Americans Elect Group Has No Independent Candidates for Online Primary
By W. E. Messamore | 05/15/2012 | Electoral Reform, Organizations | 17 Comments
Would-be Americans Elect candidates, Rocky Anderson and Buddy Roemer. Credit: AP Photo
Just after midnight Tuesday, on the heels of a deadline ratified by its delegates as part of the selection process, Americans Elect has failed to come up with a single independent presidential candidate for its online convention set for June, issuing a statement at 12:01 am reporting that, “as of today, no candidate has reached the national support threshold required” to enter the online convention.
Americans Elect is an innovative organization started in 2010 to select and run an independent candidate for president all using non-partisan, web-based processes in which any American voter can participate, but it hasn’t been without its share of controversies and criticisms. Here at Independent Voter Network we’ve even reported on the transparency issues that have plagued Americans Elect.
Following the Tuesday morning announcement, major media seem to be reporting that the project is over and that its organizers have given up, with headlines like “Americans Elect Gives Up On Finding Third Party Candidate,” and an AP report saying:
“A private organization established to run a third-party candidate in this year’s presidential elections has thrown in the towel, saying no one mustered sufficient support for such an effort.”
But it doesn’t sound like they’ve thrown in the towel yet. The AP report also notes the following in the statement from Americans Elect:
“There is, however, an almost universal desire among delegates, leadership and millions of Americans who have supported AE to see a credible candidate emerge from this process.”
The Politico adds:
“[Americans Elect CEO, Kahlil] Byrd said the group would confer ‘with its community’ in the coming days ‘before determining next steps for the immediate future. AE will announce the results of these conversations on Thursday, May 17.’”
Americans Elect board member (and former chief strategist for the Bush campaign), Mark McKinnon avers:
“The worst thing would be for people to look at a failure to field a candidate and conclude that there is no appetite for this kind of change, which would be just completely wrong. I think part of the issue is that politics have become so ugly that it is simply difficult to attract good people to participate. And who can blame them?”
At MSNBC’s “Maddow Blog,” Steve Benen takes a more unfavorable view:
“When it came time for the convention, organizers found they were missing two rather important elements: candidates and voters. And as of last night, the project appears to be a bust, which is heartening — Americans Elect was an overly-secretive, well-financed gimmick, eager to play electoral mischief for reasons that were never clear.”
Though they failed to meet its own threshold for online delegates in order to enter the project’s online primary, Americans Elect does have some well-credentialed candidates seeking its independent, non-partisan nomination, including former Louisiana governor, Buddy Roemer and Rocky Anderson, a former mayor of Salt Lake City.
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17 Comments
Bob Morris
05.15.2012
@Bob_Morris
I think they’re a stalking horse for someone, I’m just not sure who
Wes Messamore
05.15.2012
There’s been a lot of speculation and criticism about Americans Elect along those lines. Some critics have also worried that it might not be too hard for a few people at Americans Elect to guide the process to a preplanned result and stack the cards in favor of a specific candidate. I’ve even heard speculation by Ron Paul supporters that this is a ploy to get Ron Paul delegates disqualified from being RNC delegates because involvement with Americans Elect would constitute a conflicting interest according to some rule.
David R Gonzalez
05.15.2012
I am also sick & tired of the Do Noing Democrats & Republicans, I am ready for the 3RD Paty or Raher the Inpenn National Party!
Mike Harrison
05.15.2012
Though it’s not technically independent, if you don’t like the current choices, you should be able to vote for Gary Johnson on the Libertarian ticket in nov.
Robert L. Olson
05.15.2012
The independent movement has been rendered impotent by the need for prospective candidates to pander to the respective partisan bases of the two major parties destroying the middle ground of politics. There are many on the extreme left and right already saying that both Obama and Romney are way too moderate!
sayamen
05.15.2012
@sayamen
Buddy Roemer failed to qualify for the AE online caucus. Yet, he had more supporters than any other person willing to accept the AE nomination.
COULD BUDDY ROEMER BE A GOOD NOMINEE FOR AMERICANS ELECT?
COULD BUDDY ROEMER BE A GOOD PRESIDENT?
If you would like to learn the facts about him, go to this web page and see the FOUR comments of “SAY AMEN.” (There are other comments there covering a wide range of opinions, that you may also wish to examine.)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/buddy-roemer-the-anti-spoiler/257101/
sayamen
05.15.2012
@sayamen
Americans Elect is a defective concept. They expected to attract a stellar politician who would win millions of disaffected voters. Instead, they attracted only political failures or unknowns who obtained fewer votes than a small town city council candidate. Why would they expect anything different?
All stellar politicians today are either Republicans or Democrats. A stellar politician who would attract millions of voters 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 him. Every member of Congress would be in the opposition party, with his former party members hating him the most. There would be more gridlock than there is now as every member of Congress would want the AE president to fail, to prove that the whole AE idea does not work.
AE should have started first at winning seats in state offices and Congress, before aiming at the presidency. No athlete tries his first race at the Olympics. Why did the AE donors think they could start first at the highest political office?
The only reason Buddy Roemer is seeking the nomination is that he has had a failed political career and could never expect to be elected to anything again. To learn the truth about him, go to the following web page and then scroll down to the comment of “Say Amen.” Read the citations that have been assembled there. They are excellent sources of information about Buddy Roemer, written by independent, objective, and reliable journalists and historians.
http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2012/04/buddy-roemer-says-he-has-list-of-23-vice-presidential-possibilities/
Joe Neale
05.15.2012
It was a good idea but it was hard to vote on the website.
Wes Messamore
05.15.2012
This was one of the main problems that contributed to Americans Elect’s current predicament. They wanted to make sure that voting was valid and that people couldn’t just spam the website, but they made it incredibly difficult for people to vote, due in part to some technical issues.
Ronald Williams
05.15.2012
Maybe they should contact Huntsman. I believe he can win over either of the main party candidates.
Wes Messamore
05.15.2012
Even with the disadvantages of running outside one of the two major parties?
Kymberly Bays
05.15.2012
@kymberlybays
I too thought Huntsman could, and should, go further. Guess it’s not in his cards right now…
David Prowse
05.15.2012
Another good idea backed by David Rockefeller. Those awake, boycotted that site.
Wes Messamore
05.15.2012
Could you link us to a source that treats of Rockefeller’s involvement with Americans Elect? I hadn’t heard about that.
Aaron Hamlin
05.15.2012
@aaronhamlin
Another concern that AE has is its voting procedure. Its rules state that its eligible nominees (whomever that will be) will go through a sequence of runoffs using Plurality.
It’s quite odd that AE prefers to use Plurality Voting as a tool to challenge the two parties when it’s Plurality Voting that established the two parties in the first place. Even with runoffs, Plurality Voting has vote splitting issues and scoffs the broad-based Centrist candidate. And wasn’t it Centrists that AE was trying to cater to in the first place?
Whether AE knows it or not, it’s actually been using Approval Voting by letting voters pick as many candidates as they want. If they continue with their plan to abandon Approval Voting for Plurality, then they take on the risks inherent to Plurality. And they’ll face those risks head on if they let voters choose between three or more candidates for the AE nomination.
Michael Smitley
05.15.2012
Assuming they had some one to nominate, would that person have even been on the ballot in all 50 states?
Wes Messamore
05.15.2012
To date, Americans Elect has collected $2.5 million signatures to get on the ballot in 26 states (source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/15/americans-elect-failure-to-find-candidate-threatens-third-party-dreams.html)