Third place by county

[Vosem]

I think I'll continue to question all my life how well the Libertarian ticket might've done in 2016 if somebody had persuaded Gary Johnson back in May to let Weld be the head of the ticket.

[Vosem]

I think I'll continue to question all my life how well the Libertarian ticket might've done in 2016 if somebody had persuaded Gary Johnson back in May to let Weld be the head of the ticket.

Neither are even remotely close to being libertarians, but Weld is even further from being a libertarian than Johnson. How exactly would they have done better with Weld, a corporatist governor who last held office before the youngest voters were even born and chased out of town during his ambassadorship confirmation for being a dangerous pro-drug radical? If Johnson actually cared about libertarianism as an ideology, he would never have allowed Weld to get within 10 miles of the ticket.

The point isn't even really about libertarian ideology; it would've been about having a president better than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, as both Johnson and Weld undoubtedly would've been. Weld would've been a stronger candidate than Johnson because Weld could've secured in Mitt Romney's backing in June or July, prevented the whole McMullin thing from coming about, and used the added notoriety to be able to make it into the debates (even Johnson briefly hit double-digits in the polling average in August; Weld was much more charismatic, a better speaker, and could've had much more powerful friends; he would've made it).

At that point, well, Weld has always been a terrific debater, going back to the Massachusetts days. I doubt he could've won the election (though the possibility isn't excluded), but he could've at least made it an actual three-way race.

[Vosem]

The point isn't even really about libertarian ideology; it would've been about having a president better than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, as both Johnson and Weld undoubtedly would've been. Weld would've been a stronger candidate than Johnson because Weld could've secured in Mitt Romney's backing in June or July, prevented the whole McMullin thing from coming about, and used the added notoriety to be able to make it into the debates (even Johnson briefly hit double-digits in the polling average in August; Weld was much more charismatic, a better speaker, and could've had much more powerful friends; he would've made it).

At that point, well, Weld has always been a terrific debater, going back to the Massachusetts days. I doubt he could've won the election (though the possibility isn't excluded), but he could've at least made it an actual three-way race.

Weld was the wrong tool for the job. (in more ways than one) The LP needed to run a Bernie-style insurgent campaign, and the problem with Johnson choosing Weld was not only that he wasn't a libertarian, but that Bill Weld is the guy you call when you need to put on the fishnets and get on your knees for the donor class. They treated the election like a resume contest and thought voters and the media would respect them just because they won a few gubernatorial elections back in the day. Plus, there's no way Weld at the top of the ticker could've carried the baggage of the LP's insane anarchist base, like the videos showing them booing driver's licenses or laws against selling heroin to children.

Johnson was a terrible candidate, but I doubt anyone could have done better as a Libertarian than he did.

That's the point, Weld wouldn't have run as a capital-L Libertarian (which Johnson didn't really do either, but he was stuck with the baggage in a way Weld wouldn't have been). He would've eked out a victory at the convention with Johnson's backing, picked Johnson for VP, and then forgotten about them; they're a fraction of a percent anyway. The donor base is who you need to get the money to get to 15%; Weld could've done that. By getting into the debates, he could've turned the race on its head.

2016 really wasn't an anti-establishment year. An establishment candidate comfortably won the Democratic nomination and went on to win the popular vote without too much trouble; establishment candidates combined for well over half the vote on the Republican side; congressional incumbent reelection rates spiked. Weld fit the moment just as well as either of the other two candidates did, and he was capable of forcing the system to take him seriously, as Johnson and McMullin failed to ever quite manage.