"Hyper-partisanship may be entertaining, but it’s a terrible way to try to run a country," Gary Johnson writes. | Getty Gary Johnson hits Trump and Clinton in NYT op-ed

Seeking to play on voters’ dissatisfaction with both major-party candidates, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson wrote an op-ed published in Wednesday’s New York Times that “the America I know wasn’t on the television screen on Monday night.”

Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico, posited that Americans want a third option in this year’s presidential election, a suggestion backed up by multiple polls. The Libertarian said America is not as divided as its presidential candidates would make it seem, and that his is the ticket that best represents what Americans want.


“My America is about the freedom to make choices, pursue your dreams and use your skills as entrepreneurs. It is about having more choices than just red versus blue,” he wrote. “I’m offering that choice. I wasn’t part of the presidential debate on Monday, but as Americans listened in dismay to the so-called major parties’ candidates, Google searches for ‘Gary Johnson’ skyrocketed.”

The former New Mexico governor laid his fiscally conservative, socially liberal agenda, highlighting his support for reforming the criminal justice system and the manner in which drug abuse is addressed in the U.S. He also pledged to rein in government spending, promising “a real balanced budget” that would put budget cuts of 20 percent or more on the table for every government entity, including the military, Social Security and Medicare.

He also proposed a reformed immigration system that would “eliminate categories and quotas” and offer undocumented immigrants with an otherwise unblemished track record in the U.S. a path to legal status. Johnson wrote that border enforcement would be focused on “keeping out real criminals and would-be terrorists.”

“We don’t deny that there are very real tensions on the fringes, and we can’t simply ignore those tensions. But when it comes down to the basics, most Americans really aren’t that far apart,” Johnson wrote. “Our two-party political system is an entirely different story. Hyper-partisanship may be entertaining, but it’s a terrible way to try to run a country. We’re the alternative — and we’re the only ticket that offers Americans a chance to find common ground.”

Johnson has complained that he was not included in Monday night’s presidential debate, even though he did not meet the 15 percent polling threshold set by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Earlier in the summer, Johnson insisted that he was in the presidential race to win it, but stressed that qualifying for the presidential debates was a must for his chances of winning the White House.

While many polls have shown a significant number, if not a majority, of Americans feel Johnson should have been allowed to debate, his poll numbers have struggled to reach into the double digits. He was damaged most recently by a gaffe on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” when he responded to a question about the ongoing civil war in Syria by asking “what is Aleppo?”