If political parties are like soft-drink brands, why isn't Gary Johnson at 15%?

It is true that in the last ten years the Coca Cola Company has taken a decisive lead in the soft drink wars, with all its combined brands now holding 42 percent of the market to PepsiCo’s 29 percent. (And it goes without saying that we don’t have any subsidiary choices like Democrat Zero or Republican Free.) That still leaves a level of diversity in third-tier brands that you rarely see in politics and never in presidential elections.

If Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were truly Coke and Pepsi, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, the standardbearer for the country’s third largest party, would be polling above 10 percent right now. In fact, he is polling around 3 percent – which is an excellent showing by historical standards. In 2008 Libertarian candidate Bob Barr brought in just 0.4 percent, behind Ralph Nader’s 0.56 percent, and all minor-party votes combined came to less than 2 percent. If you’ve been following Garrett Quinn’s coverage of Johnson’s ballot-access Iliad, you know these low percentages reflect intentional choice-reduction tactics by the major parties more than they do the will of the voters.