"The
dragon that I'm jousting against this year is this frozen monopoly of the two
parties that have frozen a lot of people's thinking in place," says William
Weld, former Republican governor of Massachusetts and current Libertarian party
vice presidential candidate. "And they think, 'I have to be a right-winger,' or,
'I have to be a left-winger.' They're not thinking, 'What do I
think?'"
Weld and his running mate, former Republican governor of New
Mexico and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, are trying to pry
open the vice grip that the Republican and Democratic parties have held on
electoral politics for decades. They believe the historic unpopularity of the
major party candidates gives them a unique opportunity to present their brand of
fiscal conservatism, social tolerance, and a non-interventionist foreign policy
to the American public.
The candidates point out that a plurality of the
public already broadly reflects their views.
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