Clearing a debate path for Gary Johnson

Are voters warming to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton?

They are not.

A look at a national poll from Quinnipiac University provides a snapshot of the race and the dour narrative fueling it: A majority of voters don’t like either candidate. Respondents think Clinton is smart (87 percent) and has the right experience to be president (71 percent), but she’s dishonest (66 percent). And Trump? He’s not level-headed (71 percent) and lacks appropriate experience (65 percent).

Negatives such as those make one wonder if Americans would consider supporting an alternative candidate. Quinnipiac asked that question and found 37 percent would consider voting for a third party candidate, even though they know little about the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson or the Green Party’s Jill Stein.

The best opportunity to begin hearing from one of those alternative candidates would be Sept. 26, the first presidential debate. With Johnson ahead of Stein (he runs as high as 10 or 11 percent in some polls, compared with Stein’s 3 or 4 percent), Quinnipiac asked if he should be included in the presidential debates: 62 percent, nearly two-thirds of respondents, said yes.

It seems a lot of Americans want the chance to take a closer look at Johnson in particular.

What they would find is an outsider candidate, but not a political extremist.

In some ways, he’s a more centrist voice than either the Republican or the Democrat in the field: A former two-term Republican governor from New Mexico, Johnson is liberal on social issues and conservative on money issues. Johnson’s positions (in support of immigration reform and a balanced budget, for example) make him look a little like that endangered species, the moderate Republican. American voters would benefit from hearing his views.

The hurdle in Johnson’s way is the terms set by the private, nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. The group says that to participate, a candidate needs to hit an average 15 percent support level in five national polls before late September. Johnson is at 10 percent in a secondary question contained in the Quinnipiac poll results

Johnson has the most likely route to becoming more than a fringe candidate. He has said he hopes to pick off enough electoral votes to keep either Clinton or Trump from getting the necessary 270. That would move the race to the House of Representatives, where Johnson could be the compromise winner.

But with the major party candidates so reprehensible to so many voters, Johnson said on “Fox News Sunday” that his objective is to win outright. That’s a stretch, but still:

If the Republicans were willing to hear from 10 candidates at the first primary debate last summer, then let’s respect the wishes of a dissatisfied electorate and open up the first general election debate to Johnson.

Once on that stage, it will be on him to make his mark.

— Chicago Tribune