Democracy Divided By Duopoly Equals Americans Elect
In the course of riffing on Paul Harris's incisive take on the current state of Americans Elect, published this week in the Guardian — if you haven't yet read this, please do — Jason Linkins tried to argue that
while most third parties assemble around a set of core values and then go about seeking like-minded statesmen to run under that banner, Americans Elect decided right off the bat that they weren't really for anything — only that some third party needed to exist to prove that people wanted third parties to exist. All of the stuff about having a belief system and a candidate would come after the organization obtained ballot access. So if you want to imagine Americans Elect's vision of the future, picture a horse, standing behind a cart, forever.
But that's not quite right. As I pointed out to Linkins in a private email (which, obviously, wasn't that private):
Of course, Americans Elect's leaders and backers do have a set of core values — it's just that they like to pretend that they don't, since, at least on paper, they're supposed to be "opening up the process."
Over the last couple of weeks, however, there have been signs that Americans Elect is getting a little more honest with the public about what it wants to do with its core values centrist agenda — and also, perhaps, more honest with itself about the limits of what it can do with its values agenda in 2012.
Forget all the talk of "revolution" and "people power" and picking "a president, not a party."
What Americans Elect's top leaders and most prominent supporters now are openly admitting is that it's come down to this deep hedging of the Americans Elect bet:
Americans Elect is one group of Establishment Rs and Ds trying to give an ultimatum to another group of slightly less-Establishment Rs and Ds.
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ONE COULD DATE the start of the new glasnost policy at Americans Elect to two weeks ago, when Americans Elect dispatched two of its top leaders — director Christie Todd Whitman, a moderate Republican, and advisory board member David Boren, a conservative Democrat — on a quick media tour of Politico and PBS, in which the leaders framed Americans Elect explicitly as not having anything revolutionary in mind — on PBS Newshour, both Boren and Whitman were careful to declare their fealty to their respective parties — but, rather, as being a more targeted effort simply to reform the existing Democratic and Republican parties along centrist lines.
In the Politico op-ed, the authors (joined by former defense secretary Bill Cohen) wrote that "[t]he American people should challenge the two parties and their presidential candidates to make three ironclad commitments" — in brief: (1) Simpson-Bowles, (2) a "national unity government" with leaders from "both parties" in the Cabinet, and (3) campaign spending limits, with contributions restricted to eligible voters.
Then came the "or else":
If the party leaders ignore these serious challenges, then it is time for the voters to consider another alternative...Americans Elect.
Americans Elect, they said, would produce "a bipartisan ticket," and they generously suggested two possible choices: either "a Democrat and Republican" or "a Republican and a Democrat."
The point of this effort (emphasis mine):
A victory by this ticket with this approach could be the “shock therapy” needed to get the two-party system working again.
:: :: ::
THAT framing — Americans Elect as "the 'shock therapy' needed to get the two-party system working again" — is very different from anything you'll see in the governing documents of Americans Elect (the corporate Rules and By-Laws).
It's very different from anything on the Americans Elect Web site, which says that "[t]he goal of Americans Elect is to nominate a presidential ticket that answers directly to voters — not the political system."
It's very different from anything that Americans Elect leaders like COO Elliot Ackerman and advisory board member Mark McKinnon have been saying in their ubiquitous appearances on MSNBC.
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AND, yet — likely, in part, because Americans Elect really needs the backing of insiders like Whitman and Boren — this seems to be the new, smaller message that Americans Elect is selling: a message that talks tough on ideology but that leaves the two "major" parties firmly in control, even as it tries to nudge them toward the "center."
Americans Elect pulsed this message again, early this week, with a press release highlighting comments by advisory board member John Backus, who put it even more bluntly than did Whitman, Boren and Cohen (emphasis mine):
The idea behind Americans Elect is to force the two parties to the center where they will compromise....
Force the two parties to the center.
Then, a couple of days ago, Thomas Friedman took to the Times to — once again — regale his readers with his utopian fantasies of a magical place in which the sun never sets on right-wing Democrats and left-wing Republicans, who, together with unicorns and bunny rabbits, amidst kool-aid streams and lollipop trees, play jump rope with rainbows all day long.
The "radical center," Friedman called it last summer, when he became the original Big Media benefactor of Americans Elect — the one to tell his friends in the Establishment that "it's OK to like this."
This week, writing from New Zealand, Friedman lamented (emphasis mine):
"Looking at America from here, makes me feel as though we have the worst of all worlds right now. The days when there were liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, who nudged the two parties together, appear over [and] we lack any credible Third Party that could capture enough of the center to force" — there's that word, again — "both Democrats and Republicans to compete for votes there."
In spirit, this actually is similar to what Friedman suggested in his roll-out of Americans Elect, eight months ago. Americans Elect, he wrote then (emphasis mine):
will not only be on the ballot in every state but be able to take part in every presidential debate and challenge both parties from the middle with the best ideas on how deal with the debt, education and jobs.
Even if Americans Elect manages to get on the ballot in most, or all 50, states, its wing-clipped messaging of recent days suggests that, in the House of Ackerman, political reality is coming home to roost, and that the second part of Friedman's projection — a spot in the general-election debates — may be where Americans Elect has adjusted its sights for this election cycle.
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TOM FRIEDMAN might still be dreaming of a centrist "Third Party" — Bat Signal to Americans Elect — but it seems clear that Americans Elect itself is in the expectations-managing mode of scaling back and moving on from that ambition, at least for 2012.
Americans Elect finds itself in this position, in part, because — as Paul Harris and others have noted — it simply has failed to attract a political celebrity as a "headlining" candidate. Even the leaders of Americans Elect always have acknowledged that a political celebrity was what this effort required. But, at this late date, it's hard to imagine that anybody apart from Michael Bloomberg (and his cash) would be able to flip the switch on a serious Americans Elect candidacy.
Certainly, if what Americans Elect wants is a ticket that will "force" the hands of Republicans and Democrats in Washington, Buddy Roemer — currently in the lead, among the declared Americans Elect candidates — doesn't look like much of an Enforcer.
Of course, "the two parties" always have loomed large, for Americans Elect. What seems clear, though — especially from the apparent "downsizing" of Americans Elect as primarily a "rescue mission" aimed simply at making "the two parties" better versions of themselves — is that younger guns like CEO Kahlil Byrd and COO Elliot Ackerman might have underestimated just how large these parties loomed.
It's not that "forcing the two parties to the center," as John Backus put it, was not always one of the ideas "behind Americans Elect." But was it always, as Backus now claims, "the" idea? Was the main point always the one identified by Whitman, Boren and Cohen: simply to provide "the 'shock therapy' needed to get the two-party system working again"?
Given everything else that I know about Americans Elect, I am prepared to concede the possibility that the answers to these questions are "yes," and that all the anti-system rhetoric that Americans Elect has, for months, been pushing through various media channels has been nothing but marketing claptrap designed to entice unsuspecting idealists to visit the Web site, register and become verified delegates.
But it also seems reasonable to conclude that this anti-system message has reflected the genuine, albeit corrupted, desire on the part of a significant portion of the Leadership of Americans Elect to do something more than try to make "the two parties" behave in ways that are consistent with these leaders' own preferences.
In light of the latter possibility, the new messaging points to an Americans Elect that is beginning to cut its losses — possibly, in part, because powerful Americans Elect leaders like Christie Whitman and David Boren are not prepared to go "all the way" with this project, absent a political star to carry the banner.
At the end of the day, the true democratic promise of an open, Web-based nominating process and a 50-state ballot line has come up against the two-party duopoly; and the truth is that — once the built-in discount of Americans Elect's "bipartisan," "centrist" agenda is figured in as an offset — not much is left over.
In other words: When seen through the lens of what Americans Elect could have been, stripped of its ideological pretensions...
Forget the Rules and the Rhetoric, the Reality Is That Americans Elect Is All About the Duopoly
The telltale signs have been telling the tale for some time now.
A big caption on the Americans Elect home page proclaims, in bold caps: A BIPARTISAN CHOICE IN 2012. Just beneath that, the explanation (emphasis mine): "Finalists must choose a running mate from a different party."
To clear up any doubts about which "parties" Americans Elect has in mind, there is a helpful graphic of a handshake, and the two hands are festooned with cufflinks — an elephant on the left, a donkey on the right. Crossing the aisle. Get it?
Dig a little deeper, and Section 2.1.2 of the corporate Rules of Americans Elect stipulates that every "Declared Candidate" is to submit a signed "Candidate Pledge," according to which, "as a condition of candidacy for Americans Elect nomination for President of the United States, I agree to accept the nomination and I pledge to" (emphasis mine):
Build the first coalition of my Presidency by selecting a Vice Presidential running mate who will help me forge the essential coalitions of members of the major parties to meet the crucial issues identified by the Americans Elect Delegates....
In Section 3.1.2 of the Rules, a corollary "Draft Committee Pledge" obligates draft committees to "urge the Drafted Candidate" to make the same pledge.
Then, a little further down the scroll, there is Section 8 of the Rules, the "Balanced Ticket Obligation," under which (emphases mine)
The Presidential and Vice Presidential ticket nominated by Americans Elect shall, as nearly as practicable, consist of persons of differing ideological perspective or positions...to result in a balanced coalition ticket responsive to the vast majority of citizens while remaining independent of special interests and the partisan interests of either major political party. Subject to reversal by majority vote of all registered Delegates, the Candidate Certification Committee shall determine whether any proposed ticket is balanced...."
And what is the basic, automatic threshold of "balance"? Two sentences down (emphasis mine)...
A ticket with two persons consisting of a Democrat and a Republican shall be deemed to be balanced.
No other ticket configuration is mentioned as being "deemed to be balanced."
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ALL OF THIS would seem to suggest a stacked deck.
And yet, just six weeks ago, on 9 February, Americans Elect COO Elliot Ackerman, appearing with Americans Elect advisory board member Mark McKinnon, told Dylan Ratigan (video starting at 4:56) that (emphases mine):
You know, the problem we see at Americans Elect is, we have two minority parties in this country. The plurality of Americans are independent, and they are shut out of what is a closed process. So, at Americans Elect, we're offering every registered voter in this country the opportunity to participate in a nominating process to put an independent ticket on the ballot in all 50 states, for the presidency.
Ackerman continued (emphases mine):
The problem that we have right now is that we have a political system that's rigged. And all the ideas have to be funneled into two separate and narrow ideologies, and that doesn't leave enough room for true solutions-based policies to emerge. So what we're doing is opening the process up, by having a spot on the ballot for an independent candidate to emerge.
And (emphases mine):
What we take so much heart in is, nearly half a million Americans [more like 400,000, at that point] have signed up to participate through Americans Elect. These are people who don't want to quit. These are people who reject the idea that it has to be a binary choice in 2012. And they are people who want to see an independent candidate emerge who can put forth some real, credible solutions outside of the two major parties.
A couple of weeks later, on 21 February, Ackerman and McKinnon were back on MSNBC, this time with Chuck Todd, who introduced the segment (video) this way (emphases mine):
Well it was twenty years ago, this month, that three was the company in the Presidential race. Ross Perot jumped in against George Bush and Bill Clinton, becoming the last serious candidate to run as an independent and make an impact. Could this be the year we see another third-party candidate get a real shot...?
Shortly into the segment (starting at 1:56), Ackerman notes (emphases mine):
We've seen hundreds of thousands of people show up. They're very interested in the idea that they could have a voice that doesn't have to modulate between the two major parties....By the end of June, there'll be a ticket that emerges — it'll be an independent ticket....
On the same day, 21 February, Americans Elect sent out an actual press release promoting former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, one of the newest members of its Leadership team. Just a couple of days before that, Thomas Friedman, Americans Elect's own John the Baptist, had devoted an entire column to why he thought Walker should run for President.
Walker is registered as — you guessed it — an independent.
A week earlier, another member of the Americans Elect Leadership team, Doug Schoen — who also is a paid consultant to Americans Elect — was up on the Daily Beast with a piece speculating on what would happen "if a new candidate enters as an independent through the Americans Elect process" (emphasis mine).
Schoen hammered the word "independent" seventeen times, in this op-ed-length piece.
:: :: ::
SO WHAT WAS UP with all this "independent" talk?
Was Americans Elect just trying to show how maverick-y it was?
Was it pandering to independent voters, in an effort to boost its low delegate numbers?
Almost certainly, all of these dynamics were at play. But the other possibility, however remote, was that Americans Elect actually was starting to play by its own corporate Rules.
After all: Apart from the presumption in favor of a D-R or an R-D ticket — remember that, in Section 8 of the Rules, only these two configurations "shall be deemed to be balanced" — the only explicit prohibition, in the Rules or the By-Laws, comes in the next sentence of Rule 8, which says that "a ticket with two persons of the same political party shall be deemed to be imbalanced."
There is one sentence in the Overview to the Rules which specifies that "any Independent Presidential candidate must select a Vice Presidential candidate who balances the Presidential candidate’s positions...."
But, based on Rule 8, this is the case for any Presidential candidate — so the specific injunction to Independent candidates seems redundant.
Assuming that it is Rule 8 that governs, there are a multitude of possible ticket configurations. Indeed, according to a strict reading of the Rules and By-Laws of Americans Elect, each of the following configurations could be legitimate. Of course, substituting for "'Minor' Party" the specifics of "Green," "Libertarian," "Reform," or what have you, grows the possibilities even further.
Could this have been part of what Americans Elect leader and consultant Doug Schoen meant, when he wrote "independent" 17 times in one op-ed?
Was it what Americans Elect COO Elliot Ackerman meant, when he told Dylan Ratigan last month that "what we're doing is opening the process up"?
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NO, actually.
Indeed, the clear takeaway from this past week's media (self-) outings by Americans Elect is that Ackerman the Younger was overplaying "independent."
If you want to know what Americans Elect really means by "independent," you have to pay attention to the paid consultant, Schoen, who, in his Daily Beast column, consistently links "independent" to "centrist" and — at least as important — to "bipartisan" (emphases mine):
In 1992, when Ross Perot ran for president — the last centrist candidate to make a serious run as an independent....
and
Twenty-four percent said they would vote for an independent, bipartisan unity ticket....
and
[S]upport for an independent was still at 25 percent, as one quarter said they would vote for “an alternative unity ticket with a Democrat and a Republican as president and vice president....
In this view, "independent" means "not the Democratic Party ticket and not the Republican Party ticket, but still using D and R as the basic building blocks."
In other words: Not really independent, at all.
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AMERICANS ELECT couldn't have made this message any clearer than it did when it dispatched two former governors, over the course of the last week — director Christie Todd Whitman and advisory board member David Boren — for a carefully curated "one-two," with one news organization whose orientation, to the extent that one can specify these things, is center-right and another that leans center-left.
First up, last Friday, Whitman and Boren were joined by former defense secretary Bill Cohen in a Politico op-ed in which the authors frame Americans Elect as an effort to reform the Democratic and Republican parties by way of an ultimatum:
The American people should challenge the two parties and their presidential candidates to make three ironclad commitments:
First, candidates of both parties should endorse the main principles contained in the Simpson-Bowles bipartisan budget proposal....
Second, [they] should create a national unity government by including leaders from both parties in the Cabinet....
Third, [they] should commit to support a statutory approach or, if required, a constitutional amendment which permits a limit on campaign spending and allows only individual citizens eligible to vote in each election to contribute....
If the party leaders ignore these serious challenges, then it is time for the voters to consider another alternative...Americans Elect.
But, as the writers quickly reassure, this "alternative" isn't meant to be that much of a threat to the donkeys and the elephants. Pay careful attention to the words they use. You can be sure that they and Americans Elect have (emphases mine):
[Americans Elect] has set up a process...to select the first bipartisan presidential ticket in U.S. history. The ticket candidates for president and vice president would be required to be from different parties.
For example, a Democrat and Republican would run as a team. If elected, they could form a truly bipartisan cabinet and administration.
Americans Elect will likely obtain the petition signatures needed to place a bipartisan ticket on the ballot in all 50 states this November. Millions of Americans have already signed the petitions. A victory by this ticket with this approach could be the “shock therapy” needed to get the two party system working again.
An alternative ticket may help get America’s leaders back to their greatest responsibility — “governing.” Voters must also, of course, carefully evaluate the Americans Elect ticket, with a Republican and a Democrat, to determine whether it merits endorsement and support.
Yes, "a Democrat and Republican" — "for example." The conventionally bipartisan vision of the Establishmentariat, as channeled by three of its scions.
A couple of days later, on Monday evening, Whitman and Boren reinforced this message in a PBS Newshour segment that had been taped a few days earlier.
Unfortunately (from a journalistic perspective), segment anchor Judy Woodruff seeded the message both in her promotional tweet on Monday
and in her lead-in to the segment itself, which Woodfruff framed this way (emphases mine):
With rhetoric heating up and calls for bipartisanship growing across the country, a new group called Americans Elect is pushing a new way. The nonprofit says it will secure ballot access for a unity ticket — one Democrat, one Republican — in all 50 states in November.
In the segment, Boren closes the loophole of the Politico op-ed's more general call to "include leaders from both parties in the Cabinet." Here, he has specific numbers in mind: "half Democrat, half Republican." Like the FEC. No other representation required.
Even the suggestion that he might be supporting an independent draws from Boren's lips a pitched "No!"
In a brief video chat the next day, Judy Woodruff asked Americans Elect Chief Technology Officer Josh Levine:
Are you saying there's just no point of view whatsoever, on the part of Americans Elect? I mean, just the fact that you're staying within the two major parties, having a Republican and a Democrat on the ticket, says something about where you are in the mainstream of American politics, right?
To which, Levine gamely responded:
You know, our only methodology that's different about Americans Elect is that the outcome cannot be aligned. That's the only thing about Americans Elect that is in any way, shape or form an "agenda," so to speak — that you can't pick the same ideology as your running mate. But which one you are, we don't care. It's completely using the American people to decide the outcome — and, at that point, the American people are gonna decide on the bipartisan spirit of the outcome and whether it meets the goal of the whole thought process.
But there can be no serious doubt that, unless you are Michael Bloomberg — who, in any case, is an "independent" in name only (yes, IINO) — or, perhaps, one of a tiny handful of other self-styled independents who conform to the Americans Elect "type," there is room at the Americans Elect table for two registrations only: Republican and Democrat.
Americans Elect COO Elliot Ackerman told Chuck Todd that those who have registered at AmericansElect.org are "very interested in the idea that they could have a voice that doesn't have to modulate between the two major parties."
But that is exactly what Americans Elect is positioning itself to do, is it not?
This project is not about creating access for independent and "minor" party candidates. And it's not about challenging the power of the so-called "major" parties, as represented by the Democrats and the Republicans.
It is about shoring up the power of certain kinds of Democrats and Republicans.
Or, How Americans Elect Is Trying to Have Its Cake and Eat It Too
The other day, in the course of discussing the dogged refusal of Americans Elect to disclose the names of its financial backers, I wondered:
How is it that Lawrence Lessig, one of the most informed and eloquent critics of the undue influence of money over politics — and one of the most ardent and public advocates for financial transparency from elected officials, corporations and political institutions — winds up on the Board of Advisors (see "Leadership," here) of a political group with such a shadowy financial pedigree?
Shortly afterwards, the respected election law scholar and blogger Rick Hasen tweeted Lessig a version of my question — "Do you still support Americans Elect, given their transparency problem?" — and this triggered a lively exchange, which is recorded on their two blogs: Lessig's initial response, Hasen's counter and Lessig's final volley.
In the second of his two posts, Lessig offers this crisp little summary of his argument (emphases Lessig's):
AE is a platform. It will give one candidate a chance to get on 50 ballots, and challenge the Democratic and Republican nominee.
What will that candidate owe AE? Gratitude, no doubt. But is there anything in that gratitude that should lead anyone to worry that the candidate will bend one way or the other because of these secret funders?
How could it? If the candidates don’t even know who the funders are (and I can attest with certainty that [declared Americans Elect presidential candidate Buddy] Roemer (who also is critical of the nontransparency) doesn’t), how is the position of the funder supposed to affect the candidate and his or her positions?
Lessig's position seems to be that, although it might be preferable for Americans Elect to reveal who its funders are...
1 The anonymity of Americans Elect's funders is not a serious concern, because all they are funding is (a) the creation of an online voting platform and (b) 50-state ballot access — not specific candidates.
2 The anonymity of these funders is not an issue, anyway, because, unless both a specific candidate and a specific funder(s) are known to one another, there is no opportunity for political corruption to occur.
In taking this line, Lessig echoes and amplifies the message that one hears from Americans Elect officials like CEO Kahlil Byrd and COO Elliot Ackerman, as well as from Lessig's fellow advisory board member at Americans Elect, Mark McKinnon: that Americans Elect simply (a) is an alternative mechanism for getting on the ballot, and (b) is not backing any particular single candidate — and thus is in compliance with its IRS corporate status as a 501c4 "social welfare organization."
This message is at odds, however, with the one being promoted by another organization that has Lessig as an advisory board member: the Sunlight Foundation, which, in its reports and news updates (here, here and here, under "Campaign Finance"), has been tracking a petition by two watchdog groups, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, calling on the IRS to tighten its regulation of 501c4's and, specifically, to investigate four of these groups, including Americans Elect, for non-compliance.
My big concern [until quite recently] was that we would see a lot of transfers of money from 501c4s to affiliated super PACs to shield the identity of donors to super PACs....[T]he reason these transfers are not taking place is that it appears the 501c4s are engaging in much more direct election-related activity than they have in the past. That is, we are seeing some 501c4s becoming pure election vehicles. The relation of 501c4s to super PACs is now like the past relation between 527s and PACs — these are now the vehicles of questionable legality to influence elections....[F]ixing the coordination rules for super PACs...seems to be fighting yesterday’s war already. The key is to stop 501c4s from becoming shadow super PACs. Yes, campaign finance reform community, it has become this bad: I want more super PACs, because the 501c4 alternative is worse!
In fact, what the Americans Elect funders are funding is considerably more than just an alternative voting platform and a ballot access initiative — two seemingly altruistic enterprises.
The political contours of this "more" reveal the inadequacy of Lessig's response to Hasen's query.
Indeed, that Lessig identifies himself only as a "supporter" of Americans Elect — never mentioning that he actually is on the Board of Advisors — suggests that Lessig may be well aware of a certain cognitive dissonance in his having a simultaneous official role in two organizations, one of which, Americans Elect, is keeping in the shadows the very thing on which the other, the Sunlight Foundation, is trying to shine a light.
As we'll see, what Hasen called Americans Elect's "transparency problem" cuts in a few different directions.
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FOLLOWING Lessig's initial response to Hasen, Henry Farrell, who teaches political science and international affairs at George Washington University, posted an insightful and nuanced challenge to Lessig at Crooked Timber, the group blog where Farrell is a contributor. This excerpt offers an opening to understanding the anti-democratic impulse at the heart of Americans Elect (bold emphasis mine):
The problem that Lessig seems partly insensible to is that Americans Elect plausibly reflects a kind of purportedly non-partisan corruption that is more subtle but also more damaging than direct graft, or even the implicit quid-pro-quo relationships that he rightly excoriates. [University of British Columbia professor] Mark Warren gets at this nicely.
If corruption professionals look upon democracy as an ambiguous force at best, one reason may be found in our received conception of political corruption — the abuse of public office for private gain. ... This conception marginalizes the political dimensions of corruption — in particular, corruption of the processes of contestation through which common purposes, norms, rules are created; the institutional patterns that support and justify corruption; and the political cultures within which actions, institutions, and even speech might be judged corrupt.
...[T]he basic norm of democracy is empowered inclusion of those affected in collective decisions and actions. ... In a democracy, meanings of political corruption gain their normative traction by reference to this basic and abstract norm of democracy. Political corruption in a democracy is a form of unjustifiable exclusion or disempowerment, marked by normative duplicity on the part of the corrupt. Corruption is marked not only by exclusion...but also by covertness and secrecy, even as inclusive norms are affirmed in public. Stated otherwise, the norm of inclusion is not denied, but rather corrupted. Corruption within a democracy is thus a specific kind of disempowerment that I shall call duplicitous exclusion. Thus, in addition to the substantive harms often associated with corruption in democracies — inefficiencies, misdirected public funds, uneven enforcements of rights, etc. — we can think of corruption as damaging democratic processes.
Hasen’s critique suggests that Americans Elect is corrupt in just this sense. Even as it publicly affirms norms of inclusion, it provides a tiny and unaccountable group with a veto power that will be exercised to ensure that a ‘centrist’ candidate is chosen.
Lessig does seem to play up the traditional quid pro quo transaction — as though the most likely potential scenario for political corruption would be one in which a specific funder (or funders) used Americans Elect to gain access to a specific candidate in order to extract (a) personal benefit(s). Of course, this is a straw man that Lessig easily knocks down, as soon as he points out that the donors are anonymous.
But, for some observers, it is not down at the granular, personal level of quid pro quo that the opportunity and the risk for corruption is most evident at Americans Elect. Rather, it is up at the systemic, process level — the level that, in order to see what's going on, requires a wider-angle lens that Lessig seems unwilling to use.
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IT'S IMPORTANT to understand that Americans Elect has a formally stated policy of neutrality that — if its Board actually was to enforce the policy — would go a long way toward assuaging concerns that individual directors or advisory board members or, indeed, the Americans Elect corporation as a whole, were pushing specific candidates.
The problem is that the Board does not seem to enforce the policy. At all.
According to Americans Elect's By-Laws, both Directors (Section 4.12) and Officers (Section 6.1)
shall not communicate or act in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for President or Vice President at any time before the adjournment of the online nominating convention of Americans Elect.
In a much broader mandate that would seem to include members of the Board of Advisors and anyone else who holds a titled American Elect position, the corporation's Rules (Section 10.0) state:
Until the Americans Elect ticket has been selected by majority vote of participating Delegates in the Nominating Round of voting, Americans Elect shall be neutral with respect to all Candidates and shall not endorse, oppose, advance, or advocate any particular Candidate.
Note that no distinction is made between "draft" and "declared" candidates.
And, yet — for months — there has been a steady stream of Americans Elect directors, advisory board members and other personnel playing what Hasen calls "kissy-face" with various dream candidates. This is just a sampling:
1
In Hasen's example, former New Jersey governor and Americans Elect director Christie Todd Whitman joins former Oklahoma governor and U.S. senator David Boren in a statement — sent out as an Americans Elect press release — praising outgoing U.S. senator Olympia Snowe and quoting Snowe's citation of the "vital need for the political center in order for our democracy to flourish."
2
Prior to this, Whitman went to the media at least seven times in favor of Jon Huntsman.
3
Courtesy of Lessig's Sunlight Foundation, we know that Americans Elect advisory board member Lynn Forester de Rothschild held a thousand-dollar-a-head cocktail reception for Huntsman in January.
4
Also in January, a few weeks after Buddy Roemer declared his intention to seek the Americans Elect nomination, Americans Elect National Campus Director Nick Troiano staged (as in "stunt") a handful of Americans Elect promotional videos featuring Roemer.
5
Just a couple of weeks ago, the day after Roemer dropped his Republican bid and re-declared his Americans Elect candidacy, Lessig himself went on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and outlined what he sees as the need to "knit together these 'outsider' movements" calling for solutions on issues like the deficit and to address the "underlying [financial] corruption issue."
This triggered the following exchange with Joe Scarborough (video starting at 3:06):
Scarborough: Professor, do you agree with me that, of all the candidates that are out there right now in 2012, Buddy Roemer fits this profile best — and actually, I believe, has the best message, pure message, for 2012?
Lessig: Absolutely! I've been with Buddy, I had him at my house ... Absolutely! ... Absolutely! I don't believe in his policies, but I believe in his reform, and I think — you're right — that he is the one candidate that would have done something.
6
"Would have done something." As if to suggest that Roemer no longer was running. And yet, only a week later, Lessig was back on the Scarborough set, with Roemer himself (video). Watch this clip and tell me that both guests are not campaigning for Buddy Roemer:
7
Just this week, Lessig took his Roemer campaign to Twitter:
That afternoon, the Coffee Party — another group on whose advisory board Lessig serves — re-tweeted Lessig's call to its 12,000 Twitter followers, illustrating that none of this political activity by Americans Elect, its directors, advisory board members and other staff is happening in a vacuum.
There is, of course, the possibility that Lessig has his own agenda for Americans Elect that doesn't jibe with the No Labels-ish storyline this is being promoted by its founder, directors, and officers — a storyline that also, one assumes, was "bought" by its seed funders.
But it's not all clear how Lessig's reported desire to lead others in "occupying Americans Elect" for a specific "reform" candidate — and, indeed, going on MSNBC ("Morning Joe") twice in the last month to campaign for, and with, Buddy Roemer — squares with Lessig's being an Americans Elect advisory board member who, according to Americans Elect's own Rules and By-Laws, is bound by a strict neutrality policy that places what he is doing, well...out of bounds.
8
A couple of weeks ago, Americans Elect advisory board member Mark McKinnon was on the panel for Jon Huntsman's much-discussed appearance on "Morning Joe." The newly disencumbered Huntsman, who had recently left the Republican race, made news by saying that "this duopoly is tired" and calling for "something to compete against the duopoly," "some sort of third-party movement," "some alternative voice out there."
McKinnon, for his part, was full of praise for Huntsman, saying (video starting at 7:38):
I love everything you’re saying, and I’ve always liked your politics, and I’m sorry you didn’t make it through the Republican primary, but I think you’ll — can provide real political leadership, whatever you do going forward.
When asked by Scarborough (starting at 11:09), "Can an independent be elected President in 2012?", McKinnon offered a more specific idea of what Huntsman's "real political leadership" might look like:
Just on a blind poll, even when people don't even know who the ticket would be, 25 percent of voters say they'd support [an independent ticket]....Put Jon Huntsman on that ticket, and you'd get up to 51 percent, I guarantee.
9
Last November, McKinnon shared the stage with Americans Elect CEO Kahlil Byrd, Washington Post national political correspondent Karen Tumulty and political consultant Tad Devine at a moderated Harvard forum that considered the viability of an Americans Elect ticket in 2012. At one point — video starting at 20:53 — the moderator asks McKinnon what "type" of candidate he thinks would step up to run under the Americans Elect banner. McKinnon — “just off the top of my head” (but then reading off a piece of paper, suggesting that the question is a set-up) — obliges with the following roster of nine:
Americans Elect director Christie Todd Whitman, Jon Huntsman, Chuck Hagel, Bob Kerrey, Condoleezza Rice, Tom Brokaw, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and John Chambers.
He reads the prepared list, with the barely disguised delight of a child naughtily but irrepressibly telling a secret — leaving no doubt that, between the question and the answer, "would" has turned into "should."
10
And then there's this slide from the Americans Elect presentation that Nick Troiano put together in January
offering these 49 names (originally 50, including Steve Jobs):
Does this list look random to you? Sure, there are a few token "liberals" here. But the main point of the list seems to be to illustrate what Americans Elect sees as the tolerable limits of "left" and "right."
And, with few exceptions, everybody here — which includes most of those already mentioned, as well as former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, who, right after being promoted by original Americans Elect champion of "radical centrism" Thomas Friedman as "a third voice for 2012," got his own kissy press release from Americans Elect — falls safely and uniformly with range defined by "conservative Democrat," all the way over on the center, and "moderate Republican," all the way over on the center right.
Which is not surprising, really, given CEO Kahlil Byrd's remark, at the Harvard forum, that "America is a center-right country" — a comment that Byrd rendered blithely, as if to be voicing something that was so obvious that only a fool would try to dispute it.
But who created this list? Certainly, it wasn't National Campus Director Nick Troiano, who just graduated from Georgetown last year.
More likely, it was the same people who created the list of 70-plus people — the list above, plus another 20 or so? — that, according to Byrd, Americans Elect has been trying to sell on the idea of running on an Americans Elect ticket.
Is this Americans Elect wish list being curated by some, or all, of the corporation's "Leadership"? Certainly.
Are some, or all, of the group's financial backers on this Leadership list? Surely.
Are these backers also part of this recruiting effort — including deciding whom is to be recruited? Very likely.
Which specific backers are helping with recruiting decisions? Are the recruiting suggestions of these backers being weighted, either explicitly or implicitly, depending on the levels of their contributions? These things, we don't know.
But this much is certain: None of these promotional activities, on the part of Americans Elect directors, advisors and other personnel qualify as "neutral," under the Rules and By-Laws of Americans Elect.
And Americans Elect is doing a lot more than just building a voting platform and creating ballot access.
:: :: ::
ADDING to the dynamic that makes Americans Elect's agenda — or, to be more accurate, its owning of its agenda — as dark as its money, some official leaders of Americans Elect are in the habit of promoting Americans Elect and even promoting specific candidates, in the media and in other public settings, without disclosing their formal ties to the organization.
As we've seen, Lawrence Lessig never mentioned, in his posts defending Americans Elect's financial non-disclosure practices, that he is on the group's Board of Advisors. Nor did he mention it in his appearances on "Morning Joe," when he was promoting Americans Elect declared candidate Buddy Roemer. Nor, for that matter, did either of the hosts or any of the panelists mention it. Nor was he provided with an onscreen caption that connected him in any way with Americans Elect. In fact, although Roemer made a cryptic reference to a "unity ticket," Americans Elect wasn't mentioned at all, in either of these segments — which is odd, given that they took place in the immediate wake of Roemer's having dropped his Republican bid and re-declared his Americans Elect candidacy.
Ditto, Americans Elect advisory board member Mark McKinnon, who — in addition to his Harvard appearance — has been a ubiquitous presence on NBC political news programs where Americans Elect has been the main topic; where Americans Elect or potential Americans Elect candidates have been analyzed and discussed; or where McKinnon has introduced and promoted Americans Elect in the context of another discussion. Over the last six months, McKinnon has appeared on such programs or program segments hosted by David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinki, Dylan Ratigan and Chuck Todd.
In some cases, actually, he appears alongside Americans Elect COO Elliot Ackerman. But — as you can see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here — in no case does McKinnon ever self-identify as being what he is: on the official Americans Elect team. The hosts, for their part, identify McKinnon only as a "political analyst" or "political strategist" or as a co-founder of No Labels.
As Jim Cook of Irregular Times points out (with linked reference to similar examples involving Americans Elect advisory board member and Michael Bloomberg pollster Douglas Schoen):
This is part of a pattern of Americans Elect corporate leaders going on TV and promoting their Americans Elect political brand under the neutral guise of “expert” without disclosing their leadership positions within Americans Elect.
A person hawking a product on a television news show should disclose (or have disclosed for them) their affiliation with the corporation selling the product. A person who will not disclose their affiliation is being unethical. A news show that does not disclose such affiliations when they are public is not doing its job. A corporation that sends its leaders to sell a political solution in disguise has not earned your trust.
Transparency? Hell, even the Americans Elect FAQs are buried as two 3-month-old posts — here and here — on the Web site's unsearchable News feed.
:: :: ::
A COUPLE of weeks ago, Kahlil Byrd, speaking at a panel discussion at New York University, cited the super PAC as one aspect of the two-party system that dramatizes the need for the kind of presidential ticket that Americans Elect is trying to produce. He was quoted as saying that:
the super PAC...seems like such an enormous thing. But it's 15 or 20 guys — and women — who are giving a lot of money and tilting campaigns one way or the other.
OK. But — given this and this and this and this and this — how is Americans Elect substantially any different, in political terms?
Of course, even in political terms, Americans Elect doesn't look exactly how we expect a super PAC to look. Which is the point of the term "shadow super PAC."
There is one snippet of Americans Elect messaging that, when placed alongside everything else, seems to reveal — perhaps with unintended candor — what Americans Elect really is about and why it's a problem.
The citation, above, about Americans Elect director Christie Todd Whitman's habit of promoting Jon Huntsman, highlighted Whitman's December 2011 interview with Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Joelle Farrell. Here's the relevant exchange (emphasis mine):
Farrell: You've said you like former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. Do you think he could be the Americans Elect nominee?
Whitman: To me, he's the type of candidate that would appeal to them.
That's the same word, remember, that Americans Elect advisory board member Mark McKinnon had used at Harvard, a month earlier. I suggested that this particular moment, between McKinnon and the moderator — which provided McKinnon with an opportunity to read his list of nine favorites — seems a little staged (starting at 20:53; emphasis mine):
Moderator: Who's gonna be — who's the type of candidate? Mark mentioned all the great — all these great Americans who could be great presidents, or who certainly think in their own minds they could be great presidents. Who are the types of people you think might step up and actually put their name forward, or to have their name put forward at this nominating convention?....
McKinnon: Uh — sure — well — just off the top of my head, I'll tell you the types of people? —
Moderator: Yeah, types, I'm not gonna ask for specifics —
Of course, McKinnon plunges right into nine specifics. And notice how handy he is with that list.
Notice, too, that Americans Elect CEO Kahlil Byrd, who is sitting next to McKinnon on the stage, doesn't challenge McKinnon's riff. To the contrary, he seems to join in the chuckle over the reaction to someone's (his own or Tad Devine's) reaction that "those are good people."
But why is any Americans Elect director or advisory board member talking about what "type" of candidate would — or should — make a "love connection" with Americans Elect? After all, Americans Elect is just creating a voting platform and a ballot line. Right, Kahlil? Right, Eliott? Christie? Mark? Larry? Right?!!
One well-placed writer cracked that, with his remarks on "Morning Joe," Jon Huntsman was sending a "Bat Signal" to Americans Elect.
Of course, as we've seen, Americans Elect has for months been sending Bat Signals to Jon Huntsman and others in Huntsman's "fiscally conservative, socially and culturally moderate" mold. And, just as the original Bat Signal always was revealed against the backdrop of a cloud, the constant, drip-drip pulse of statements and lists with which Americans Elect — through its directors, advisory board members, and staff, as well as through its own corporate news channel — has promoted specific candidates now has created a political tag cloud that reveals a highly specific ideological image.
:: :: ::
HOLD THAT thought, while you pay attention to this...
According to Section 8.0 of the corporate Rules of Americans Elect (emphases mine):
The Presidential and Vice Presidential ticket nominated by Americans Elect shall...consist of persons of differing ideological perspective or positions on the Platform of Questions to result in a balanced coalition ticket responsive to the vast majority of citizens....Subject to reversal by majority vote of all registered Delegates, the Candidate Certification Committee shall determine whether any proposed ticket is balanced by reference to candidates’ responses to the Platform of Questions....
So what are the Platform of Questions and the Candidate Certification Committees? According to Section 5.1 of the corporate By-Laws, these both are "Standing Committees of Americans Elect"; and, according to Sections 5.3.2 (Platform of Questions Committee) and 5.4.2 (Candidate Certification Committee) of the By-Laws, the members of both committees are "appointed by the Board," "serve at the pleasure of the Board" and "may be removed without cause."
Let's take a walk in the weeds, shall we?
According to Section 5.3.1 of the By-Laws (emphases mine), the Platform of Questions Committee — which, remember, is "appointed by" and "serves at the pleasure of" the Board...
shall be responsible for developing proposed questions for submission to the Delegates; polling the Delegates to determine which questions to include in the final Platform of Questions, as well as any amendments thereto; tendering the Platform of Questions to all persons who are identified either as potential or drafted candidates for Americans Elect nomination...disseminating all responses by candidates or draftees to the Platform of Questions; ensuring that candidate and draftee answers to the Platform of Questions are responsive and seeking responsive answers thereto; and, subject to the direction of the Board, development of supplemental Platform of Questions as national and world events may dictate.
According to Section 5.4.1 of the By-Laws, the Candidate Certification Committee — also a committee that is "appointed by" and that "serves at the pleasure of" the Board (emphasis mine)...
shall be responsible for certifying that candidates and draftees for the offices of President and Vice President meet all constitutional eligibility, as well as to develop and apply criteria of demonstrated achievements based on qualifications of past Presidents and Vice Presidents, to ensure that only persons capable of performing the duties of President and Vice President are eligible for voting by the registered Delegates, subject only to a majority vote to the contrary by all registered Delegates....
Still with me? OK. But what, exactly, is this "Platform of Questions"? According to Sections 2.1.3.1 and 2.1.3.2 of the Rules (emphases mine):
“Comprehensive Questions” shall mean the detailed questionnaire posted on the Website to be answered by Delegates that shall be considered by the Platform of Questions Committee in preparing the Platform of Questions...and “Platform of Questions” shall mean the Delegate-driven and Platform of Questions Committee-refined questions posed to and answered by all Delegates and Candidates to ensure informed decisions by Delegates and unambiguous positions by Candidates ... Development of [the] Platform of Questions shall be determined by the Platform of Questions Committee in accordance with the Americans Elect Bylaws after consideration of Delegates’ responses to the Comprehensive Questions and may be supplemented from time to time before the nominating round of voting.
Do you begin to see a picture emerge? Do you see how much latitude the Board and its Committees have and how little influence the non-Board and -Committee delegates are guaranteed? (Yes, I understand that there is language about how the Board's decision is "subject to reversal by majority vote of all registered Delegates." But the voter suppression on display in the recent test case of the Board's response to the first delegate challenge to one of its decisions — documented (in sequence) here, here and here — should disabuse anyone of the notion that this Board is going to "go gently into that good night.")
Look, again, at Section 8.0 of the Rules (emphases mine):
The Presidential and Vice Presidential ticket nominated by Americans Elect shall...consist of persons of differing ideological perspective or positions on the Platform of Questions to result in a balanced coalition ticket responsive to the vast majority of citizens....Subject to reversal by majority vote of all registered Delegates, the Candidate Certification Committee shall determine whether any proposed ticket is balanced by reference to candidates’ responses to the Platform of Questions....
Bearing in mind everything else — including the Bat Signals and the tag clouds — do you see how "balance" begins to look like code for "type"?
:: :: ::
HERE'S the thing...
The same Americans Elect board that is refusing to enforce its own policy of neutrality — the same board that is permitting and enabling a specific "centrist" ideological profile to emerge in the public imagination as the Americans Elect "type" — also is the board that has determined that an ideologically "balanced" ticket is what is required, and that has empowered itself to decide what qualifies as "balance."
Lawrence Lessig wonders, in his two posts...
"How is the secret money having any secret effect?"
"How could the secrecy of the funders corrupt anything?"
"How [are] secret donors...going to steer this wide platform of potential competitors one way or the other?"
Here are some questions in return:
Given the extraordinary power that the corporate board of Americans Elect has secured for itself in shaping the eventual Americans Elect ticket...
Given, too, Americans Elect's pattern of promoting only those candidates that answer to a specific ideological profile...
Is it reasonable to believe that each of the 50 or so wealthy secret backers of Americans Elect who floated the corporation secret six- and seven-figure checks did so without having been provided assurances by Americans Elect that Americans Elect, for its part, would be stacking the deck for exactly the kind of "centrist" nominee and ticket that it's been promoting for all these months?
What influence do these secret backers have in deciding who is on the Platform of Questions Committee, what the questions are, and how the questions are framed?
What influence do these secret backers have in deciding who is on the Candidate Certification Committee, how "balance" is defined, and which nominee and ticket is certified as the most "balanced"?
And, especially given that Americans Elect, its directors, advisory board members and staff have whispered the actual names of people who, it would seem, all conform to an Americans Elect "type" of "fiscally conservative, socially and culturally moderate" candidate...
Does the fact that Americans Elect seems so clearly to be working to ensure a specific type of nominee and ticket, rather than a specific one, really make the group any less "political," for IRS purposes?
And does this fact that Americans Elect seems so clearly to be working to ensure a specific type of nominee and ticket, rather than a specific one, really make it any less a sign of political corruption, that Americans Elect presents itself to the public as a neutral model of openness and transparency, while acting in a contradictory fashion — and that Americans Elect pays for this exercise with tens of millions of dollars of money from funders that Americans Elect helps to keep secret?
Lessig wonders "how secret donors are going to steer this wide platform of potential competitors one way or the other." As I hope I've helped to demonstrate, here's how they already are doing it:
By funding a corporation and a process that consistently enfranchises one specific type of candidate (and supporters, including delegate supporters, of such a candidate) — and that, in so doing, consistently disenfranchises all other types of candidate (and supporters, including delegate supporters, of such candidates).
If you are a potential candidate, or supporter of such a candidate, who doesn't fit the American Elect profile, why bother participating, if you've been given reason to believe that the fix already is in?
Even leaving the money out of it, what Americans Elect is doing answers to the definition of the more insidious brand of political corruption that Henry Farrell highlights — one in which, as Mark Warren writes, "the norm of inclusion is not denied, but rather corrupted." Take the secret money into account, and one also has the more obvious kind of corruption that Lessig has yet to acknowledge as a possibility.
So, one has to wonder: Exactly what kind of "social welfare" does Americans Elect have in mind?
Lessig talks a lot about quid pro quo, and my guess is that there is a quid pro quo going on at Americans Elect. But it's not the quid pro quo that Lessig rightly criticizes elsewhere in the political system — i.e., the one between a funder(s) and a specific candidate or elected official, in which the candidate or official is the one responsible for the "deliverable."
Rather, it's a quid pro quo between funders and a specific organization. In this case, the corporate entity of Americans Elect is the one responsible for the deliverable — and the deliverable is a "centrist" nominee and ticket.
Of course, the contours of this new kind of quid pro quo are even more difficult to detect and trace than those of the old one — another reason why "shadow super PAC" is such an apt term.
Meet the new boss. Just like the old boss — but with slicker PR.
Delegate status: SSN, security check and verified ID required (click to enlarge)
Maybe closer to 30,000. See Update, below. —JL
Yesterday, Americans Elect was out with a press release that included the following claim (emphasis mine):
Americans Elect delegates, which now total more than 400,000 and counting, can draft and support a presidential candidate of their choice and nominate a presidential ticket that will appear on general election ballots nationwide this November.
Is this true? Does Americans Elect really have more than 400,000 identity-verified delegates?
What evidence there is suggests that it possibly is not even close to that number.
:: :: ::
AS I LEARNED a couple of weeks ago, when I went to AmericansElect.org and completed the delegate verification process, becoming an Americans Elect delegate requires a bit of a commitment. It's not as simple as just "signing up."
Indeed, the corporate By-Laws of Americans Elect specify two distinct levels of participation: Members and Delegates. Section 2.2, defining "Members," states (emphasis mine):
All persons who are citizens of the United States may register online as Members of Americans Elect...regardless of their membership in any political party. All Members who are registered voters shall be eligible to become Delegates of Americans Elect upon verification of their lawful voter registration status by means of verification as determined by the Board. Members may participate in all activities of Americans Elect but shall not vote unless verified as Delegates.
Section 2.3 goes on to define "Delegates" as
Members who have submitted sufficient information to permit verification of their lawful status as registered voters and citizens of the United States, and who have been so verified by Americans Elect, and who have accepted the Delegate Pledge as provided by the Rules Committee.
As to the specifics of verification, the corporate Rules of Americans Elect (Sections 1.0 and 1.1) detail that
[a]ny natural person who is a citizen of the United States, age 18 or older, registered to vote in any state or the District of Columbia on the date he or she casts a vote in the Americans Elect Convention, and entitled to vote in the election for President of the United States shall be qualified to be a voting Delegate of Americans Elect, upon submission of...[f]ull name as reflected on his or her voter registration; date of birth; residential address including street, apartment number if applicable, city or town, state, and zip code that matches the public voter registration address; and such additional publicly available information to verify status as a citizen and registered voter as Americans Elect may request.
:: :: ::
There are four basic steps to becoming an identity-verified delegate of Americans Elect, all of which are to be completed via the verification interface at AmericanElect.org.
The first two of these steps — providing a genuine email address and choosing a "strong" PIN — echo the familiar registration process at many Web sites today, and would seem to correspond directly to the By-Laws' definition of Members as "persons who...register online."
Indeed, after completing these first two steps, Americans Elect provided me with my own "account" and a user number — 369310 — which, you'll notice, is very close to the "400,000" of the press release.
But in order to be eligible...
1 to provide clicks of "support" for draft or declared candidates;
2 to draft candidates;
3 to actually to vote for candidates; and
4 to challenge decisions of the Board and its committees
...one must become a delegate — which means completing the remaining two steps.
These steps involve providing one's full name, full residential address, date of birth, and last four digits of one's Social Security number — then correctly answering several multiple-choice security questions that are generated by this information.
Only then — when one's "identity" has been "verified" — is one a delegate, with all the privileges that obtain.
:: :: ::
HERE'S where it gets interesting.
If you go to AmericansElect.org, you'll see on the home page a list of the "Most Supported" declared and draft candidates.
The number beneath each candidate's name corresponds to what Americans Elect calls "support clicks." These clicks can be provided only by identity-verified delegates. If you click through to a specific candidate's page but are not logged in or are not a delegate, scrolling over the "Add My Support" button generates a pop-up that reads "You must be a delegate to perform this action."
If you drill down to the 20 or so "most supported" candidates — whether "declared" or "draft" — you'll see that there has been a total of only about 16,000 clicks of "support" from delegates.
The thing is, the vast majority of "support clicks" are concentrated in this top tier. The "least supported" of this top tier of "most supported" candidates, David Walker, has about 150 clicks of "support." But, 25 or so candidates "down" the list, one already has arrived at candidates with around 50 or fewer "support clicks"; and 25 or so candidates later, the "support" for candidates has fallen to below 30 clicks. Out of 30-plus pages of draft candidates, each with 10 candidates, the last 24 pages of candidates have 25 or fewer "support clicks" each. The last 17 pages of candidates each have 5 or fewer clicks. And the last 10 pages are filled with candidates who have only 1 click of "support."
:: :: ::
Obviously, a lot people (and their friends) are supporting themselves and their heroes. It probably is a stretch to say that there are 20,000 clicks of "support" in the entire system. Which should worry Americans Elect, given that — according to its own corporate Rules — the qualifying threshold for any candidate's participating in the first stage of its primary is at least 10,000 clicks (1,000 clicks from each of 10 states).
So let's stay with "16,000." That number would correspond to 16,000 unique delegates, if each of these delegates clicked "support" for only one candidate. But delegates are allowed to "support" as many different candidates as they like — so the total number of these delegates that have engaged so far probably is significantly less. If each of these active delegates clicked "support" for two different candidates, there would be 8,000 delegates engaging with the Americans Elect process. If each was giving a "support click" to three candidates, the total number of engaged delegates would drop to a little more than 5,000.
:: :: ::
BUT LET'S be generous. Let's assume that there are fully 16,000 Americans Elect delegates engaging with the corporation's process.
Does this mean that Americans Elect has the 400,000 delegates that it claims — but that 384,000 of them are sitting on the sidelines right now?
Or does it mean that there are (at most) 16,000 active Americans Elect delegates (and maybe a few more inactive ones) — along with an additional 384,000-plus well-meaning citizens who went to the Americans Elect Web site and, with nothing more than an email address and a PIN number, registered as "members" but never got any further than that and never qualified as delegates?
I'm guessing the latter. But, either way, it appears that Americans Elect is suffering from a very wide enthusiasm gap.
:: :: ::
UPDATE: 26 May 2012
Jim Cook of Irregular Times today flags a new article in which Americans Elect national press secretary Ileana Wachtel is reported to have said this week that (emphasis mine)
only 300 out of tens of thousands of people had problems with the website that couldn’t be resolved, mostly because of inaccurate voter registration data.
Cook observes:
Only 300 out of “tens of thousands” had trouble registering as delegates? Tens of thousands? Counting generously, that means less than a hundred thousand people registered as delegates. If less than a hundred thousand people registered as delegates, that means Americans Elect inflated its delegate count in publicity materials by at least 400% — and most likely by more.
The true number of identity-verified Americans Elect delegates comes into even sharper focus, if you line up Wachtel’s “only 300 out of tens of thousands of people” with another mathematical clue attributed to Wachtel and first reported on 9 May by Jonathan Tilove of the Times-Picayune (emphasis mine):
...Wachtel said that “less than 1 percent have tried and failed to register”....
Americans Elect CEO Kahlil Byrd had used this same number, in his response to a question about delegate verification that was asked of him during a Reddit forum on 6 March (emphasis mine):
Verification is going well, we're experiencing less than 1% of people having difficulty.
Here's the thing: If the total number of delegates was the “more than 400,000” that Americans Elect has been claiming since at least early March of this year, then “less than 1 percent” would be a number in the neighborhood of 4,000.
But 4,000 is nowhere close to 300.
If — as it seems reasonable to deduce — “only 300″ corresponds directly to “less than 1 percent,” then the total number of delegates is just north of 30,000.
This tracks well with the fact that there currently is a total of only about 51,000 “support clicks” in the entire Americans Elect online system and that delegates were permitted to click for as many candidates as they wished.
If the math I’m suggesting here is correct, then Americans Elect has exactly about three "tens of thousands" of delegates to its credit, meaning that — as measured against its claims of "more than 400,000" delegates — Americans Elect has been inflating its delegate count by something like 1,333%.
The obvious caveat, of course, is that these calculations work, only if both of the numbers that Wachtel offers are accurate.
In any case: The verifiable estimate of the total number of support clicks in the Americans Elect online system is ~51,000.
The further the delegate count moves away from 51,000 and toward 0, the more believable — and, actually, better for Americans Elect — it seems, since a lower count suggests a delegate pool that is small but that is composed primarily of true believers who persevered to be verified and then all went on to click support for one or more candidates. (In theory, of course, this scenario also includes the possibility of a delegate pool of 30,000, to use the total suggested by Wachtel's numbers, but with less than half of these delegates doing all the clicking.)
As the delegate count moves in the opposite direction, approaching and surpassing 51,000, it would seem to get less believable, since — especially if one assumes that some significant number of delegates did click for multiple candidates — higher counts suggest ever-higher numbers of people who went to all the trouble of getting verified and then couldn't be bothered to do anything with their empowered status.
If, in fact, the second scenario is as believable — or even more so — than the first, well, that truly is a(nother) damning sign for Americans Elect.
Americans Elect leaders Eliot Ackerman and Mark McKinnon on 21 Feb 2012
One of the most salient criticisms of Americans Elect — a group that bills itself as seeking to "open up the political process" and "change politics as usual" — is its dogged refusal, using the legal shield of its status as a 501c4 corporation, to disclose the names of its financial backers.
This matters, in part, because Americans Elect got off the ground with $20 million of seed money given by only 50-some anonymous donors. That's 50 nameless investors ponying up an average of $400,000 apiece, although, in one rare case in which the name is known, Americans Elect founder and CEO Peter Ackerman has given at least $1.55 million and, according to Bloomberg — the news organization, not the draft Americans Elect presidential candidate — more than $5 million.
(Sidebar: How is it that Lawrence Lessig, one of the most informed and eloquent critics of the undue influence of money over politics — and one of the most ardent and public advocates for financial transparency from elected officials, corporations and political institutions — winds up on the Board of Advisors, a.k.a. the Leadership, of a political group with such a shadowy financial pedigree?)
Americans Elect has sought to rationalize its financial secrecy, by assuring the public that all of its early high-dollar contributions are structured as loans that will be repaid, and that, when all is said and done, no single donor will have contributed more than $10,000.
On its Web site — slide number 8, under "What are people asking?" — Americans Elect says it "is funded by individual contributions, and intends to pay back the bulk of our initial financing as more delegates join, so that no single individual will have contributed more than $10K."
Underscoring the point, Americans Elect last October published an open letter, signed by Americans Elect CEO Kahlil Byrd, saying that "every donation above $10,000 is structured as a loan. We aspire for these loans to be paid back by the time this organization completes its core mission in 2012. If the American people embrace the Americans Elect mission as their own, then no one will have given more than $10,000. Growing evidence suggests that this will happen."
And, just last week (video above), Americans Elect COO Eliot Ackerman, appearing with Americans Elect Advisory Board member Mark McKinnon on MSNBC, told Chuck Todd — who had asked Ackerman (starting at 6:14) when and if Americans Elect was going to disclose its funders — that "all of [the funders'] donations have been given as loans."
The theory — or, depending on one's point of view, the line — has been that, eventually, grassroots financial support of Americans Elect will kick in. The Republican nomination will be settled in February. A new wave of disillusioned Republicans will join disillusioned Democrats and independents looking to Americans Elect for an answer. High-profile "centrists" will declare their intention to run for the Americans Elect nomination. And, as an index of enthusiasm for this new alternative, "ordinary citizens" will flock to the Americans Elect Web site and, "Yes We Can"-style, will click through hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of small-dollar donations.
Ultimately, in other words, "the people" will be the ones to reimburse the hedge funders and private-equity types who seeded the initial $20 million. Thus will the role of Americans Elect as a catalyst of democratic renewal be authenticated in financial terms.
And, at the end of the day, as CEO Kahlil Byrd promised — albeit with caveats attached, as befits Byrd's training as a political operative — "no one will have given more than $10,000."
That's been the story — and Americans Elect has been sticking to it.
:: :: ::
SO IT WAS jarring to read the following new ruling of the Americans Elect Board of Directors, posted this morning to the Americans Elect Web site:
The Americans Elect Board unanimously voted to ensure that no supporter would cover more than 20% of AE’s budget. In the event that any one supporter exceeds that percentage, there are provisions created to expedite repayments to that supporter.
What this Board decision basically says is that as few as five people can fund the whole damned thing.
As to the language about the "provisions created to expedite repayments" to any supporter whose financial contribution exceeds 20%, well — what "provisions," pray? In fact, the provisions clause suggests the possibility of a loophole that would enable a 20% donor to exceed 20% by contributing to one or more other donors an additional sum — an offset that would bring the other donor's contribution "up" or "down," depending on the bookkeeping, but that Americans Elect could spin, in Clintonian fashion, as being not a donation to Americans Elect but a transaction between private individuals.
This move by the Americans Elect board would seem to put even more pressure on Americans Elect to disclose who its funders are. (Are you listening, Lawrence?)
It also strongly suggests that Americans Elect is not getting — and does not expect to get — significant financial support at the grassroots level of delegates, Web site registrants and Facebook "like"-ers. At least, not significant enough — and not quick enough — to make good on all of the promises that it may have made to all of the seed investors from whom Americans Elect has taken high-dollar loans.
Indeed, the counter-scenario that this new ruling opens up is that it will not be the grassroots, "the people," who repay these seed investors in Americans Elect — but, rather, that wealthy donors who have not yet topped out the new 20% maximum (or maybe even some who have) are being asked to increase their donations by way of reimbursing investors who are having second thoughts.
Are second- and third-tier investors in Americans Elect getting a little nervous? Nervous that, at this late date — March 2012 — Americans Elect still has not caught fire, either among citizens or among potential candidates?
