Gary Johnson

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson speaks to supporters and delegates at the National Libertarian Party Convention, Friday, May 27, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

(John Raoux)

Gary Johnson, like many Americans, is socially liberal, fiscally conservative and wants the U.S. to steer clear of foreign wars.

And, in case you didn't know, he's running for president.

The former Republican governor of New Mexico is now the Libertarian Party's standard-bearer, which means no one pays him much mind. But with major-party candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton carrying historically high "unfavorable ratings" in national polls, Johnson and his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, have a unique opportunity to jump into the spotlight.

They also have the potential to tip the election one way or the other.

Without question Johnson and Weld hold appeal for voters on both sides of the political spectrum, though so far the duo appears to be pulling predominantly from the right.

Marvin Bush, for example, is a fan. The youngest son of former President George H.W. Bush, who's spent his career in the insurance business rather than politics, said this week he's "100 percent" voting Libertarian.

"Both Gary Johnson and Bill Weld were each successful two-term governors who balanced their budgets," he said on a radio show. "So they're fiscally conservative, and their essential message is get [government] bureaucracy off our backs. It used to be a part of what the Republicans believed."

Bush added another reason he's voting Libertarian: "I want to have a conscience. I want honest leadership."

This desire to be able to sleep at night is what's driving a lot of Republicans like Bush to consider Johnson.

Neo-conservative writer Bill Kristol, who led the failed "Never Trump" movement, has issues with Johnson's hand's-off-the-world foreign policy. But in tweets this week he suggested he's thinking about voting for him. Kristol called Johnson a "decent man" and wrote that "a vote for him is a symbolic vote for the Constitution and against both demagogic authoritarianism and demagogic nanny statism." He pointed out that with Johnson, you wouldn't "feel that you'd have to take a shower after voting for him, unlike Trump and Clinton -- and would even a shower be enough with them?"

Recent polls indicate this could be a very close election. The New York Times crunched the latest data and came up with a plausible scenario that ends with Trump and Clinton both with 269 electoral-college votes, an outcome that would throw the election into the U.S. House of Representatives. Both candidates know that even the smallest battleground states could count in November. Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack was on Clinton's vice-presidential shortlist in part because Democrats believe the Hawkeye State's paltry six electoral votes might be important.

This is where Johnson comes in. The New York Times' 269-269 election tie has Utah going for Trump. But an internal poll for a Republican congresswoman in the state has Johnson at 26 percent there, just a few points behind Trump and Clinton. In a normal year, Utah is a safe Republican state. But Mormon voters really don't like Trump (2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a Mormon, famously lambasted him earlier this year), so Johnson really could win in Utah.

There are plenty of Democratic-leaning states that also could be impacted by the Libertarian ticket, depending on how voters react to its campaign. A new internet ad presents Johnson-Weld as the "credible alternative to CLINTRUMP" and lays out some of their objectives and views: they're for marriage equality; legal abortion; term limits; "intelligent" immigration reform that boosts the economy and wages; "small, efficient government that treats the American people like family instead of livestock;" and an end to U.S. involvement in foreign wars so the U.S. can "use those dollars here at home." Watch the ad below.

Fiscal conservatives will like that Johnson-Weld are calling for an end to tax policies that pick winners and losers, penalizing investors, job creators, strivers and savers. Social liberals will like that the Libertarian team advocates for a society in which adults "are free to make their own decisions" about everything from smoking pot to who they want to marry.

But the Libertarian team does promise upheaval and pain with all of that vaunted personal freedom. On their campaign website, Johnson and Weld call the national debt "not just obscene, it is unsustainable -- and arguably the single greatest threat to our national security."

They point out that "the idea that we can somehow balance the federal budget without cutting military spending and reforming entitlements is fantasy. What is required is leadership and political courage."

Despite Johnson and Weld's potential allure to large segments of the electorate, most political observers aren't expecting them to have much of an impact. No third-party candidate has ever won the presidency, and that includes an immensely popular former president (Theodore Roosevelt in 1912).

But this year's election has already thrown historical precedent right out the window. The Republican nominee, after all, has made blatantly racist appeals, shown little regard for or understanding of the Constitution, applauded the possibility that Russian intelligence services are attempting to manipulate the U.S. election and refused to offer any substantive policies. The Democratic nominee, meanwhile, is afraid to hold press conferences and has had a hard time shaking both a democratic-socialist rival who's a career backbencher and a scandal concerning her handling of classified material.

A major-party realignment hasn't happened in the U.S. in 150 years, but surely it's going to happen sooner or later. There's no reason sooner can't be right now.

The question at the moment is, does the opening for Johnson most threaten Trump or Clinton?

Micah L. Sifry, a political historian and the executive director of the community-engagement organization Civic Hall, believes Trump is the one in real danger -- if, that is, Johnson is able to get into the televised presidential debates and thus dramatically raise his profile. A candidate needs to be polling at 15 percent to be included on the stage. Johnson right now is flirting with double-digits in national polls.

"If Johnson does get included in the debates and does well, it's not inconceivable that he could even challenge the Republican candidate for second," Sifry wrote this week in the New York Times. "A lot is possible in this volatile election year."

And if Johnson nails it in the debates and goes on to pick up Utah and maybe one or two other contrarian states, sending the election to the Republican-dominated House of Representatives? House Republicans don't exactly love Trump, with Speaker Paul Ryan endorsing him early this summer as if being held at gunpoint. Many GOP representatives faced with choosing the next commander-in-chief will remember that Johnson was a successful Republican governor, while Trump has never held elective office and doesn't seem to have a fact-based understanding of the issues facing the country.

Hello President Johnson?

-- Douglas Perry