{"id":17002,"date":"2016-10-31T08:01:36","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T15:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/libertarian-vp-candidate-finds-alaska-open-to-his-message\/"},"modified":"2016-10-31T08:01:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T15:01:36","slug":"libertarian-vp-candidate-finds-alaska-open-to-his-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/libertarian-vp-candidate-finds-alaska-open-to-his-message\/","title":{"rendered":"Libertarian VP candidate finds Alaska open to his message"},"content":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014 <\/strong>Libertarian vice presidential nominee Bill Weld sees a receptive audience for his ticket\u2019s message in Alaska, a state where he\u2019s investing time in the run-up to the Nov. 8 general election.<\/p>\n

Weld capped a two-day campaign trip to Alaska on Friday with a rally in Anchorage.<\/p>\n

Alaska, with just three electoral votes, isn\u2019t battleground territory, but it\u2019s a place where Weld and running mate Gary Johnson hope to make a statement in a year where the two major party nominees are polarizing.<\/p>\n

In a phone interview before Friday evening\u2019s rally, Weld said he and Johnson would like to win some states and are hoping to do well enough to bring greater visibility to the Libertarian party. That includes winning sufficient support to allow the party ticket in 2020 to be eligible for federal matching funds, he said.<\/p>\n

That would be good for the party, which some people see as mysterious, he said. \u201cAnd frankly, that would be good for the country, irrespective of the outcome of this year\u2019s election,\u201d Weld said.<\/p>\n

Both Weld and Johnson are former Republican governors, Weld in Massachusetts and Johnson in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Weld said they\u2019re undaunted by any suggestion that they might play spoiler in the race. \u201cOur point of view is that the only wasted vote is to vote for someone you don\u2019t believe in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Weld characterized the Libertarian party as a \u201cfiscally responsible and socially inclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

On issues of interest to Alaska, he said he and Johnson think there should be more emphasis on trade with the Pacific. They also believe the nation needs to focus on pipelines and ports, he said.<\/p>\n

He said he supports Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in her re-election bid, saying that he has worked with her and is impressed with her.<\/p>\n

One of Murkowski\u2019s rivals is Joe Miller, who beat her in the 2010 GOP primary. Murkowski held onto her seat, though, after winning a general election write-in campaign.<\/p>\n

Miller is running this year as a Libertarian, becoming a last-minute substitution on that party\u2019s ticket last month.<\/p>\n

Weld said he is sure that Miller is a fine person. But he said Miller is a \u201cdevoted social conservative\u201d and Weld said he is a \u201cdevoted social liberal.\u201d He said Miller doesn\u2019t speak for him.<\/p>\n

Miller has said his views are in line with the platform of the Alaska Libertarian party, which he said is a \u201cstates\u2019 rights-oriented platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview earlier this month, Miller said he sees a lot of good in Johnson\u2019s platform, including balancing the debt. But he said there are a lot of areas of disagreement, too. Miller said he\u2019s supporting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Murkowski hasn\u2019t said who she\u2019s voting for, though she has said she can\u2019t support Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

Weld said he bumped into Murkowski Friday at the hotel where he was staying but didn\u2019t try to pitch her on supporting him and Johnson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to take advantage of a chance meeting to make a serious plug,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Alaska, registered Republicans far outnumber Democrats but the single largest voting bloc is independents. State election statistics show there are only about 7,500 registered Libertarians in Alaska.<\/p>\n

The last time Alaska voters supported a Democratic nominee for president was 1964; the state has supported the GOP ticket since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014 Libertarian vice presidential nominee Bill Weld sees a receptive audience for his ticket\u2019s message in Alaska, a state where he\u2019s investing time in the run-up to the Nov. 8 general election. Weld capped a two-day campaign trip to Alaska on Friday with a rally in Anchorage. Alaska, with just three electoral votes, isn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":17003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17002"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}