Justin Amash for President?

[lpetrich]

 Justin Amash has long been a Republican. But on July 4, 2019, he departed from the Republican Party, because of his dislike to partisan politics. He is now an Independent.

Justin Amash discussing 'potential campaign' for president and will make decision 'soon' - CNNPolitics - he is considering running in the Libertarian Party.

If he does run, Amash would seek the Libertarian Party's nomination at their convention in Austin, Texas, which is currently set for the end of May. In 2016, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, was on the ballot in every state and won a little over 3% of the national vote.

While it is very unlikely a third-party candidate could win the presidency, a high-profile third-party contender has the potential to reshape the race.

Like be a spoiler.

Amash Mulling Presidential Bid | The Liberty Conservative

By emerging as a vocal opponent of the President, the renegade Congressman has broken with other libertarian politicians such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and former Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), who chose to work closely with the Trump administration.

On Your Mark (Cuban), Get Set, Go . . . Third Party? also mentions JA's possible candidacy.

 

[Elixir]

 Justin Amash has long been a Republican. But on July 4, 2019, he departed from the Republican Party, because of his dislike to partisan politics. He is now an Independent.

Justin Amash discussing 'potential campaign' for president and will make decision 'soon' - CNNPolitics - he is considering running in the Libertarian Party.

If he does run, Amash would seek the Libertarian Party's nomination at their convention in Austin, Texas, which is currently set for the end of May. In 2016, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, was on the ballot in every state and won a little over 3% of the national vote.

While it is very unlikely a third-party candidate could win the presidency, a high-profile third-party contender has the potential to reshape the race.

Like be a spoiler.

Amash Mulling Presidential Bid | The Liberty Conservative

By emerging as a vocal opponent of the President, the renegade Congressman has broken with other libertarian politicians such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and former Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), who chose to work closely with the Trump administration.

On Your Mark (Cuban), Get Set, Go . . . Third Party? also mentions JA's possible candidacy.

Yeah, why settle for three parties when we could have five or six?
Sure, that will hand control of this country to the 28% teaplorables for the rest of the century, but isn't sticking up for your beliefs worth it?

Or ... we could elect someone who actually wants to reform the electoral system to make 3rd parties more viable. Maybe even ranked choice voting or something.

 

[Patooka]

Would having a viable third option for President make any difference? What if third parties are viable in the senate but not in congress or vice versa?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://morningconsult.com/2020/04/16/amash-president-trump-biden-polling/

Amash so far gets 1% support as a Libertarian. His support, such as it is, comes equally from Biden and Trump.

...
Biden led Trump by 4 percentage points among voters regardless of whether Amash was included in the poll. That same dynamic was true with all of the demographic groups tested in the poll, including independents and Americans who did not vote for a Democrat or Republican in 2016 or 2018.
...

 

[lpetrich]

Amash launches exploratory committee for Libertarian presidential run | TheHill - "It is still unclear if Amash would draw more support away from Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee."

 

[lpetrich]

Former Republican Justin Amash looking to join 2020 race - YouTube on Fox News

Justin Amash, Third-Party Spoiler? Michigan Experts Are Skeptical - The New York Times - "Democrats worry that if the congressman runs for president, he could siphon votes in a state Donald Trump narrowly won four years ago. But strategists say this election is much different."

In 2016, after all, Donald J. Trump won Michigan by just 10,700 votes — and the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, won 172,000 votes in the state. Mr. Amash’s likely entry into the race, as a native son in a state that is again likely to be a battleground, gave some Democrats and Never Trump Republicans overnight heart palpitations.

Nonetheless, strategists from both major parties in Michigan said on Wednesday that this year’s electoral landscape was so fundamentally altered from four years ago that Mr. Amash was not likely to have a major impact in the state, or on the general election as a whole. If Mr. Trump’s surprising victories in Northern industrial states in 2016 were based on high levels of dislike for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, which depressed Democratic turnout, those appear to be lesser factors this time around as he prepares to face Joseph R. Biden Jr.

He was the only Republican Rep to support impeachment, and he left the party soon after.

Justin Amash Wants to Destroy the System that Created Trump - POLITICO - "But critics fear his third-party White House bid will only serve to reelect the president."

Like so many Republicans running for Congress in 2010, Justin Amash, then a 30-year-old state representative from West Michigan, was disgusted with a president who had abused his executive authority, expanded the powers of the federal government and rung up historic amounts of debt and deficit. But unlike his fellow tea party conservatives, Amash wasn’t fixated on Barack Obama.

“I got active in politics in part because of what George W. Bush was doing,” Amash told me years later, retracing his political rise. “The Obama backlash, of course, started around the time of the tea party. But a lot of us blamed George W. Bush for Obama in the first place.”

Many of us thought that George Bush II was a horrible president. But then came Trump.

Joe Walsh: Justin Amash’s campaign will help Trump win - The Washington Post - "We both came in with the tea party wave. Reelecting this president isn’t the way to go out."

President Trump is everything our Founders feared. He routinely misleads or outright lies to the American people, he puts his own interests ahead of the nation, he can’t handle dissent, he mocks our most precious institutions, he’s intentionally divisive. A few months ago, he was impeached. He’s currently bungling the nation’s response to a global pandemic.

He then talked about how he considers JA a friend and how they came in as Tea Partiers to shake up the DC establishment. While the likes of Jim Jordan and Mick Mulvaney were all talk and no action, JA stayed principled. He left the GOP because of all the toadying to Trump.

But he can siphon enough votes from the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, to hand the election to Trump.

And you don’t have to be happy with your choices at this point to see that the only candidate who can beat Trump is the Democratic Party nominee. Or that any vote that's not for the Democratic nominee is effectively a vote for Trump. That’s why, when I dropped out of this year’s Republican primary, I pledged to vote for anyone the Democrats nominated, even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose policies I hate. Because the presidential election this year isn’t about whose health coverage plan is the most confusing or whose Afghanistan exit strategy is the least realistic. The issue is whether Trump gets a second term.

After mentioning the long-shot primary campaigns of him and Bill Weld, he continued with

This is different. If Amash gets the Libertarian nomination and stays in until the end, he could wind up going in the books as the guy who voted to impeach Trump one year, then tipped the election to him 11 months later.

...
I know how committed Justin is to the founding ideals of liberty and limited government. When this is over, I’ll gladly join him in fighting for those principles again. If he wants, I’ll join him in starting a new political party. Right now, our only job is ridding the White House of an authoritarian con man.

 

[lpetrich]

Opinion | Justin Amash Can Only Cause Trouble - The New York Times - "Unless we radically change how we conduct elections, third-party candidates can’t win. But they can certainly affect the outcome — as they did in 1948, 1968, 1992, 2000 and 2016."

Our politics are plainly inhospitable to third parties. But the usual answer — that this reflects a failure of will or imagination among voters, or that it’s the result of a constructed “duopoly” — is wrong. The reason for third-party failure is embedded in the structure of our politics. Americans who want more choice at the ballot box — to say nothing of Americans who want a European-style parliamentary democracy — have to change that structure.

Then explaining single-member districts and first-past-the-post voting. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

Some nations with FPTP have multiple parties, like Canada and Britain, but two parties are dominant in them. The US is different because of its strong presidency, as opposed to a mostly ceremonial executive. Since there is only one President, that makes it especially difficult for parties outside of the two dominant ones, making a two-party system very strong. The Founders didn't intend for it to exist, and to the extent that they expressed any opinions, they wanted a no-party system. But that was not to be, and the political elites soon sorted themselves out into two parties.

The parties then had a rather complicated history. The first two were the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party. But after the War of 1812, the Federalist Party collapsed, and with the rise of Andrew Jackson, the D-R's split into the pro-Jackson Democrats and the anti-Jackson National Republicans or Whigs. The latter party collapsed in the late 1850's, and the Republican Party took its place. In later years, the parties absorbed small parties, with the Democrats absorbing the Populists in the 1890's, and the Dixiecrats splitting off from the Democrats in the 1950's and joining the Republicans in the 1960's and 1970's.

There are alternatives that let additional parties flourish (I think "third party" sounds silly when there are lots of them). Proportional representation and ranked-choice voting, for instance.

 

[lpetrich]

But additional-party candidates can act as spoilers, drawing off votes from major candidates with similar voter appeal. It is that effect which forces convergence onto two major parties.

Author Jamelle Bouie mentioned the Presidential elections of 1948, 1968, 1992, 2000 and 2016.

• 1948: Harry Truman (D) 49.55%, Tom Dewey (R) 45.07%, Strom Thurmond (Dixiecrat) 2.41%, Henry Wallace (Progressive) 2.37%, Norman Thomas (Socialist) 0.29%, Claude Watson (Prohibition) 0.21%, Edward Teichert (Socialist Labor) 0.06%, Farrell Dobbs (Socialist Workers) 0.03%
• 1968: Richard Nixon (R) 43.42%, Hubert Humphrey (D) 42.72%, George Wallace (American Independent) 13.53%, (Other) 0.33%
• 1992: Bill Clinton (D) 43.01%, George Bush I (R) 37.45%, Ross Perot (Independent) 18.91%, Andre Marrou (Libertarian) 0.28%, Bo Gritz (Populist) 0.10%, Lenora Fulani (New Alliance) 0.07%, Howard Phillips (US Taxpayers) 0.04%
• 2000: George Bush II (R) 47.87%, Al Gore (D) 48.38%, Ralph Nader (Green) 2.74%, Pat Buchanan (Reform) 0.43%, Harry Browne (Libertarian) 0.36%, Howard Phillips (Constitution) 0.09%, John Hagelin (Natural Law) 0.08%
• 2016: Donald Trump (R) 46.09%, Hillary Clinton (D) 48.18%, Gary Johnson (Libertarian) 3.28%, Jill Stein (Green) 1.07%, Evan McMullin (Independent) 0.54%, Darrell Castle (Constitution) 0.15%, Gloria La Riva (Socialism and Liberation) 0.05%

Looking at the electoral votes, I find:

• 1948: If Strom Thurmond's voters had voted for Tom Dewey, Harry Truman would still have won, but by a very small margin.
• 1968: If George Wallace's voters had voted for Hubert Humphrey, he would have won.
• 1992: If Ross Perot's voters had voted for George Bush I, he would have won.
• 2000: If Ralph Nader's voters had voted for Al Gore, he would have won.
• 2016: If Gary Johnson's voters had voted for Hillary Clinton, she would have won. Not enough Jill Stein voters for that, however.

So there is the danger of a Libertarian being a spoiler.

 

[southernhybrid]

Did y'all know that Justin dropped out of the race last week?

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/justin-amash-drops-out-of-presidential-race/

Michigan congressman Justin Amash, who left the Republican party over his opposition to President Trump, announced on April 28 that he was considering running for president in 2020 as the Libertarian Party’s nominee. On Saturday, he wrote on Twitter that he’s closing down his exploratory committee:

57

Justin Amash
✔
@justinamash
· May 16, 2020
Replying to @justinamash
I’ve spent nearly three weeks assessing the race, appearing in media, talking to delegates and donors, watching the Libertarian Party’s convention plan unfold, and gathering feedback from family, friends, and other advisers.

Justin Amash
✔
@justinamash
After much reflection, I’ve concluded that circumstances don’t lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year, and therefore I will not be a candidate.

Bye! Bye!

 

[lpetrich]

Justin Amash on Twitter: "Thanks for your support as I’ve been exploring a run for president as the potential nominee of the Libertarian Party." / Twitter
This Twitter thread:

Thanks for your support as I’ve been exploring a run for president as the potential nominee of the Libertarian Party.

I’ve spent nearly three weeks assessing the race, appearing in media, talking to delegates and donors, watching the Libertarian Party’s convention plan unfold, and gathering feedback from family, friends, and other advisers.

After much reflection, I’ve concluded that circumstances don’t lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year, and therefore I will not be a candidate.

This was a difficult decision for me, especially having seen grassroots supporters put so much effort into this campaign. It’s been humbling and awesome.

I continue to believe that a candidate from outside the old parties, offering a vision of government grounded in liberty and equality, can break through in the right environment.

But this environment presents extraordinary challenges.

Polarization is near an all-time high. Electoral success requires an audience willing to consider alternatives, but both social media and traditional media are dominated by voices strongly averse to the political risks posed by a viable third candidate.

The new reality of social distancing levels the playing field among the candidates in many respects, but it also means lesser known candidates are more dependent on adequate media opportunities to reach people.

Today, most Americans are understandably more interested in what life will look like tomorrow than they are in broader policy debates, and news coverage has reflected those priorities. At the same time, fundraising challenges posed by an idled economy will hinder advertising.

The Libertarian Party’s national committee members and delegates have worked diligently to organize the national convention,…

but lingering uncertainty regarding ratification of online voting, the feasibility of 50-state ballot access and related legal challenges, and unity after the nomination have also weighed heavily on me. We must address these issues as a party to ensure we maximize our potential.

I’ve been speaking directly to delegates about this opportunity for only a short time, but these conversations have solidified my belief that the Libertarian Party is well positioned to become a major and consistent contender to win elections at all levels of government.

I remain invested in helping the party realize these possibilities and look forward to the successes ahead.

If you aren’t already a member of the @LPNational, I encourage you to join me in becoming one so we can continue working together toward freedom, peace, and prosperity.

With appreciation,

Justin

 

[lpetrich]

So he wants to work outside the two main parties? Good luck. It's rare for any US politician to have any success in doing so. So it's better off staying inside and trying to build some dissident faction. That's what the Tea Party did in the Republican Party.

He ought to push for the use of electoral systems that are more friendly to multiple candidates and multiple parties. Otherwise, the only electoral success the Libertarian Party is likely to have is by running its candidates as Republicans.