Donald Trump’s approval ratings have been underwater throughout his entire presidency. His Democratic opposition seems keen to lurch far enough leftward that even the most ardent Scandinavians would balk. The time ought to be ripe for an earnest third option.
Instead we have 2016 Libertarian Party running mate and 20th century Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld embarking on a dead on arrival primary challenge to Trump.
Plenty of disheartened Never Trumpers have pointed toward Trump’s extraordinary approval ratings within the party to nix the notion of a Weld primary bid. But the Republican turned Obama backer turned Libertarian turned Republican has not only Trump’s popularity to contend with, but also his own mess.
The Libertarian ticket in 2016 was notable for a third-party ticket. Both Weld and top-of-the-ticket Gary Johnson had been highly popular Republican governors of traditionally blue states, and both had solid records on civil liberties, which fit them squarely in the Libertarian Party, while leaving them room to court Never Trump Republicans.
Johnson and Weld knew they had no legitimate shot at winning the presidency, but if they hit 5% of the popular vote in the general election, they would be guaranteed Federal Election Commission recognition, which would allow them to appear on ballots by default and confer them about $10 million in federal funding. Further, a robust turnout for Johnson’s ticket could present future opportunities for the Libertarian Party to join the presidential debate stage in the future, and if there was any year for disaffected conservatives and liberals alike in partisan states to cast a protest vote for a third-party ticket headed by seemingly sane political veterans, 2016 was it.
Yet sometime between “Aleppo” and election night, Weld began to make the cable news rounds, strongly insinuating and then outright claiming that voters ought to vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump. Weld’s pro-choice politics were liability enough, but his willingness to throw his party under the bus has tainted him in the eyes of center-right independent-minded voters.
Weld stands second to John Kasich as the least viable former governor in America to primary Trump as anything more than a joke.
