Alex Henderson

Presidential Politics

Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and Other Candidates Gather at Third-Party Presidential Debate in Chicago 

Candidates for the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Justice Party and the Constitution Party address War on Drugs, U.S. foreign policy, economy

By Alex Henderson

RealmNoir, October 24, 2012

The corporate media have often pretended that third party candidates don't exist in the United States' 2012 presidential election, but on October 23, the cable news network RT did Americans a huge favor by broadcasting a third-party debate that included four candidates who are running against President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney this year: the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson, the Green Party’s Jill Stein, the Justice Party’s Rocky Anderson and the Constitution Party’s Virgil Goode. 

Organized by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation (which has been quite critical of the Obama and Romney campaigns for excluding third-party candidates from debates), the third-party debate was held in Chicago and employed talk show host Larry King as its moderator. The debate underscored some stark differences between the four candidates. While Stein and Anderson are staunchly liberal (both fiscally and socially) and Goode is a hard-right social conservative from the South, former New Mexico governor Johnson is a hardcore libertarian who is fiscally conservative but unapologetically liberal on social issues. At one point during the debate, Johnson proudly noted that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has given him higher marks than Obama (in a “presidential candidate report card” that was released in January 2012, the ACLU awarded Johnson 21 “liberty torches” out of a possible 24 compared to only 16 for Obama and zero for both Romney and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum). But even when the four third-party candidates disagreed on various issues, they maintained a friendly tone and agreed that they had a common enemy: the two-party system. 

Issues discussed ranged from the War on Drugs to the United States’ federal deficit to American foreign policy. Johnson, Stein and Anderson were equally critical of the War on Drugs and called for the immediate legalization of marijuana; declaring that “the War on Drugs has been catastrophic for our country,” Anderson decried the U.S.’ high incarceration rate (per capita, the U.S. imprisons more of its people than any other developed country) and declared that as president, he would grant an immediate presidential pardon to anyone who was imprisoned on drug charges in the United States. But Goode, in sharp contrast to the three other candidates in the debate, voiced his support of the War on Drugs and stressed that he opposes legalizing marijuana.

But while Goode, overall, has a more authoritarian bent than Johnson, Stein or Anderson, he joined all three of them in their opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act (which Obama signed into law on December 31, 2011). Goode said that as president, he would have vetoed the NDAA. Anderson, reflecting on the NDAA, asserted that the U.S. is “on the road to totalitarianism.” And Johnson, who said he favors a “43% reduction in military spending,” joined Stein and Anderson in calling for a repeal of the Patriot Act.

Some of the evening’s most insightful and articulate comments on U.S. foreign policy came from Johnson, who pointed out that opposing the imperialist war-mongering of the neocons does not mean that one is anti-military. Johnson stressed: “We need to provide ourselves with a strong national defense. It’s one of the government’s fundamental responsibilities. But the operative word here is defense, not offense and not nation-building.” Johnson noted that he opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq from the beginning, adding that he initially supported the U.S.’ post-9/11 intervention in Afghanistan because of the al-Qaeda presence in that country but believes that the U.S.’ military presence in Afghanistan has dragged on much too long.

Obviously, none of the four candidates who gathered in Chicago are going to defeat either Obama or Romney on November 6. But that doesn’t mean that Johnson, Stein, Anderson or Goode should have been excluded from the recent presidential debates or that their views should not be heard. When candidates for the Green Party or the Libertarian Party are excluded from debates, it is very bad for democracy. The two-party system (or, as RT’s Abby Martin calls it, “the two-party dictatorship”) is not serving the U.S. well, and RT should be applauded for broadcasting the third-party debate on October 23.

Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, Billboard, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, Skin Two, The Pasadena Weekly, JazzTimes, Cash Box and a long list of other well-known publications. He can be followed on Twitter @alexvhenderson. 

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein (above) and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson (below) both expressed their disdain for the two-party system during October 23's third-party presidential debate.