David Boaz thinks they might:

Paul may have to split the libertarian Republican vote with former two-term governor Gary Johnson. Johnson also was “a Tea Partier when tea-partying wasn’t cool,” according to the Capitol Report of New Mexico. He vetoed 750 bills in eight years, not counting line-item vetoes. And since today’s libertarian moment goes beyond spending and health care to include rising support for gay marriage and marijuana legalization, Johnson might be better positioned to ride that wave and attract younger and independent voters.

I suspect most young people care a bit more about their economic future and about the slaughter going on in the wars than they do about gay marriage, which isn’t an issue the president can do much about anyway. And of course Ron Paul is against all government involvement in marriage, and he’s more supportive of drug legalization than Johnson, as he explains in Liberty Defined.

Johnson may be a great guy for all I know — and I don’t know, because he doesn’t have anything close to Ron Paul’s track record of promoting liberty and Austrian economics. In any event, although I like him and wish him well, there’s no chance that he will attract a following anything close to Paul’s.

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