it goddamn jolly well felt like it is ... unsettling.

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
Members of the electoral college are not required to vote for the winning candidate in their states; I believe any electors can vote for anyone they like, including themselves.
Last I checked (which hasn't been recent), 29 states had elector fidelity laws.

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
There is no federal law against doing so, though I believe some states have laws banning the exercise of a faithless electoral vote.
Yep. The Supreme Court ruled long ago that states can pass such laws, but 21 states still haven't done so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
Not sure how that’s enforced, though, or what the penalties are supposed to be.
Typically they're misdemeanor criminal statutes that provide for fines and/or relatively short jail time. As for how they're enforced, the short answer is "They're not." AFAIK, there's never been a single attempt to enforce a faithless elector law.

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
In 1960, Harry Byrd received 15 electoral votes, including all the votes of Mississippi, even though, so far as I know, he was not even on the ballot anywhere, and if he was, he certainly did not carry any state by popular vote.
Now that's interesting! I'd never heard of this, so I did some digging. The Republicans had gotten way too cuddly with black folk for most Mississippians' liking, and Kennedy was one of them Northeast Catholic types. The result was that "Unpledged" finished first in Mississippi's 1960 popular vote. :laugh: Mississippi's eight electors weren't obliged to anyone, and they all ended up voting for Byrd.

Kennedy won the popular vote in Alabama handily. However, due to a bizarre combo of arcane state Democratic party rules and results in state Democratic primary, six of the state's eleven electors were unpledged. All six voted to Byrd.

The fifteenth Byrd vote came from a FE from Oklahoma who was pledged to vote for Nixon.

But hey, I'm getting way far afield here. lol lolberts amirite
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Old 03-26-2016, 09:04 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Yes, we should get back to lolberts, but first, here’s a lovely nightmare scenario I just cooked up, courtesy of our gunked-up Constitution. :muahaha: And I don’t think it’s too far-fetched.

It seems certain now that Clinton and Trump will be the nominees. The Republican establishment, of course, hates both of them. They do like Mittens Romney, though. :yes:

Suppose Clinton wins the popular vote by a narrow margin, but Trump prevails in the Electoral College by a narrow margin. This has happened before, as recently as 2000 (though arguably Florida actually voted for Gore and should have given him the winning electoral votes).

In a case like this, I can well imagine The Rethug Establishment bribing/blackmailing/breaking the arms of a sufficient number of Trump electors to induce them to be faithless, such as to deny Trump the electoral college majority he had ostensibly earned. These faithless electors could be “induced” to vote for Mittensbot. :yup:

In that case, with Trump short of the electoral college majority he had actually earned, the election would be thrown to the House, which lame duck session would be Republican-controlled. :yes:

Under the 12th Amendment, only the three top electoral college vote-getters are eligible to be voted for president in the House. In this case those candidates would be Trump, Clinton, and Mittensbot. :yup:

And then the House can go right ahead and put Mittens in the White House! :muahaha:

What a delightfully evil scenario! :twisted:
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Old 03-26-2016, 11:27 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Of course, something like my last post did happen in U.S. history, though not nearly so egregious as my beguiling nightmare scenario. :muahaha: In 1824, in a four-way race, Andrew Jackson won the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, but failed to secure a majority of electoral votes (just a plurality.) He also carried the most states. The election was thus thrown to the House, which rammed it straight up Ol’ Hickory’s ass, and put John Q. Adams in the White House, who had finished second to Jackson in both the popular and electoral votes.

But at least Adams got popular votes. My scenario is more deliciously evil because it demonstrates that it is constitutionally possible for someone to be elected president without receiving a single popular vote, or indeed running in the general election at all!

Ol’ Hickory, by all accounts, was a very bitter man as a result of this dirty deal, as he felt it to be. :yup: But do not fear! :hand: Like a zombie Nixon arisen from the political grave and searching for liberal brains to eat, :eatbrains: Jackson came back four years later to easily defeat Adams in a two-way race. Then, of course, finally venting all his pent-up fury, he instigated the Trail of Tears. For this genocide, he has earned himself a handsome post-mortem sinecure on the 20-dollar bill, and — in the most recent survey of presidential scholars — a ranking of ninth-best president of all time. :yup:
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Old 03-27-2016, 12:04 AM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

I like the Mittensbot nightmare scenario above least worst of all the apocalyptic nightmare outcomes of this election I've seen or concocted.
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Old 03-27-2016, 12:17 AM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Then, of course, there was the lovely stolen election of 1876, which nearly caused a second Civil War. But Rutherfraud B. Hayes paid for his stolen election with a promise to end Reconstruction, which paved the way for Jim Crow and nearly another hundred years of de facto black slavery.

American democracy in action, in the world’s “exceptional” nation! :shiftier:

Unsurprisingly, Florida was also at the heart of the 1876 heist, just as it was in 2000. :yup:
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Old 03-27-2016, 12:22 AM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Johnson RISING!
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Old 03-27-2016, 10:37 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
Unsurprisingly, Florida was also at the heart of the 1876 heist, just as it was in 2000. :yup:
Where will Florida Man's reign of terror end?
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Old 03-28-2016, 05:33 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
Back when I lived and worked in Toledo, Ohio, I regularly drove past His Fraudulency's house in Fremont on the way to the Seneca County courthouse in Tiffin. The meticulously preserved house is part of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. Never went inside, so I don't know whether they maintained a Samuel Tilden "How the fuck did I go from winning the popular vote and what looked like a certain Electoral College majority to living the rest of my life 'Grey Gardens' style?" exhibit.
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Old 03-29-2016, 11:52 AM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

RON PAUL! :lolbertcheer:
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Old 03-29-2016, 12:30 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

hey AML You already owe us $200 - bet you double or nothing this does not happen?
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Old 03-29-2016, 12:49 PM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

:rich:
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Old 03-24-2020, 05:40 AM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

I’ll use this thrad. :D

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Old 03-24-2020, 10:03 AM
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Default Re: Why Libertarian Gov Gary Johnson has a real chance for being the next president

God damn it Kamilah! Here I was hoping AML was back! :grumpy:
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