Judd Weiss Claims Gary Johnson Campaign Bribed Delegates
Judd Weiss, an entrepreneur, photographer, and Vice Presidential pick for John McAfee posted the following to his Facebook page tonight:
“Damn. I guess I was delusional. I thought that among libertarian allies we could have a positive civil presidential campaign. I promised I would be candid about what goes on behind the scenes. But I wanted to avoid this.
After John McAfee publicly posted that he would never support Gary Johnson, and nothing can change his mind, I’ve been flooded with questions of whether I would support Gary Johnson if he becomes the nominee. Of course. Gary is certainly a much better option to support than Trump or Hillary. Despite disputes over technicalities, Gary Johnson is a public champion of the liberty cause. But McAfee’s comments had nothing to do with that. He was very disturbed by some seriously shady behavior from the Gary Johnson campaign. I was too, but I had no intention to discuss it publicly, fighting just creates an embarrassing mess for our party, I have so many other things going on I’m very excited about, I don’t want stupid shit like this to be a distraction to what I’m trying to accomplish here. But I don’t blame McAfee, he had legit reasons to be disturbed.
I might as well explain it, as McAfee has already made the spat public. And people are confused and wondering what’s going on. Gary Johnson’s campaign team offered money to people on our team to come over to their team. When that wasn’t accepted, Johnson’s campaign team suggested there’s money for people on our team just to simply quit on us and relax at home. Yeah. Seriously. Also, not only has Gary Johnson’s campaign team purchased a ton of flights and hotel rooms for delegates willing to commit to Gary Johnson at the National LP Convention in Orlando, they’ve also purchased all the rest of the available rooms at the convention hotel, that might remain empty, but only on the dates before the presidential vote is held. After the presidential vote, there are plenty of hotel rooms available.
When I came on board this campaign 2 weeks ago, John McAfee had a positive attitude towards Gary Johnson. When I told him we should remain cordial and even complimentary towards Gary Johnson, McAfee was all for it. Gary Johnson has just made an immediate personal enemy out of John McAfee. A major loss for Gary Johnson into the future, and a foolish screw-up from the Johnson campaign team. That’s what this is all about.
I want to give Gary Johnson the full benefit of the doubt here, and ask him to rein in some of the vicious behavior from his campaign team. Gary Johnson left the Republican Party to join the Libertarian Party, because his heart is with us. Unfortunately, it’s well known that the Republican Party political campaign environment is a cesspool of scheming viciousness. Republican candidates don’t often have a sense of common cause, they’re out to fuck each other up. My optimistic guess is that elements of Gary Johnson’s campaign team grew up in that awful environment, and are bringing that shadiness to the Libertarian Party.
I honestly don’t understand. Reputation in politics is critical. Do they think their behavior won’t affect their reputation? One of the biggest reason I would like to avoid fighting with Gary Johnson’s campaign is because I have so many friends throughout the liberty scene, and I have good friends that are committed Gary Johnson supporters, and I understand their reasons, and I respect them. They’re working hard for Gary Johnson right now, I don’t want them to take things personally, and I have no desire to see us all turn on each other. There might be some retaliatory attacks on me because I’m being so candid here. I really don’t care. Let them have their fun, if they must. But I would prefer constructive dialogue. Let’s knock this shit off, and simply compete for the hearts and minds of delegate voters.
Anyway, none of this really concerned me, because we didn’t lose people on our campaign team. And I just don’t care if Johnson’s campaign buys up a bunch of empty hotel rooms. Please, go to Gary Johnson’s site, click donate, and help pay for an empty hotel room at the National Convention. That’s not going to stop us at all. Even if those rooms remained available, it’s still cheaper to help arrange and organize Airbnb House Parties!! Let Gary Johnson spend his donations to buy all the expensive empty hotel rooms he wants. House parties are so much more fun than hotel rooms, and we can come together and save everyone a lot of money, and sleep a ton more people. Frankly, this move by Johnson’s campaign to block other delegates from coming to the convention is very unfair to Gary Johnson supporters who paid their own way. Now every single Gary Johnson supporter at the convention that stays at the hotel is suddenly suspect as being bought.
I told McAfee this is good news, right now our campaign is flying, I guess the explosive bomb dropped by our first campaign video seriously threatened them, I don’t care about their pettiness, and we have more interesting things to focus on. But John clearly isn’t one to keep silent and smile politely. My god, you really don’t want to fuck with him. Seriously.
Looks like Austin Petersen has been positioning this public spat as some sort of “de facto endorsement of Austin Petersen” (see image in comment below). Please take anything Austin says about McAfee as probable spin. But otherwise we’re not having any problems with Austin and his campaign. Austin was right about Johnson’s campaign buying hotel rooms, and he deserves an apology for claims that he was lying. Austin has actually been extremely friendly towards McAfee. I think he has a man crush on McAfee wink emoticon
I don’t blame Austin. I too am a huge fan of this brilliant eloquent badass that is John McAfee. I am truly grateful to him for giving me this opportunity, and trusting me so much. I hope this dispute doesn’t continue to be a distraction, and that going forward I can just focus on creating some beautiful inspiring stuff for the liberty movement. My god, I’m so excited about the 2nd video we’re working on now, much higher level than the first one. Don’t interrupt me, I don’t want to get sucked into a fight with anyone.”
I’d suggest taking this down. It’s just dirt to throw at the party nominee at this point, and the last thing we need is for our nominee’s character questioned when simply reaching 15% in the polls is already an uphill battle to contend with. I prefer McAfee, too, but helping Johnson now will legitimize the party in a way that paves the way for a viable McAfee run in 2020.