Other Candidates Vying for President

Libertarian Gary Johnson
Libertarian Gary Johnson
by Moe White

For those who don’t like Clinton or Trump, there’s always Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein (Johnson is on the NC ballot; Stein is not, but voters may write her name in).

Neither has much party infrastructure behind them, nor have they achieved more than a small blip in the polls. But, as Ross Perot proved in 1992, a third-party candidacy can have an impact on a presidential race.

Johnson’s candidacy is premised on his two terms as governor of New Mexico in the 1990s and 2000s. A successful businessman, he ran for governor in 1994 on a low-tax, anti-crime platform, and beat Democratic incumbent Bruce King 50-40. Using his veto 200 times in his first six months in office, he forced the legislature to slash what had been a 10% annual growth in the budget. He won reelection 55-45, and in his second term, he concentrated on the school voucher reforms and for marijuana decriminalization.

This year, his platform is heavy on deregulation and shifting the tax burden from incomes and profits to spending—hitting working-class people hard while giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. He asserts the right of reproductive choice for women and a reform of marijuana laws, but calls for eliminating most environmental laws.

Green Party nominee Jill Stein
Green Party nominee Jill Stein

Jill Stein, a physician, has almost as little elective experience as Donald Trump; she served one full term and part of another as a member of the Lexington Town Meeting, the local city council. Her platform reads like a wish list for progressives.

Energy:

  • End fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, and uranium mines
  • Transition to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030
  • Invest in public transit and “sustainable agriculture”

Economy:

  • Create millions of living-wage jobs
  • Set a $15/hour federal minimum wage
  • End poverty

Health & Education:

  • Enact “Medicare For All”
  • Abolish student debt, guarantee free public education

Regulation:

  • Support unions
  • Break up “too-big-to-fail” banks
  • Abolish corporate personhood

Social policy:

  • End police brutality, unconstitutional surveillance, and spying, and demilitarize the police
  • Expand women’s rights, protect LGBTQIA+ people, defend indigenous people
  • Establish a constitutional right to vote

Security:

  • Base foreign policy on international law and human rights
  • End drone attacks, cut military spending by at least 50%, and close all foreign military bases

Stein will accomplish these lofty goals by relying on a promise to “reform taxes to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share.” Without an actual budget plan to analyze, it’s hard to imagine a president without a single party ally in Congress being able to achieve even one of her platform planks.