Gary Johnson Throws in the Towel in NH

Gary Johnson this morning confirmed reports that he's basically throwing in the towel in New Hampshire given his inability to gain any traction with the primary just over a month away.

"It's not happening in New Hampshire," Johnson said in a phone interview. ", we scheduled town halls – for whatever reason, nobody's really coming out to hear what it is I have to say."

He said the main reason he hasn't been able to make any noise in the race for the GOP nomination is that he was excluded from 14 of the 16 debates and the polls the debate criteria were based upon.

"I think the Republican Party should have stood up for me just to say I should be in the polling," Johnson said.

According to the website P2012 Race for the White House, which tracks candidate visits, Johnson has spent more days (73) in New Hampshire than any other GOP candidate. Jon Huntsman is second at 52 days.

Johnson said it's possible he could still make it back to New Hampshire, but he's not sure when or if that will happen.

"Nobody can basically do it one lunch at a time," he said. "So my time right now, when it comes to New Hampshire, is it better spent in New York for five days doing media appearances? Do I ultimately get more voters in New Hampshire that way or by being in New Hampshire and seemingly not coming into contact with voters?"

Johnson said he always thought the New Hampshire Primary was about making as many local stops as possible and meeting voters face to face.

"I thought that's the way it was in New Hampshire," he said. "Maybe it is. Maybe I missed the whole New Hampshire experience."

Johnson said it's still possible that he could run for president as a third party candidate as a Libertarian, as he has mentioned on several instances in the past week.

"It's an option," he said. "And that's from the standpoint that it's about a message that I don't think is being represented."

Johnson has been polling at 1 percent or lower in New Hampshire in recent months, and Patch reported earlier this month that four of his five state campaign staffers quit the campaign in late October out of .

"I was frustrated with the way everything was going," former state communications director Matt Simon told Patch at the time. "They just weren't giving us the resources needed to execute the plan."

He said that included not being able to hire staffers, and not being able to get yard signs for months on end.