William Weld (right) parts ways with Gary Johnson. (Jim Thompson/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)
The market hasn't been kind to Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson lately. Recent questions from the media like "name a foreign leader you admire" have stumped him, and despite an outsize appetite for third-party candidates this year, he polls at only about 8 percent.Now, even his running mate, Bill Weld, has abandoned hopes of winning anything beyond, maybe, Johnson's home state of New Mexico. Indeed, rather than winning a trophy for the Libertarians, Weld is now on the same mission as Hillary Clinton, and that's stopping Republican nominee Donald Trump."I have had in mind all along trying to get the Donald into third place, and with some tugging and hauling, we might get there," said the former Massachusetts governor in an interview with the Boston Globe published Tuesday.Trump, not "the third-choice" Libertarian Party, is the main focus for Weld now. "I think Mr. Trump's proposals in the foreign policy area, including nuclear proliferation, tariffs, and free trade, would be so hurtful, domestically and in the world, that he has my full attention."It's more evidence that despite the hundreds of millions of dollars wealthy individuals spend promoting libertarian ideas each year, the actual ideology of unregulated markets and social liberalism has a tough time breaking into the mainstream.Weld didn't even sound particularly dedicated to remaining a Libertarian himself."I'm certainly not going to drop them this year," Weld told the paper.
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