What Evan McMullin just did might be the funniest moment of the 2016 election; Update: McMullin campaign responds

Greg P. | 11:24 AM on September 07, 2016

Who's Nathan Johnson? https://t.co/FiYACBjOR0

— Sen. Frank Niceley (@SenFrankNiceley) September 7, 2016

For the can’t make this up file, independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin accidentally named some guy named “Nathan Johnson” as his running mate and now he’s stuck with him, whoever he is:

Are you ready for the Evan McMullin-Nathan Johnson ticket? Huh?
From Politico: https://t.co/imH7wdMmKd

— Byron York (@ByronYork) September 7, 2016

You see, the McMullin camp put Nathan Johnson in as a “placeholder” in the different states where McMullin is on the ballot, but now they’re finding out they can’t change it:

.@evan_mcmullin intended the VP candidate listed on his applications for state ballots to be only a placeholder https://t.co/pnrUH6VV4e

— POLITICO (@politico) September 7, 2016

And it’s not clear if Johnson is even a real person, although the campaign says he is. From Politico:

“It’s a placeholder,” said Rick Wilson, McMullin’s senior adviser and chief communications officer, in response to questions about Johnson. “We will have a V.P. nomination. I don’t personally know the guy. He’s somebody that they vetted as a placeholder. That’s all it is.”

“We thought it would be inappropriate to just grab the first person that walked off the street instead of vetting them, which is what we’re doing,” Wilson said Tuesday. “Nathan is a guy who’s on the ballot right now with the full understanding that this is going to swap out in the immediate future. Our legal people have also had a long look at this thing and they’re confident that we can do this, we can make this thing work.”

We are the first to acknowledge our strategy, and our campaign, is unconventional. It requires denying Hillary and Trump 270 electoral votes and sending the election to the House of Representatives. This process does not require the VP nominee to be the same on every ballot.

When Mr. Strauss contacted us about this story, we made it clear that Mr. Johnson was a placeholder, and more importantly, that while this is the kind of story Washington, DC insiders care about the rest of the nation is looking for real answers and better choices for President. Evan is giving Americans a choice in this election where the major party nominees have all time high negative approval ratings, and have lost the trust of the American people.

Finally, Mr. Strauss ridicules Evan McMullin’s campaign for not settling on a Vice President within the first four weeks of its existence. Here Mr. Strauss forgets that thoughtfulness is not a vice; haste is not a virtue; the vice presidency is not a joke; and tendentious stories like this aren’t the same as journalism.

Click here to read the full rebuttal.