No Go Elect Americans
NEWS ALERT!!! Â On May 10, the Oregon Secretary of State determined that the Americans Elect petition for party status has enough valid signatures. Thanks to Dan Meek for this news.
And so proves successful that clipboard waving pitch shouting “Sign here for a Better way to Elect a President!”
Where are we now in the process?
Nearly two years ago, former junk-bond financier Peter Ackerman founded Americans Elect in hopes of fielding an independent presidential candidate in 2012. […]
Yet by last week, not a single candidate had qualified for Americans Elect’s first online caucus, forcing the group to push it back to May 15. This week, after a midnight deadline passed on Tuesday morning and there were still no qualified candidates, the caucus was moved again, to May 22. […]
The race as it exists right now.
As it stands, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer is the front-runner among the declared candidates on the Americans Elect’s website. About 4,900 people have cast preliminary “support clicks” for him, far short of the 1,000 clicks from 10 different states he needs to qualify for the caucus. Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson comes in second with about 3,000 supporters, but because Americans Elect’s rules deem him less qualified, he needs 50,000 clicks to qualify. (As spelled out here [PDF], former members of Congress, cabinet members, mayors of large cities, CEOs, union officials, and high-ranking military officers require less support to run in AE’s primary.)
Online voters also have the option of nominating their own candidates. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) leads that category with more than 9,000 supporters, but he has expressed no interest in a third-party bid. The next runners-up are former Republican candidate Jon Huntsman, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), President Barack Obama, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Wait. Â What the — ? Â A vote for Rocky Anderson is worth less than a vote for Buddy Roemer? Â What kind of Democratic process is this?
Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer came the closest of any declared candidate, but was as of today just shy of halfway to the 10,000 clicks of support from on-line delegates necessary, according to Americans Elect’s rules, to be included on its caucus ballot. Those 10,000 or more clicks, according to the rules, would also have to include 1,000 from each of 10 states. Roemer is only halfway to that mark in one state — California.
Though, I guess I’m glad they have a convoluted thresh-hold. Â The Arbitrary process is the only means of keeping an arbitrary candidate off the ballot. Â But it gets weirder still…
AE’s identity verification process is truly scary. I jumped through flaming hoops of fire to prove that I’m really me. Along the way, AE asked me if I REALLY had a birthmark THERE, if that score I got on my 9th grade Biology exam really was a 98 and if I could verify that my freshman year girlfriend was named Betty Jo Bialowski. Whew. How’d they know all that stuff? And…why?
 ara rubyan is correct; I, too, jumped this ship when the verification process appeared more like a pfishing expedition than anything else. moreso as the frequency of reminders to verify increased.
Gotta verify you somehow, I guess.
I guess Americas Elect 2012 will prove a no go in the end. Â Pull it away like Unity 08. Â No Labels 2010. Â And set sail for whatever they concoct in 2014, and into … I don’t know… Middlemuddle 2016.
May 11th, 2012 at 11:08 am
I can understand why Buddy Roemer would have passionate supporters on the social media and would be seeking the Americans Elect nomination after a pathetic failure in the Republican primaries. I was one of his passionate followers. But I did extensive research about his past as congressman and governor and learned that he is a fake.
He is unquestionably the best public speaker of any candidate for president, but he would be the worst president America ever had. He should forget this failed campaign and seek a job as a political commentator on radio or TV, which would exploit his strengths and avoid his defects.
To learn what I learned about him and the Americans Elect debacle, go to this website and see the comments by “Say Amen†with citations to independent, objective, and reliable books and journalistic articles. Read those citations. They are an interesting story of a failed political career:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/buddy-roemer-seek-nomination-through-dark-money-fueled-group
May 16th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Americans Elect is a defective concept. They expected to attract a stellar politician to win millions of disaffected voters. Instead, they attracted political failures and unknowns who obtained a mere few thousand votes. Of course!
Stellar politicians today are either Republican or Democrat. A stellar politician would know that it is politically impossible to win the presidency as a third party candidate. The most a third party candidate could do would be to act as a spoiler, splitting the vote of his own party, Republican or Democrat, so the other party’s candidate would win. No stellar politician would want to be the cause of that “treachery†to his party compatriots.
If, by some miracle the AE candidate won, how could he/she ever accomplish anything as president? He would have no AE members in Congress to work with. Every member of Congress would be in the opposition party, with his former party members hating him the most. There would be increased gridlock as all of Congress would want the AE president to fail, proving the AE idea does not work.
AE should start at winning seats in state offices and in Congress, before aiming at the presidency. No athlete runs his first race at the Olympics. Why did the AE donors think they could start first at the highest political office?
Buddy Roemer is one of the few politicians seeking the AE nomination, but he lacked supporters to qualify as a potential nominee. Roemer had a failed political career and no party wants him.
He was one of the worst governors in Louisiana history. He could not get along with people, put together a competent staff, or pass legislation. He did not work hard and had no ability to govern. Read this history of LA governors, pages 259-268:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Y-0-kmu4vk0C&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=%22Often+wrong,%22+Roemer&source=bl&ots=GXt38E_jVv&sig=poXJMn9QbCUESjDIP2-foOb3YLY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=n-xjT7CXDOORiQL8n_SiDw&ved=0CGMQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=%22Often%20wrong%2C%20but%20never%20in%20doubt%22%20Roemer&f=false
Even today, he is LA’s most UNfavorite son. A recent PPP poll rated him the most unpopular presidential candidate, with a 2:1 unfavorable rating in his home state! http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/03/santorum-leads-by-14-in-louisiana.html#more
As a LA commentator quipped, in bayou style:
“Buddy Roemer, who has been out of politics for 19 years, couldn’t win an election as a dogcatcher in Louisiana, much less the Presidency of the United States.”
http://www.337post.com/yoyo/110309-roemer.html