How Gary Johnson/William Weld CNN Town Hall Was a Disappointment in Libertarian Terms

The Libertarian Party presidential ticket of former Republican governors Gary Johnson (N.M.) and William Weld (Mass.) succeeded in seeming human, humane, decent, calm, and at least compared to their major party competitors, thoughtful this evening at their second CNN Town Hall.

But I'm not sure they succeeded in seeming very Libertarian, or selling the Party's position as a distinct outlook on politics and government that someone could grasp and understand.

They often seemed to go out of their way to just seem like a centrist, independent mixture of what someone might see as good aspects of both other parties.

In fact, when host Anderson Cooper would occasionally remind the candidates what the traditional libertarian stance was, often relying on the Party platform, he might have done more to sell libertarianism's unique stances than the candidates