If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.

— Jay Leno

This election year, God appears unusually determined to drive all but the most loyal partisans away from the presidential polls.

The “lesser of two evils,” the rationale one hears most often to justify a reluctant binary choice, is a depressing bugle call to the ballot box.


Now more than ever, large diverse blocs of the electorate look to heaven for a deus ex machina, a divine device that will end this unfolding tragedy and deliver to the country a presidential candidate that relatively few will viscerally despise.

In Cleveland, where the Republican Convention is in full throat, the collective desire is to see “Crooked Hillary” fitted for an orange jumpsuit.

In Philadelphia, when the Democrats convene to anoint Clinton, a gold lamé straitjacket will be the popular fashion suggestion for the “Crazy Donald.”

I see only one possibility to flip the infernal either/or script.


Admittedly, it’s a triple bank shot. But as an O. Henry plot twist, it’s both imaginable and legal.

Here goes:

As you know, there are two “third parties” that can make some real noise this cycle — Libertarian and Green.

As it stands now, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian presidential candidate, has polled nationally as high as 13 percent, within plausible reach of the 15 percent threshold required to join the televised debates. (Both Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush have indicated they might vote for Johnson, a green light for moderate Republicans repulsed by Trump.)


Unlike the Greens, who will be hard-pressed to get their candidate on a large majority of state ballots, the Libertarians have accomplished the 50-state feat before and will, if they don’t run the table this time, fall short only a state or two, I’m told.

Granted, Johnson is not your father’s presidential candidate — to the left of Bernie Sanders on social issues, to the right of Paul Ryan on the fiscal side — but a popular two-term Republican governor who worked with a Democratic legislature could be a comfortable haven for voters who can’t stomach voting for either Clinton or Trump.

But, you ask, wouldn’t Johnson be nothing but a Naderesque spoiler, handing the election to either Clinton or Trump the way Ross Perot guaranteed that Bill Clinton would defeat George H.W. Bush in 1992?

Ted Brown, California’s Libertarian Party chair, bristles at such rotten reasoning.


“In order to be a spoiler, you must have something fresh and pristine to spoil,” he tells me.

Meanwhile, on the left, many Sanders supporters are having a harder time coming home to Clinton than Sanders himself.

Dr. Jill Stein, the presumptive Green nominee, is enjoying a significant “Bernie bump,” a local Green spokesman assures me.

Stein mirrors many of Sanders’ signature issues. She’d forgive student debt, for example. Stein offers a legitimate alternative to those younger voters who powered the Sanders campaign.


For the last few months, as Clinton’s stranglehold on the nomination became clearer, I’ve teased a young Sanders supporter who works at a small market on Sixth Avenue.

“Ready to give up yet?” I’d ask Noor Tozy, a bright 20-something guy with a ready smile. He’d always say, “Not until the Convention.”

Now that Sanders has endorsed Clinton, I asked Tozy whom he’s voting for in November.

He said he wasn’t ready to commit, “but I’m leaning toward Stein.”


At around 4 or 5 percent in current polls, the Green Party has a long way to go to reach the 15 percent mark required for TV debate participation. But Stein’s got a puncher’s chance to draw votes, particularly from Clinton, in states key to the triple bank shot, which breaks down like this:

Bank One — Libertarian and Green presidential candidates must overperform, drawing votes from the whole spectrum, left, middle and right. In this election, probable, if not likely.

Bank Two — Johnson must be included in the TV debates to turn his name into a household word. (Hard to imagine Stein getting on stage, but good on democracy if she did.)

Bank Three — The Libertarian ticket of Johnson and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld must go on to outright win a few states, enough to keep Clinton or Trump from winning 270 votes in the Electoral College.


To that end, Brown believes New Mexico (where Johnson was a popular governor), Utah (Mitt country) and Alaska (a state with Libertarian DNA) could be in play.

With no Electoral College majority winner, the election would move to the House of Representatives where state congressional delegations would cast one vote for one of the three top Electoral College finishers. (Delaware would have as much clout as California.)

For Johnson to complete the triple bank play, neither Trump nor Clinton could win a majority in the House as state delegations fight over Clinton or Trump and compromise with Johnson.

Washington would be in an uproar. Wolf Blitzer would not sleep for days.


Meanwhile, the Republican-ruled Senate would have to choose a vice president from the two top Electoral College vote-getters, presumably Mike Pence over Clinton’s running mate (Tim Kaine or whomever else Clinton might pick). Finally, after repeated votes, the House elects Gary Johnson as the president with whom the country can best live in something like peace.

Hey, it’s already been a crazy year.

Who could have imagined an elderly Jewish socialist would fire up millennials like young Tozy? Or a celebrity tycoon without any government or military experience would bluff his way to the GOP nomination? Or the Democratic candidate would narrowly (and many believe unfairly) escape indictment in the final days of the campaign?

The Constitution offers a narrow way out but only if minor parties rise up and bleed the major candidates the majority of the country would like to reject.


A Libertarian commander-in-chief moves into the White House with an assist from the Greens who, let’s say, earn a Secretary of the Interior post as a political spoil?

Oh, Henry, what an ending it would be to the twisted story of 2016.

logan.jenkins@sduniontribune.com