“Really Bad Political Idea” Bombs Out
News flash: “Americans Elect, the deep-pocketed nonprofit group that set out to nominate a centrist third-party presidential ticket, admitted early Tuesday that its ballyhooed online nominating process had failed.
“The group had qualified for the general election ballot in 27 states, and had generated concern among Democrats and Republicans alike that it could wreak havoc on a close election between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.”
Buzz Feed now seizes on “7 Very Bad Predictions About Americans Elect,” by such big-name pundits as Thomas Friedman, John Heilemann and John Avlon, all of whom enthused about bringing a new kind of digital democracy to American political gridlock.
One small-name pundit thought differently. From this blog (November 26, 2011):
“If you enjoyed how Ralph Nader put George W. Bush into the White House in 2000, you may love what a group called Americans Elect is trying to do in 2012.
“The well-financed effort wants a ‘wide-scale draft movement for presidential candidates,’ but it looks more like hammering a ‘broken’ political system and smashing it to smithereens…”
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The fact that the parties can depend on the lesser of two bad choices being elected means they don’t have to be good, they just have to be less bad than the opponent. A third option may well swing the vote one way or the other, but that’s a small price to pay to keep politicians accountable. If a major-party candidate is worried about a centrist candidate stealing votes from him, there’s a simple solution to that: moderate.
For the record, my understanding is that Americans Elect will decide whether or not to move forward with a candidate tomorrow, so it’s not dead, even if it failed to meet expectations. Kicking it while it’s down doesn’t help any.
What happened with AE was unfortunate and sobering. How does one reach the discontented in a meaningful way? My attempts to get a few people involved with AE were an eye opener. People distrusted the whole thing and some could not even get past online voting out of concern with “voter fraud”. It was just bizarre.
I don’t think it was a bad idea. Its execution has not been successful. AE is an early experiment in breaking away from an obviously failed two-party system using new ways to reach out.
It looks like trust is a big deal and these days, average people aren’t trusting, not even a little. Whose fault is that? Not AE’s, that’s for sure. How can that trust barrier be breached?
AE works in theory, but was a complete failure in reality.
For one, it allowed individual to post questions and to vote on questions to ask the candidates. Afte voting started, only a handful of questions that were posted first had a large number of supporters and by a month or so, there were so many one could not read all of them.
Second, there was not any serious candidates listed other than Buddy Roemer. There were individuals listed and supported like Ron Paul, but they were not interested in being the candidate.
And last, for an effort like this to work, there has to be candidates from the ground up, not just the Presidential ticket.
AE needs to field candidates for congressional seats, begin working on developing candidates that want to be AE candidates and then field a presidential ticket.
There is room for a third party, but only a complete third party. But that will take time and money. In todays sociuety, we have the money, but we want instant gratification and that is the road block.
Not surprised, many of us expressed skepticism about AE when we first found out about their origins. A strong counter to the 2 party stranglehold would be welcome (for accountability purposes) but it isn’t going to come easily.
There is nothing to prevent candidates from expressing more moderate views just for the election then moving to the extremes after they win– many already do this now.
I don’t see how a three party system would be any better unless we had a parliamentary system with coalitions between the three factions
I agree with some of the criticisms, but the irony is that there won’t be a strong third party or independent movement unless we get behind it. The criticisms strike me as someone criticizing David for tripping on a rock on his way to meet Goliath (at the risk of dramatizing this a bit). Maybe the criticism is warranted, but it seems we’d be better off trying to lift up rather than tear down.
Regarding the selection of candidates, I was also disappointed. But, it makes sense: a serious candidate wants to win and recognizes that his or her chance of winning is basically zero without the backing of a major party. So, he or she either joins the party or doesn’t even try. It’s not surprising, then, that there were mainly token candidates to choose from (Buddy Roemer excluded). Again, I see that not as a reason to criticize but all the more reason to promote this sort of effort, so that serious candidates see that there is another way.
While AE was a good idea, the people running day to day operations are IDIOTS.
http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/10/americans-elect-maybe-americans-dont-wan
I would do their website for $3,000,000
…
LOL 3rd party candidates are a joke.
http://www.presidentsusa.net/thirdparty.html
George Wallace – American Independent
Cynthia McKinney – Green
Lyndon LaRouche – US Labor,… Independent
These three make Barry Goldwater and George McGovern look like the next faces on Mt. Rushmore.
rudi,
I’m not sure what you are trying to show by that list. Is it that 3rd parties don’t win? If so, I’d argue 3rd parties have another important role to play, other than winning. It is the flip side of the “spoiler” role. I wrote about it here, if you are interested in the reasoning:
http://sovereignmind.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/the-case-for-three/