Arrival at Red Rock

In some ways it’s all so familiar — traveling westward to cover a Libertarian National Convention where a (relatively) high-profile former Republican office-holder is expected to sweep away a field of Libertarian sidelights and gain the party’s presidential nomination.

And yet, it is also all so different. For starters, Gary Johnson is no Bob Barr. In his time as governor of New Mexico, Johnson never postured as a drug warrior or tried to “defend” marriage by legislation or other means — in fact, legalization of marijuana and support for gay marriage are probably the two positions of his most likely to attract any voters hesitating between the Romney rock and the Obama hard place.

Thus far his approach has been about as different from Barr’s as can be; where the latter marched through the convention areas with a flock of operatives keeping away the riffraff, Johnson has been approachable, and his staffers friendly and accommodating, within reason (and the ability to make that last distinction is vital for anyone attempting to navigate any large gatherings of libertarians). Johnson’s team has clearly also learned another lesson Barr failed to: recruiting a VP long before the ballots get filled out. Hence he can welcome onto his prospective ticket the highly respected Judge Jim Gray, and not risk the baggage of an intolerably chipper huckster or other, even less sane second.

All of which means precisely zero, at this point. No matter the outcome of the convention or the general election though, it’s hard to imagine Johnson ever saying that libertarians ought to vote for Newt Gingrich for anything. And if nothing else, that is already a change worth celebrating.

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One thing that certainly hasn’t changed is airport security. It's far past cliché by now, and yet the TSA keeps finding ways to top themselves: this time it wasn’t just ludicrously inefficient layout or mufull-body scanners, not just the removal of belts and shoes and the ritual offering of the clear plastic bag of fluids—no, this time they added, at the end of it all, a sign that read “RECOMBOBULATION AREA.” Ostensibly this is the place where you put your clothes back on, reassemble your luggage, get everything back together, but it’s also as close we'll ever get to a direct admission that the goal of the checkpoint is not to stop terrorists, but to discombobulate everyone coming through.