“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).”— Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-GlassThe strangest presidential campaign in U.S. history hurtles headlong into its final month, an October that’s certain to be laden with surprises.The first surprise already has dropped: a major endorsement for third-party candidate Gary Johnson.The Chicago Tribune, President Barack Obama’s hometown newspaper, rejected Republican nominee Donald Trump as “not fit to be president ... He has neither the character nor the prudent disposition for the job.” And while Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is capable of holding the office, the Tribune’s editorial board could not endorse her, either. They cited misgivings over her handling of the Benghazi attack, her private e-mail server, her “negligence in enforcing conflict-of-interest boundaries” which “allowed her family’s foundation to exploit the U.S. Department of State as a favor factory” and other episodes as reasons for withholding their endorsement.“We would rather recommend a principled candidate for president — regardless of his or her prospects for victory — than suggest that voters cast ballots for such disappointing major-party candidates,” the Tribune editorial concluded.There are nuggets of irony to be found in all of this, starting with the elevation of Johnson’s candidacy by an endorsement of this magnitude. In this age of digital communication, ideas and opinions go viral every day. A major endorsement might be the catalyst that boosts a third-party candidate into contention in a presidential race that already has defied the accepted ways of doing things.If that were to happen — if the Johnson campaign could gain momentum in the final five weeks before the election — it would be thanks to the multitude of young voters who enthusiastically followed Sen. Bernie Sanders through the Democratic primaries. Sanders eventually conceded to Clinton and now supports her, but many young voters have refused — even though Clinton “lurched left, pandering to match the Free Stuff agenda” of Sanders.If Johnson, the Libertarian, has a serious shot at the presidency, it would be largely thanks to these former Sanders adherents. Sanders’ offer of socialist remedies had broad appeal to a post-millennial generation with few prospects in a sluggish economy and a political system dominated by aging baby boomers.Now this same generation, once seduced by Sanders’ Free Stuff agenda, might fall in line behind a leader who personifies the polar opposite of Sanders — taking personal responsibility for one’s own circumstance, not relying on government for every need.That might be the ultimate irony in a campaign that has plenty of ironies to choose from.