Frank Daniels III

fdanielsiii@tennessean.com

“The only chance to get elected is to be in the presidential debates,” Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson said in a June interview with FiveThirtyEight senior political writer Clare Malone.

For Johnson to make the debate podium with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump he will have to get 15 percent of poll responders in five national polls to back his candidacy per the rules established by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The five polls selected by the commission to determine who’s in are: ABC News/Washington Post, CBS News/New York Times, CNN, Fox News and NBC News/Wall Street Journal.

FiveThirtyEight, which is a respected tracker of polling data, gives letter grades to pollsters based on their methodology and their accuracy in predicting race results. The grades for these pollsters are: ABC News/Washington Post, A+; CBS News/New York Times, A-; CNN, A-; Fox News, B; and NBC News/Wall Street Journal, A-.

In Real Clear Politics' roundup of recent polls, the NBC News poll released Tuesday had Johnson at 11 percent, trailing Clinton, 43 percent, and Trump, 38 percent, while leading Green Party nominee Jill Stein, 5 percent.

Johnson, the former two-term governor of New Mexico, has about three weeks to make the threshold for the first debate, which will be held Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in New York. (Belmont University is the backup site for the debate.)

It will be difficult to make an almost 50 percent jump in popularity in such a short period given how most news stories and commentaries rarely mention the Libertarian candidate, particularly in respected large circulation newspapers or on highly rated programs.

Just looking at the recent coverage of Trump’s attempts to change the narrative on African-American voters illustrates the challenge that Johnson and his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, have in getting voters to pay attention to their campaign.

USA TODAY’s story on Trump’s pitch to black voters, at a campaign rally in Jackson, Miss., did not mention Johnson as an alternative candidate. Nor did the New York Times or Time magazine … you get the drift. Political reporters are locked into a two-person race and so never think to ask the question of whether black voters might consider Johnson — or anyone else.

If the question is never asked, the answer will never be known.

It would be interesting to hear how black voters would respond to the Johnson/Weld position on scaling back America’s War on Drugs, which has disproportionately impacted the African-American community and resulted in too many young black men in prison, stuck with a criminal record and left to fend for their future on the margins of the American economy.

Vetting

Depending on where you stand with a candidate, you love or hate the news media as it vets the positions and statements of our political candidates. For those of us who are not wedded to one party or the other — about a third of voters, and generally the voters who will determine election victors — it is these stories we rely on to help us decide whether and how much we like a candidate.

In June, Susan Page’s USA TODAY interview gave voters insight into the decidedly untraditional Johnson.

He supports legalizing marijuana, and admitted to personal recreational use.

"I haven't had a drink of alcohol in 29 years because of rock climbing and the notion of being the best that you can be,” he said. And he added that "I've stopped using marijuana of any kind." Johnson is an accomplished mountaineer who has climbed all seven of the “Seven Summits”: Mount Everest, Mount Elbrus, Denali, Mount Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Mount Vinson and Carstensz Pyramid — the tallest peaks in Asia, Europe, North America, Africa, South America, Antarctica and Oceania, respectively.

And … for how long, asked Page?

"It's been about seven weeks," he said, and told her that he would abstain as president, if elected. "I want to be completely on top of my game, all cylinders."

The casual relationship with marijuana has been a major stumbling block for many voters looking for an alternative to this year’s “mainstream” candidates.

The lack of mainstream media interest in Johnson means that his statement about using marijuana has not been vetted. It would make an interesting question during the presidential debates though.

It would be interesting to hear Johnson answer tough questions about his statements after the nightclub massacre in Orlando, Fla., when he said that we would be safer if guns were more readily available.

It also would be interesting to hear more about his governance style, which seems to reflect his individualistic, entrepreneurial approach to life. He was happy to confront the legislature while governor of New Mexico. He vetoed nearly 50 percent of the bills that the legislature passed, and exercised some line-item veto on a substantial majority of bills.

I think just hearing Johnson’s answers in a debate would make these a better election.

If the pollsters call you, think about that.

Reach Frank Daniels III at 615-881-7039 and on Twitter @fdanielsiii.