Americans Elect: Obama's Third-Party Tar PitAnyone with the remotest interest in replacing Barack Obama as America's president in 2012 should take his eyes off Iowa and the boring ups and downs of the race for the Republican nomination.
The real action that may well decide our next president is quietly going on elsewhere, in the state offices that qualify candidates and parties for the November 2012 presidential ballot.
You may not have heard much about a shadowy group called "Americans Elect" (it does not disclose its contributors because of alleged concerns that they might suffer loss of business or social contacts, and because it fancifully but only occasionally declares itself to be a 501[c] [4] tax-exempt organization [though it has qualified as a political party for ballot position in multiple states including Ohio, California, Nevada, and Arizona, which should deprive it of tax-exempt status]). But if you haven't heard of Americans Elect, you soon will.
Given the organization's original moneybags founder and current "chairman," Peter Ackerman (mega-rich Wall Street 2008 Obama supporter), its stated goals, and the nature of American politics, it bids fair to decide who will prevail for the presidency in 2012.
Americans Elect is presently a tax-exempt organization (or a political party, at least in the states where it has qualified for the ballot -- one can't be sure which) with the stated goal of promoting a centrist third-party presidential candidate, to be selected from a nomination process that at least in part winnows candidates through internet voting. It plans to gain access to the ballot in all 50 states, and it has already qualified in multiple states (see above for partial list).
At present, the organization has raised $22M (the first $5M from Wall Street heavy Peter Ackerman, about whom more later), and it is aiming for $35M, the sum its string-pullers believe will be needed to get its candidate on all 50 state ballots.
For a fawning, shallow, and utterly predictable MSM description of the organization and its goals, which takes at face value everything Americans Elect says about itself, check out CNN's 12/29/2011 article.
For an even scarier MSM direct promotion of a group virtually destined to save the nation, see this interview by MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan, presenting Americans Elect's Chief Executive Officer Kahlil Byrd (former "communications director" to Massachusetts' left-wing Democrat Governor Deval Patrick).
Interestingly, no candidate has announced his/her intention to seek the Americans Elect nomination, and no political movement is clamoring for such a party. Thus, this so-called third party is a response neither to a specific candidate's presidential aspirations (there is no such candidate) nor to a spontaneous programmatic movement seeking a candidate (again, no such movement exists).
Americans Elect is a political party (but only when seeking ballot qualification; it calls itself a tax exempt 501[c] [4] organization when keeping prying eyes away from its donor list), but a party with no public program, platform, or publicly stated philosophy, and no public donor list -- all of which might help interested parties evaluate it -- nor does it have a candidate or candidates, or even public criteria for selecting candidates.
Its public statements (See Byrd's pronouncements above) suggest that some sort of new-age internet vote-off will determine its presidential candidate, but the organization's bylaws strongly suggest that the Americans Elect board will make the final candidate choice, and that the internet voting prelude is a sham to draw in the unsophisticated.
In short, Americans Elect is like the Republicans and Democrats, but without their scrupulous honesty, openness, and transparency. What's not to like?
This "party" is in fact the reverse of a candidate or a movement -- it is an empty political vehicle formed for a candidate yet to be identified who will agree with the party's program to be determined later. Sound fishy yet?
If I were really paranoid, I would suspect that Americans Elect was a joint creation of the Democratic and Republican Party central commands to make their parties look good by contrast.
Alas, were it only so.
After qualifying for the ballot in all 50 states, Americans Elect will seek a candidate who will be tasked with grabbing a large portion of the independent, unaffiliated American middle and soft center-right, thereby tossing an otherwise lost cause to Obama. It is that simple.
PLEASE READ MORE:
(Ribbet)
Let's all remember the underhandedness by which Obama won his Senate races. This is the same song, second verse. Please read the entire article at the above-mentioned link; I couldn't post the entire piece here...
Now, that is scary!
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