Will anyone vote for Gary Johnson just because the Chicago Tribune said to?

It was about a month ago that I, while having lunch with some former work colleagues, made the bold prediction that the Chicago Tribune would wind up eating crow and endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential bid.

JOHNSON: Trib pick for prez

It was made clear by the newspaper back during the primary that Hillary Clinton was not an acceptable option. In fact, the newspaper back in March dissed the entire Democratic Party primary process and anyone who was looking there for national leadership.

THE ONE-TIME “WORLD’S Greatest Newspaper” actually backed Marco Rubio in the Republican primary even though it was already clear by that point that Trump was well on his way to securing the GOP nomination.

I figured that since they had so clearly rejected Clinton as an option, they’d have to find some rhetorical way of taking back their Trump hostility. Probably something along the lines of the need to support someone who’d back conservative Republican principles and pick GOP operatives to handle the actual work of governing. Which is something that Hillary certainly won’t do.

Well, it seems I was off a bit. While most newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times that shares Tribune ownership, and the Chicago Sun-Times, are begrudgingly endorsing Clinton (the Arizona Republic out in Phoenix says she’s the first non-Republican they’ve ever backed for president), the Tribune had to figure out its own way of being different.

The Chicago Tribune on Friday let word get out that they are officially backing the presidential aspirations of Gary Johnson, He’s the former New Mexico governor who has the Libertarian Party’s nomination for the Nov. 8 general elections.

IT SEEMS I was right in thinking that the Tribune would not be able to get in line with the concept of “President Hillary Clinton.” But the Tribune, which calls Johnson “a principled option for U.S. president,” is now the newspaper of choice for those political malcontents who wish they could cast idealistic votes.

Will Republic readers care more about coupons?

Although I find it humorous that the people most anxious to find an alternate political party are going out of their way to ignore Jill Stein and the Green Party. None of that liberal freakish nonsense for them.

They’re willing to ignore the portions of libertarian ideology that says laws against narcotics use, restricting abortion and a military draft are bad (on the grounds that government shouldn’t be involved in such things) because they like the idea that firearms restrictions, public schools and taxes, in general, are equally abhorrent.

Natl. Enquirer picked Trump during primary season

That’s what the Tribune has thrown its lot in with, at least for this election cycle. Come 2020, they’ll be back in bed with the Republican Party – which, I suspect, they were looking forward to rejoining this election cycle following two terms of bringing itself in line with backing Barack Obama.

BECAUSE I’M PRETTY sure the Tribune made that decision largely because they knew their readership would revolt if they had dared to go against the hometown boy – even if he was really born and raised in Honolulu (with a stint of his childhood in Malaysia).

As it is, Hillary Clinton (if elected) would be the first Chicago-born U.S. president. But she went out east to college, then followed her husband to Arkansas. Meaning she wrote us off, so they can justify writing her off as a hometown girl made good.

Oddly enough, the Tribune may have got one-upped in their attempt to gain public attention for their Libertarian endorsement.

Because it seems the Detroit News made the same selection, publishing an editorial that, like many other newspapers, apologizes for not picking the Republican for president this election cycle after generations (143 years, to be exact) of having done so.

THEN, THERE WAS USA Today, which came up with its own editorial that didn’t tell us who to vote for. It said we should NOT vote for Trump; calling him “unfit for the presidency.”

Johnson doesn't know 'Allepo?' Do voters know either of these guys?

It really is the trend this time around. “Don’t Vote for Trump!!!” Which makes me wonder how many would-be voters would feel compelled to listen. I suspect the minions who are backing Trump will react with revulsion. Just like at the Dallas Morning News, which said that its “Vote Hillary” endorsement resulted in significant subscription cancellations!

There are very few newspapers (such as the Santa Barbara News-Press) willing to publicly pick The Donald as their endorsed candidate. For two of them – the New York Post and the New York Observer – it can be argued that those publications have relied on Trump’s boorish antics for so many years to generate their news copy that they need a Trump presidency to create stories.

Something has to fill all that otherwise-white space in the paper that goes around the ads for testosterone-production pills that run on Page 17.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: As for those people who are getting all worked up now that Gary Johnson didn’t know any world leaders, I suspect 90 percent of the electorate doesn’t know either – and many probably think the people who do know have way too much free time on their hands. That may be the real problem our society faces these days -- and why Trump does as well as he does in public polling.

Who’re dose guys?

I’m writing this particular commentary for my brother, Chris, who recently asked me, “Is there anybody else running” for president.

STEIN: A suburban Chicago native



He’s not impressed with the incumbent, but also doesn’t think that Mitt Romney is worthy of a vote.

MY BROTHER PLANS to cast his ballot on Election Day, and I don’t have a clue as to who he will go for when it comes to making his mark for U.S. president.

Would he go for a third party candidate just to express his contempt for the incumbent? Which might well be a popular move this election cycle – for which we have one more week to cast our votes early, or else wait for Nov. 6 proper to do so.

Here in Illinois, Barack Obama warrants the top ballot spot, with Mitt Romney right behind him. Which then brings up the candidacy of Gary Johnson of Santa Fe, N.M., who is the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee – with Newport Beach, Calif., resident James P. Gray as his running mate.

There’s also Jill Stein of the Green Party, who although she now lives in that very historic burg of Lexington, Mass., was born in Chicago and raised in suburban Highland Park.

BUT THAT’S ABOUT it.

A look at the records of the Illinois State Board of Elections shows that candidates of the Socialist USA Party, the Constitution Party and the Together Enhancing America Party, along with several political independents, tried to get on the Illinois general election ballot – only to get knocked off by one means or another.

Some voters in this country may get the chance to cast their gag vote for socialist Stewart Alexander, but we in Illinois won’t.

JOHNSON: President Veto?



Personally, I think the biggest “loss” when it comes to candidates who couldn’t remain on the ballot were a pair of Illinois residents who tried to run for president and V-P.

WE COULD HAVE had the chance to vote for favorite son candidates in the form of Lex Green of Bloomington and Edward Rutledge of suburban Lemont, if only they had not dropped out voluntarily back in July.

I’m not saying that Green or Rutledge were at all qualified to hold higher office. I suspect they just have too much free time on their hands, which makes me wonder about that old saying, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

But it’s always a kick to be able to cast a ballot for somebody who actually knows your own home turf firsthand, rather than having read about it in a briefing report written by some campaign aide who probably cribbed two-thirds of it from Encyclopaedia Britannica.

So what do we in Illinois get to pick from, should we absolutely decide that neither Obama nor Romney is worthy of our little green checkmark on those touch-screen ballots we’re all now supposed to use nowadays (but which many people still seem uncomfortable – if the cautious and clumsy activity I witnessed at an early voting center when I cast my ballot is any evidence)?

JOHNSON OF THE Libertarians is a one-time New Mexico governor who was among the many people who gave thought to trying to get the Republican nomination for president in this year’s cycle.

But when he couldn’t elevate himself ahead of a field that included such people as Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, he converted to libertarianism.

The one-time “Gov. Veto” (he used his power 200 times during his first six months as governor) would like to go to work in the District of Columbia.

Which is more than Stein could offer, although she has run for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010 and has the endorsements of Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader in her presidential bid this year.

ALTHOUGH BY CAREER, she’s a doctor (and a Harvard Medical School graduate) with a serious interest in the way government takes actions meant to protect the health of the public.

GIERACH: They wouldn't let him in either



Which may sound noble. But about the only attention she has received this campaign cycle is when she got arrested Oct. 16 when she tried to crash the town hall-type debate between Obama and Romney held at Hofstra University.

Perhaps she should have tried the same tactic as would-be Illinois gubernatorial candidate James Gierach in 1994. He brought his own chair to Democratic primary debates and tried to set it up on stage with the so-called “official” candidates. He wasn’t invited to participate in debates either.

Which seems to be what our election cycles have devolved to these days – a club to which only certain people can work their way onstage for us to choose from.

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