3rd-Party Candidates Debate in Chicago

Johnson, Stein, Anderson, Goode offer alternative platforms
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 24, 2012 1:33 AM CDT
3rd-Party Candidates Debate in Chicago
Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode Jr. works the campaign trail in downtown Lynchburg, Va.    (AP Photo/Don Petersen)

Four longshot candidates for president debated in Chicago last night, and they found plenty to agree on. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode, and Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson discussed foreign policy, drug legalization, climate change, and civil rights in the debate moderated by Larry King, reports the Washington Post. "You’re all Don Quixotes in a way," King said at the end of the debate, "but the windmills have a way of stopping and we have a way of saluting you just for getting into the fray."

Three out of the four agreed that marijuana should be legalized, with former Virginia congressman Virgil Goode disagreeing, reports the Los Angeles Times. Goode proposed a moratorium on green card admissions into the US until unemployment falls below 5%, while Stein called for free public higher education. None of the third-party candidates are expected to poll higher than single digits. "Wasting your vote is voting for somebody that you don’t believe in," Johnson said in his closing remarks. "I’m asking everybody here, I’m asking everybody watching this nationwide to waste your vote on me." (More Gary Johnson stories.)

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