Accepting that his presidential bid will fail, Libertarian vice presidential candidate Bill Weld on Tuesday obliquely urged voters to vote for Hillary Clinton.
In a Tuesday statement addressed to “those in the electorate who remain torn between two so-called major party candidates,” the former Massachusetts governor told Republicans not to vote for the GOP nominee out of “fear for our country.”
“After careful observation and reflection, I have come to believe that Donald Trump, if elected President of the United States, would not be able to stand up to this pressure and this criticism without becoming unhinged and unable to perform competently the duties of his office,” he said at a Boston press conference.
Weld ticks off a long list of what he sees as Trump’s flaws, including his childish response to criticism, divisive rhetoric about immigrants and minorities, instability, and lack of familiarity with policy.
While Weld said he will see his bid with Gary Johnson through to Election Day, he acknowledged that the Libertarian Party ticket, which has languished far behind in the polls, will not break “the two party monopoly” this year. He announced in early October that he would spend the rest of the campaign cycle speaking out against Trump.
Some observers interpreted the last paragraph of his statement as a winking request for voters not to cast ballots for his own running mate.
“Every citizen must be aware of the power and responsibility of each individual vote,” Weld writes. “This is not the time to cast a jocular or feel-good vote for a man whom you may have briefly found entertaining.”
Though Weld goes on to mention Trump by name, his comments could also describe Johnson, who captured headlines with his bumbling responses to foreign policy questions and odd interview antics.
Admits defeat? Yes. Don’t see much evidence of the other half of the headline, though.
Bill Weld is almost a parody of an old school republican. He was a great governor of Massachusetts. He basically just got bored with the job. But how did this guy run as a libertarian anything? From Wikipdia:
Weld was educated at Middlesex School. He graduated with an A.B. summa cum laude in classics from Harvard College in 1966, studied economics at University College, Oxford, and graduated with a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1970.[7]
Whoa. Reality came knocking, and Mr. Weld answered the door.
As the ganja haze subsides in the Gary “Baked” Johnson campaign HQ, reality sets in that a President Drumpf would harsh their mellow, be a total bummer, and end the world as we know it.
Good god, a pol with some measure of honor on display…