John Lumea

Why It (Still) Matters That Americans Elect Get Serious About Neutrality

In recent days, Lawrence Lessig and I have been
having a public conversation about the neutrality policy at Americans Elect (me on 13 May and — in response
to a personal email from Lessig — 15 May; Lessig on
17 May).

Although I've been a critic of Lessig on this issue,
I hope it's clear that I've initiated this dialogue with
Lessig not to somehow "call him out" or "take him on" but, rather, to promote a deeper understanding of the potential implications of the Americans Elect neutrality policy, by engaging Lessig both as someone who thinks deeply about issues of organizational process, and as someone whose own implementation of the policy can
be seen as an inflection point for the level of non-neutral public advocacy for specific candidates that Americans Elect was prepared to accept from members of its Board of Advisors.

I deeply respect and appreciate Lessig's willingness to reciprocate the engagement in the public space of his own blog.

::   ::   ::

TO RECAP the fine-print origins of this discussion...

According to Section 10.0 of the corporate Rules
of Americans Elect (pdf link — emphasis mine):

Until the Americans Elect ticket has been selected by majority vote of participating Delegates...Americans Elect shall be neutral with respect to all Candidates and shall not endorse, oppose, advance, or advocate any particular Candidate.

But, down at the personal level, only directors and
staff officers of Americans Elect — not members of
the Board of Advisors — are bound by this policy.

Lessig, who is on the advisory board and who was a tireless advocate for the Americans Elect candidacy of Buddy Roemer — even going so far as to appear with Roemer on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" — thinks this exemption is OK. I don't.

Perhaps you think it strange that I am referring to Americans Elect in the present tense — as though anything to do with Americans Elect still was a live
issue. After all, didn't Americans Elect suffer a rather spectacular flame-out last week?

In fact: In the same public statement last Thursday
in which Americans Elect informed that "the primary process for the Americans Elect nomination" — by
which it meant the nomination of a presidential ticket
for 2012 — "has come to an end," the corporation
also vowed:

We are continuing the Americans Elect
mission of creating more choice in our
political system, giving candidates unaffiliated with the nominating process of either major party an authentic way to run for office and giving the American people a greater voice
in our political process.

Indeed, as Richard Winger of Ballot Access News notes:

Even if Americans Elect has no nominees
for any partisan office anywhere in
the United States in 2012, it will still be
a qualified party in 2014 in eleven states
if it takes certain minimal steps to remain organized. Furthermore, if the organization
will run candidates for office other than President in certain other states, it may
remain ballot-qualified in additional states.

So, Americans Elect hasn't just melted away, like
the Wicked Witch of the West doused with a pail of water. It is likely to be with us for at least one more election cycle beyond the current one.

That, together with the fact that some of the analysis
of What Happened already has begun to go sideways,
is why it's vitally important to continue to think through the implications of the corporation's organizational
ethic — including its policies and practices on political neutrality.

::   ::   ::

THERE ARE a number of different ways to
approach this issue. One could ask:

Does the neutrality policy that Americans Elect
has articulated, in its Rules and ByLaws, clearly
and accurately communicate the policy that it
intends to enforce?

or

Is Americans Elect enforcing the neutrality policy
that it has articulated?

or — to frame this question another way...

Are Americans Elect's neutrality policies and
practices aligned?

I've drawn on all of these approaches. But the more powerful question — and my real focus here — is:

Are Americans Elect's neutrality policies and practices
the right ones, given the corporation's stated values
and goals — i.e., opening up the political process; breaking up the two-party duopoly; putting full voting power back in the hands of "the people"?

To put it more pointedly...

Are Americans Elect's carefully attenuated policies
and practices on political neutrality what one should expect from an organization that was serious about implementing the democratic values and goals that Americans Elect claims to be championing?

::   ::   ::

LAST FRIDAY, in the wake of the Americans Elect statement the afternoon before, New York Times columnist David Brooks filmed a PBS NewsHour feature in which he was asked what he thought had happened. Brooks offered some conventional wisdom, which quickly was seconded by Mark Shields (video starting at 2:38 — emphases mine):

I think the lesson here is that, if you're
gonna — there are a lotta people who are disaffected by the two parties — but, if you're gonna offer an alternative, you have to be for something. You just can't be a process. And so, you gotta have a story to tell, have
a bunch of issues, have a constituency. And they were, s[orta] wanted to be neutral. And I think that was sorta the problem.

Brooks was half right. To be sure, it is a compelling
set of ideas — and a candidate to deliver those ideas compellingly — that energizes individual voters and galvanizes and mobilizes blocs of those voters.

But it's irresponsible to suggest that Americans Elect "wanted to be neutral" or that it wanted to be "just...a process." That was the spin, of course. But it's not the way it was.

The truth is, one can't fully understand the license that Americans Elect gives its advisors, i.e., the permission it gives them to be non-neutral, without understanding the larger organizational ecosystem of which this license is a part — an ecosystem in which:

1
advisors almost invariably have used their license
to publicly advocate only for candidates that qualify
as "socially moderate and fiscally conservative" representatives of the ideological "center";

an ecosystem in which

2
even Americans Elect directors and staffers, who, according to Bylaws 4.12 and 6.1 (pdf link), do not
have this license, have used it anyway — with impunity and without consequence — to publicly advocate for candidates that answer to this same ideological profile;

an ecosystem in which

3
Americans Elect mandates an ideologically "balanced" "unity" ticket that — for all of the corporation's
rhetoric about the constrained options that the
"broken" two-party system presents to voters and
to citizens — includes a formally stated preference
for an R/D or a D/R ticket, a configuration that, as a practical matter, would average out somewhere between "moderate Republican" and "Blue Dog Democrat."

an ecosystem in which

4
the question of whether any and every proposed
ticket qualifies as ideologically "balanced" is a determination made by the Candidate Certification Committee — a committee of the Board of Americans Elect whose members, according to the Bylaws (5.4.2), are "appointed by [and] serve at the pleasure of the
Board and may be removed without cause."

and an ecosystem in which

5
although, on paper, provision is made in Rule 12.2 for delegates to reverse decisions of the Board, the Board in the past has repressed delegates' ability to use the Rule, in such a way as to make the Rule meaningless.

First of all: "No money goes to supporting any issue
or other political purpose"? Really?!!

What has been at play here is a kind of "centrist" protectionism — sometimes explicit, often implicit, but always intended to rig the game in favor of a highly specific outcome.

So, when Lessig's fellow advisory board member David Walker — who was the subject of a late draft effort — tweeted last Friday that "Americans Elect is about choice and competition," well, perhaps in a limited, abstract sense, an Americans Elect ticket produced within, and by, this ideological ethos would have offered voters one more "choice" and would have provided some "competition" to the tickets produced by the Democratic and Republican parties.

But, internal to the Americans Elect process — down in the Board-controlled habitat of delegates and candidates and "support clicks" that Americans Elect claims as the origin of a new model of democratic self-governance — the Americans Elect ticket always was going to be the Board's choice, not the people's: the product of a paternalistic, anti-competitive and, ultimately, anti-democratic impulse.

::   ::   ::

THIS IS the backdrop against which one must challenge David Brooks's conventional wisdom with more important questions:

• Is there a cause-and-effect link, not between Americans Elect's neutrality surplus and its enthusiasm deficit — but between its neutrality deficit and its enthusiasm deficit?

• What if Americans Elect really had been "just...a process," and if — from the top down and the bottom up — the Americans Elect corporation, its Board, its staff, its advisors, and even its "delegate leaders" and other volunteers had been publicly neutral?

• Could such a truly neutral and altruistic Americans Elect — an Americans Elect whose only interest was (and was seen to be) to offer a ballot line
  and a Web-based nominating platform — have attracted many more delegates and many more credible candidates, of all ideological persuasions?

• Might a politically neutral Americans Elect — rather than the ideologically stacked Americans Elect that we saw — have been more likely to produce an actual ticket, born of the shared sense of potential delegates and potential candidates, alike, that anything was possible?

• Is Americans Elect's absolute organizational neutrality a key to its catalyzing the kind of small-d democratic energy and citizen engagement that
  is necessary, in order to create the participatory and electoral reforms that Americans Elect claims to want?

My contention is: Yes!

Had Americans Elect been truly and fiercely neutral — rather than giving mere lip service to neutrality, while paving the way for a "centrist," fiscally hawkish, Establishment-oriented ticket...

Had Americans Elect simply trusted delegates and candidates, rather than trying to manage them...

It could have created a truly free marketplace of
political ideas that might have been more attractive
to delegates and candidates alike.

Ironically, this might have been more likely to
produce an actual ticket — a ticket that was more flavorful and nourishing philosophically and that, precisely because it was grassroots-emergent and
not the product of a top-down fix, was more powerful
in political and electoral terms.

The great promise of Americans Elect, yet to be
realized — the only way for Americans Elect to produce authentic, grassroots-emergent candidates — is for it to become a truly free marketplace of political ideas and candidates. And the only way for that to happen is

1
for Americans Elect to jettison its "centrist" agenda, including its "balanced ticket obligation" and other procedural controls designed to help cultivate ideological purity and ensure the nomination only of candidates from the power chambers of the institutional Establishment

and

2
for Americans Elect itself — Official Americans Elect — the Americans Elect of press releases; interviews; op-eds; blogs; Twitter feeds; and television, radio,
video and podcast appearances — the Americans Elect that constitutes itself, via all these media, in the public statements of the Board and its committees, as well as
in the public comments of individual directors, staff, advisors, "delegate leaders," and volunteers...

...for this Americans Elect to be fiercely and doggedly neutral and independent of any political party, ideology, candidate or influence.

::   ::   ::

LESSIG suggests that the critique I am making is a
little utopian.

We’ve got to avoid the Caesar’s-wife syndrome: If a new institution comes along promising a change from a plainly broken existing institution, the test should not be whether it is perfect. The test is whether it
is better than the alternatives — because otherwise, you bias in favor of the (plainly broken) status quo.

Lessig is right, of course, that one doesn't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good. But the surest way to avoid "biasing in favor of the...status quo" is for the "good" on offer to be not just marginally better than what it seeks to reform or replace, but a lot better.

A status-quo-oriented standard of success — just do a little better than the two parties — is not going to be enough to inspire and motivate a critical mass of delegates and candidates to engage in the Americans Elect process. If you are a reform-minded citizen, why bother, if the only payoff is to be marginally better than the system you already know is already broken?

And yet, it is precisely the status quo that Lessig keeps returning to, to defend the non-neutral activities of himself and his fellow Americans Elect advisory board members (emphasis mine):

John criticizes my serving on the advisory board because he believes my advocacy is inconsistent with the principle of “neutrality.” He believes, moreover, that the distinction between an “advisory board” and “board and staff” is “Clintonian” — that the difference is “hair splitting” and not real. But the difference is real and common and completely the same with every other major party.

Lessig continues (emphasis mine):

John...says the standard isn’t the reality
of the difference, but the “public perception.” But here he seems to be making a move / mistake that others are making about AE
as well: Compared to the other political parties, is there any difference here?
The Democrats and the Republicans both,
when there is no presumptive nominee
(i.e., an incumbent), run party primaries. During those primaries, the entity running
the primary is to remain neutral. But that entity has advisory boards. Does anyone
doubt the freedom of members of those
boards to indicate a preference for a
particular candidate, even if the people
running the primaries shouldn’t?

In addition to the fact that an appeal to the behavioral norms of the Democratic and Republican parties isn't especially inspiring...

Lessig's analysis would be more convincing, if
Americans Elect had been honest about its desire to
be an ideologically and procedurally tweaked version of
a traditional political party — i.e., if building a better, "centrist" version of the same mousetrap had been its stated goal.

Of course, some of us were well enough versed in the political code of Unity 08 / Americans Elect, to see that the creation of a "centrist" ballot line was exactly what Americans Elect was about.

But that's not how Americans Elect sold itself to those citizens who came to Americans Elect through the
"front door" of its Web site, its Facebook page, its
Twitter feed, and the round-edged media appearances
of its top executives. Here — and in the most public way possible — Americans Elect claimed to be a revolutionary, system-challenging "movement" to "crash the party" and put power back in the hands of "the people."

So it is, that the real standard of success, for Americans Elect, has to be the seriousness with which it is engaging that task.

::   ::   ::

LESSIG concludes with this riff on part of one of my earlier comments (in quotes):

When the governor of a state endorses a candidate during a primary, John, do you
think that leads voters in the state not to
vote because they “believe that they have
been ‘pre-subjugated’ to the will of insiders with money, power and media access”? And if not, why would you think that with a member of an advisory board, with no access to the mechanics of the voting system, no authority over the organization, and no “media access” worth nails beyond a simple twitter feed?

Let's agree, for starters, that Lessig — a Harvard professor and co-founder of Creative Commons, whose books routinely are reviewed and noted in the New York Times; who made back-to-back in-studio "Morning Joe" appearances on 24 February and 1 March; who, on
25 April and 13 May, had back-to-back pieces on the Web site of The Atlantic magazine; and who once even was played by Christopher Lloyd on an episode of "The West Wing" — is being overly modest in characterizing himself as a guy who has "no 'media access' worth nails beyond a simple twitter feed" (a feed which, by the way, has more than 190,000 followers).

As to Lessig's questions themselves: They are well-
intended, but they strike me in the gut in a similar fashion as do the self-satisfied criticisms of those who say, of self-identified political independents: "A-ha!!!
You so-called 'independents' do vote for Democrats
and Republicans! You're not independents, at all!"

Well, of course political independents vote for Republicans and Democrats. They live in a political system that, by and large, gives them no other
serious choices. But their votes "for" Democrats and Republicans often say little more than that — when
push comes to shove — they place a higher premium on their responsibility to vote than they do their right to a greater variety of candidates from which to choose.

Ultimately, though, Lessig seems to be making an apples-to-oranges comparison. For voters in the
current system, the limited voting choices that the system produces — starting with the systemic flaws
and corruptions that produce those choices (including endorsements by elected officials) — are part of the baseline. In other words: These limitations are the "always already" built-in "discount" to many citizens'
decision to vote regardless.

But I am asking a different question...

If citizens already are in a system that they believe is fixed — a system in which, to borrow my own phrase, they "believe that they have been ‘pre-subjugated’ to the will of insiders with money, power and media access” — why should they engage in a "new" system — a "new" process — that they believe promises only more of
the same?

I don't mean to suggest that a policy of ironclad
and unflappable and inviolable political neutrality is
the only ingredient that was needed, to produce a happier ending for Americans Elect in 2012.

But I do think that Americans Elect's "rage for 'centrism'" explains a world of sins — including the tendency (policy?) of the Board of Americans Elect, contra its
own rhetoric, to repress the will of Americans Elect delegates. This repression is being felt, even now.

If Americans Elect — or any similar effort claiming
to be nothing more and, indeed, nothing less than a delivery system for the Voice of the People — wishes to succeed in the future, it would do well to keep its own organizational-political mouth shut and let the grassroots delegates — the People — speak for themselves.

Otherwise, it should dispense with the pretense of high-minded Neutrality; call itself the party that it is;
and operate on that basis.

Lessig Responds to Open Letter About the Americans Elect Neutrality Policy

"Having No Power, I Have No Duty to
Waive Any Freedom I Might Have"

On Sunday evening, I sent Americans Elect advisory
board member Lawrence Lessig a letter asking him to explain his repeated public advocacy for Americans Elect candidate Buddy Roemer.

I and others have found these activities hard to square with Americans Elect's official policy of neutrality, which is codified in Section 10.0 of the corporation's Rules (pdf link — emphasis mine):

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.

I posted my challenge as an open letter, and advised Lessig of the same.

Yesterday, Lessig responded as follows (emphasis mine). Elliot Ackerman, referenced in Lessig's note, is the son of Americans Elect founder and lead investor Peter Ackerman, and also is the COO of Americans Elect.

John,

Thank you for your letter, and especially for
the decency in the manner in which you have framed your criticism.

When I was asked to join the Advisory board,
I explicitly asked about whether that would preclude me from advocating on behalf of anyone, including candidates for an AE position. I was told it did not. That position
was confirmed to me by Elliot Ackerman in
this email:

My understanding of an "Advisory Board" is precisely the same: Members are asked to
give their advice, but not their loyalty. As a Member, I am free to criticize AE if I believe they are behaving badly. As a Board Member,
I would not have that freedom (to the extent it was inconsistent with a duty of loyalty). Giving up that freedom would be fair (again, were I a member of the Board) because Membership
on the board would give me power in the organization. But having no power, I have no duty to waive any freedom I might have.

Let me know if that has clarified things. I don't think this distinction is "Clintonian": By that, you mean that the actions have the same effect. But my actions don't have the same effect. I have no power in AE. I have no rights in AE. I therefore have no duty to waive any liberty I otherwise have as a citizen.

::   ::   ::

Actually, by "Clintonian," I mean the tendency
to rationalize a given behavior by appealing to a hair-splitting interpretation of the "law" — in this
case, the Americans Elect neutrality policy (which most broadly is embodied in Rule 10, above) — that skews heavily to the letter of the law rather than to its spirit.

Perception is reality. And what has been clear to me, from the beginning, is that the official and actual public neutrality of Americans Elect — including
the public perception that Americans Elect is neutral — is key to the integrity of the whole Americans Elect project. That citizens simply are not going to trust and take seriously an organization that pays lip service to "opening up the political process" and putting full voting power in the hands of the people, and that claims to be interested solely in creating the structural "empty vessels" of an additional 50-state
ballot line and a Web-based nominating platform — but that also seems to be designing these vessels to carry only a certain kind of political cargo.

So the ideological "stacking of the deck" guaranteed by Americans Elect's "unity ticket" mandate — in which the corporation favors a "centrist" Republican-Democrat ticket — always has struck me as wrongheaded. (Lessig
and I agree, on this point.)

But the double standard of applying the neutrality mandate embodied in Rule 10 only to the relative handful of "directors"and "officers" (see Sections 4.12 and 6.1 of the Bylaws; pdf link), but not to the 100-plus members of the Board of Advisors — individuals who frequently have been the public faces of Americans Elect in the media, and whose names and institutional affiliations Americans Elect displays prominently on its Web site, in an effort to enhance its public credibility — this, too, is an impartiality disconnect.

The truth is: Even in the case of Americans Elect's directors and officers, the neutrality policy is only wink-wink (see Christie Whitman). But the idea should be to go "above and beyond," in assuring the public that Americans Elect is neutral and that delegates hold all the power — not to design and implement elaborate layers of political bet hedging such as a "neutrality" policy that, in practice, hasn't been made to apply to anybody on the masthead.

That the COO and son of the founder of Americans
Elect disagrees — "nothing about your membership
as a member of our Advisory Board prohibits you from supporting any candidate you wish" — is telling.

Telling, too, that this "neutrality gap" with respect
to the Board of Advisors is nothing that the "free to criticize Americans Elect" Lessig — or, apparently, any other Americans Elect advisory board member — has deemed "behaving badly," to borrow Lessig's phrase.

Telling that Buddy Roemer, too, thinks that Lessig's non-neutrality is A(E)-OK.

And telling that nowhere in Americans Elect Rules or Bylaws is the behavior of the advisors or the Board of Advisors of Americans Elect constrained in any way.

They aren't even mentioned.

::   ::   ::

A major reason why Americans Elect now has had
to cancel all three of its scheduled primary ballots,
for lack of sufficient public support for any Americans Elect candidate in particular, and for the Americans
Elect process in general, is this: Americans Elect is not seen as a neutral broker. Citizens are not motivated to participate, when they don't believe and have confidence that their voices and their votes have full weight but, rather, believe that they have been "pre-subjugated" to the will of insiders with money, power and media access.

Americans Elect is not immune to this fundamental law
of political psychology.

Had Americans Elect instead created an unambiguous and airtight "public neutrality" plank that applied with equal force to Americans Elect directors, staffers and advisors — and had Americans Elect implemented a zero-tolerance policy on violations of this plank — Americans Elect would not be where it finds itself today. Of this I am sure. Indeed...

If Americans Elect hopes to recover any
possibility of a sustainable future for itself —
or, perhaps, any future at all — it will have to abandon its "centrist" ideological pretensions
and get serious about neutrality, along the lines
I suggest here.

Lessig sees it differently. He says that his "duty"
to Americans Elect — including his duty to abide by Americans Elect's neutrality policy (which he frames as his duty to "waive any liberty I otherwise have as a citizen") — is limited by his "power in the organization."

Lessig has "no power," he says, and "no rights" —
by which he means that, since he's not a member
of the Board of Directors of Americans Elect, he has
no voting rights and power — thus he has "no duty."

It's not quite that simple.

The truth is, Lessig and other members of the Board
of Advisors have considerable soft power.

In pubicly listing Lessig and other advisors, Americans Elect is saying — indeed, promoting — to the general public, to prospective delegates and to the media that these advisors are "on the team" at Americans Elect.

This being the case, it's reasonable to assume that all three audiences — general public, prospective delegates and media — are looking to the statements and actions
of Lessig and other members of the Board of Advisors of Americans Elect, to help them determine:

• Who is Americans Elect?

• How deeply — if at all — should I
  become involved?

So, when Lawrence Lessig or Mark McKinnon, for example — people who, in addition to their status as Americans Elect advisory board members, also are public figures with public reputations and outsized national media access, giving them the potential to have enormous influence and, yes, power in shaping public and delegate and media opinion about the sort of thing that Americans Elect is...

When Americans Elect advisors like Lessig or McKinnon take to MSNBC or to The Atlantic or even to Twitter (Lessig has 190,037 followers) and give the nod to Buddy Roemer — or to David Walker — or to Jon Huntsman — or to any other specific candidate or type of candidate,
it can't help but telegraph and reinforce to delegates
and to potential delegates the suggestion that certain decisions about the nominee pool already have been made.

And, for those delegates and potential delegates who don't happen to share the politics being promoted, the candidate or ideological advocacy being engaged in by these Americans Elect advisors can't help but have a chilling effect on the desire of these citizens to participate in the Americans Elect process. In effect, it robs them of their power.

And that matters. It matters very much.

An Open Letter to Lawrence Lessig About the Americans Elect Neutrality Policy

With Reference to Lessig's Status as a Member of the Board of Advisors of Americans Elect and His Activism on Behalf of the Americans Elect Candidacy of Buddy Roemer

Lawrence,

Over the last few months, I've done a good bit of writing about Americans Elect.

Rick Hasen called my essay "The Shadow Super PAC of 'Centrism'" a "must-read...on the continued internal democracy deficit at Americans Elect, and the serial violation of a neutrality pledge by Americans Elect’s leadership."

I have enormous respect for your body of work — especially for your work on open culture and on the
issue of money in politics.

But I do have to ask you how, as a member of the
Board of Advisors of Americans Elect, you continue to square your activism on behalf of the Americans Elect candidacy of Buddy Roemer — most memorably, in your treatise "One Way Forward"; in your appearances on "Morning Joe" (videos here and here); in your tweets; and in your recent Atlantic pieces (here and, today, here) — with the Americans Elect corporation's explicit policy on neutrality.

According to Section 10.0 of the Rules (pdf link) of Americans Elect (emphasis mine):

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.

You've highlighted the fact that your position as a member of the Board of Advisors of Americans Elect is "noncompensated" — but this, it seems to me, misses the point.

Surely, the straightforward, commonsense reading is
that Rule 10 is a broad mandate — that the "Americans
Elect" of the phrase "Americans Elect shall be neutral" includes both

1
the organization as a whole (as reflected in official decisions of the Board of Directors and the Board's committees)

and

2
the statements and actions of individual directors, executive staff and advisors of Americans Elect, i.e., those who — whether paid or unpaid — are officially and publicly signified by Americans Elect as supporters and representatives the organization.

Of course, one could argue that, no, Rule 10 applies only to (1); that directors and officers are bound by Sections 4.12 and 6.1 of the Bylaws (pdf link); and that advisors can say whatever they want.

But this seems more than a little Clintonian, as well as being a clear violation of the spirit, if not necessarily the letter, of Rule 10 — not least, because it implies (and creates) a loophole through which the Americans Elect corporation and its individual directors and officers can, by not expressing themselves directly, abide by the letter of the neutrality policy stated in the corporation's Rules and Bylaws, even as they violate the spirit of the policy by allowing and enabling various Americans Elect advisors to function as surrogates for expressing either the type of candidate or the specific candidate that
they — i.e., the corporation, or specific directors or officers or, for that matter, seed funders — prefer.

To be clear: I have no way of knowing whether you
are speaking for anyone else at Americans Elect, in advocating for Buddy Roemer (and, of late — albeit
more softly — for David Walker).

Absent being shown any evidence to the contrary, I assume that you are speaking only for yourself.

::   ::   ::

The truth is, Americans Elect seems never to have enforced its neutrality policy — and it certainly isn't
going to start enforcing it now, desperate as it is for a candidate.

But that doesn't make your own position as an Americans Elect advisor campaigning for a specific candidate any less ethically compromised.

If you or other Americans Elect advisors — or, for that matter, Americans Elect directors or executive staff members — wish to campaign for specific Americans Elect candidates, in the way that you have for Buddy Roemer (and David Walker), you are more than free to do so.

But if you are going to engage in this activity while the Americans Elect neutrality policy embodied in Rule 10 and in Bylaws 4.12 and 6.1 remains in place, you should step down from Americans Elect.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

The other, and even more honest, option is for Americans Elect simply to go ahead and kill its neutrality policy — which, in any case, has been a farce all along.

::   ::   ::

Although I'd be gratified by a personal response to this query, the most useful place for you to address it would be on your public blog.

You can find a more comprehensive and integrated presentation — a "one-stop shop," if you like — of my own thoughts on this and other issues related to Americans Elect, in "The Super Shadow PAC of 'Centrism,'" the essay I link above.

I look forward to your response.

With respect,

JOHN LUMEA

UPDATE: Lessig's response and my follow-up is here.

About That "Draft Walker Poll" of966 Florida Registered Voters

In its launch press release of 23 April, the Committee
to Get Walker Running — a.k.a. Draft Walker — billed
itself as a

grassroots and youth-driven initiative to get our country’s fiscal house in order by drafting David Walker...as an independent candidate for president through Americans Elect.

A "grassroots and youth-driven initiative."

To be sure, the Committee is managed by Nick Troiano, who just last month stepped down from a 2-year stint as National Campus Director at Americans Elect, and who — at 22 — is himself barely a year out of Georgetown University.

And yet, the Committee — which is registered as a PAC with the FEC (pdf link) — claims to have conducted an April 2012 public opinion survey of 966 Florida registered voters, to gauge support for a David Walker candidacy.

Not generally the sort of activity that one associates with a project that is totally "grassroots" and "youth-driven."

::   ::   ::

LET'S HAVE a closer look, shall we?

The Committee's home page at DraftWalker.com* includes a rotator feature — right side, scroll down — that cites two results from a poll that explicitly is sourced as "Draft Walker poll of 966 Florida voters, +/- 3.15%, April 2012."

The two results are:

1
75% of voters believe an independent candidate
should take part in this fall's Presidential debates.

and

2
39% of voters are open to voting for David Walker
in this year's Presidential election.

A few more details about this poll — including the
specific date — are available from a "Draft David
Walker Overview" document that is part of a list of downloadable "Volunteer Resources" toward the
bottom of the Web site's "Get Involved" page.

This Overview document (pdf link) includes,
in a Frequently Asked Questions section, the
following:

Will the American people support this effort?

We recently conducted a public opinion survey to help answer that question. Results are based on an April 9th poll of 966 registered Florida voters (+/- 3.5%).

• After sharing some information about David Walker, 39% said they would be open to voting for him if his name appeared on the general election ballot.

• We found that his primary appeal to these voters is that his top issue is fiscal responsibility. This is no surprise given that 86% reported to be concerned (69% "very concerned") about our country's fiscal situation.

• Overwhelming support, 75%, was given to idea of an independent candidate being able to debate President Obama and the Republican nominee this fall.

::   ::   ::

CURIOUSLY, these hushed mentions — intermittently flashing at the bottom of the Draft Walker home page and buried in a Draft Walker volunteer document — appear to be the only two references to this large survey, by the Committee or anybody else.

But the scant information that the "grassroots and youth-driven" Committee to Get Walker Running provides about this "Draft Walker poll" still manages to tell us a number of important things:

• The survey included a relatively large sample
  of 966 registered voters in Florida.

• This was a telephone survey with a script of several questions and follow-up questions.

• The survey includes margins of error, and
  is presented as a scientific poll.

All of this suggests a survey that was designed, written and conducted by a professional pollster
or polling firm or PR/branding firm with polling capabilities — not a handful of college students and recent college graduates.

So here are a couple of questions for the Draft Walker committee...

1
Where can one access the full survey and results of
this 9 April 2012 telephone survey of 966 Florida
registered voters?

2
Which pollster or polling firm or PR/branding firm
actually ran this survey?

3
Is this pollster, polling firm or PR/branding firm connected — in any way — (a) to Americans Elect;
(b) to David Walker; or (c) to persons, firms or organizations who are connected to Americans Elect
or to David Walker?

::   ::   ::

THE OTHER QUESTION, of course, is: Who paid for this polling work?

Draft Walker — the Committee to Get Walker Running — may have paid for the work. Someone else, acting on the Committee's behalf, may have paid an individual pollster or firm directly for the work. Or a pollster or firm may have contributed all, or part, of the work pro bono.

Either way, the answers to all of these questions would put a good bit of meat on the bones of David Walker's confirmation of Neil Cavuto's observation that Draft Walker is "backing it up with money."

Walker went on to tell Cavuto that he himself is "not involved with" the Draft Walker committee, and that
he has "not had communications with them."

But veteran journalist Alexis Simendinger originally reported this week that Walker had "cooperated with" Committee treasurer and manager Nick Troiano.

In an email on Tuesday afternoon, I asked Simendinger about this; and I noticed yesterday evening that the intriguing "cooperated with" had been dialed back to
the somewhat labored "acknowledged the efforts of."

Still. This rather professional-sounding survey of
Florida voters is one of a number of clues that the "youth-driven" Committee to Get Walker Running
may be operating with more than a little bit of adult supervision — and the adult money that goes with it.

The question is: Who are the adults in this room?

* Attempting to visit the home page of DraftWalker.com
frequently generates a splash sign-up feature that obscures
the page. To make this pop-up disappear, simply click to
either side of the pop-up.

Who's Funding Draft Walker? Looks Like David Walker Knows

David Walker has become a ubiquitous presence, of late, on national television news programs.

Last Monday — the same day that the Committee to
Get Walker Running launched its Draft Walker effort with a new Web site, a press release, a Facebook page, and a Twitter feed — Walker was on MSNBC talking with Chuck Todd about the effort to draft him as a candidate on the Americans Elect line (video).

This past Sunday, Walker was on ABC as a panelist on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, who introduced Walker by saying that he was "from what I read online, perhaps an independent for President, this time around" (videos at the bottom of this item).

The fact is, with his media appearances and statements, no one has done more to fuel speculation about a David Walker candidacy than David Walker.

Indeed, although Walker tries to position himself as someone who is watching all of this from a distance — someone who knows only what he reads in the papers — Walker has given a number of cues, this past two weeks, that he knows a lot more about Draft Walker than he's letting on.

Yesterday, Walker was on Fox Business with Neil Cavuto. Apropos the question of the moment — Who's funding Draft Walker? — here's the relevant exchange (video starting at 0:48 — emphasis mine):

CAVUTO: You interested?

WALKER: I'm not a candidate, and I don't expect to be a candidate. I would rather run a issue-oriented campaign rather than a political campaign. But the fact is—

CAVUTO: But they think you could.

WALKER: Well, whether you can and whether you will are two different things. What I would prefer to do—

CAVUTO: They're backing it up with money, Dave.

WALKER: I understand that — well, I don't know that much about it, candidly. It's a truly independent effort. I'm not involved with it. I've not had communications with them.

 

A few observations:

1
When Cavuto says "they," he is referring to the Draft Walker committee and its supporters and volunteers.

2
When a national news anchor — whether on Fox or
any other network — says "They're backing it up with money," the word "money" is code for a significant amount of money. The kind of money that influences — and is intended to influence — decisions.

3
From the tone and the delivery of both Cavuto's comment — "They're backing it up with money, Dave" — and Walker's response — "I understand that" — it seems very clear that both host and guest are trading on the same background information.

Both Walker and Cavuto take two things as givens:
(a) that a pile of money is being made available for a Walker presidential run and (b) where that money is coming from.

4
What also seems clear is that David Walker does not want this information made public.

Note how Walker bows his head and looks away, as he
is saying "I understand that."

Notice, too, how fiercely Walker starts to backpedal — and that he introduces vigorous "denial" body
language — the instant those three words are out of
his mouth. "I don't know that much about it, candidly."
A classic "protest too much"-ish "tell" of someone who knows that he just has revealed a lot more than he intended to reveal.

But the cat already was out of the bag. Rough translation of what David Walker said to Neil Cavuto: "I'm aware that some big checks have been written or pledged to Draft Walker. I even know who the check writers are.
But — candidly — I don't know that much about Draft Walker. I don't talk to them directly."

Candidly. Like "frankly." One of those little words that almost never means what it says.

"I don 't know that much about it, candidly."

But I do know some.

::   ::   ::

So who's funding Draft Walker?

David Walker and Neil Cavuto seem to know.

Perhaps they and the committee would like to share
with the rest of us.

David Walker's Bio at the Draft Walker and No Labels Salon

It's very well known that Americans Elect advisory board member and draft candidate David Walker is the former Comptroller General of the United States.

It also is very well known that Walker is a co-founder of the group No Labels.

Indeed, Walker himself — in the statement he released last Tuesday, through his Comeback America Initiative — explicitly named No Labels as one of the things in his schedule that leaves little room for a presidential run right now:

I am not a candidate and don’t expect to become one. Rather, I am focused on
my many responsibilities, including serving...as a national co-founder
of No Labels and as a member of
A[mericans] E[lect]’s Board of Advisors.

And yet...

Had you visited NoLabels.org two days later — the same day that DraftWalker.com, the Web site of the Committee to Get Walker Running ("Draft Walker"), sprang to life — and had you scanned the "Our People" page, where for months Walker had been listed as a Co-Founder, you'd have come up empty. David Walker was nowhere to be found. Scrubbed.

Moreover...

When Draft Walker officially launched this past Monday, the committee did not mention Walker's role at No Labels (or, for that matter, his role at Americans Elect) in its press release — or in its bio of Walker — or in the editorial published the same day by committee co-chairs Yoni Gruskin and Ryan Schoenike.

::   ::   ::

By yesterday, David Walker's listing at NoLabels.org
had been restored — but with a difference.

On the "Our People" page at the No Labels site,
persons in various categories — from "Co-Founders" to "Citizen Leaders" to "Back Office Staff" — are presented initially as part of either a "grid" or a "list," with their names, photos and thumbnail biographical sketches. Clicking on any specific person's name directs to a dedicated page for that person, and sometimes this includes a slightly longer bio.

Here's a screenshot from the cache of David Walker's dedicated page at NoLabels.org, as it appeared on
April 5 — exactly two weeks before DraftWalker.com went from being a splash page to a full-fledged site (albeit a relatively simple one):

Click to enlarge.

At that time, as you can see, Walker's bio read:

Dave Walker has over 30-years of public, private and not-for-profit sector leadership experience. He has received three Presidential appointments with unanimous Senate confirmation from Presidents of both major parties, including his most recent as Comptroller General of the United States (1998-2008).

Here's a screenshot Walker's photo and thumbnail
bio, as it currently appears in the grid version of the
"Our People" page at NoLabels.org. The text of the bio
is the same, in the list version:

Click to enlarge.

Now, as you can see, Walker's bio reads:

Dave Walker has over 30-years of public, private and not-for-profit sector leadership experience.

Notice two things about David Walker's "new" bio at NoLabels.org.

First: The references to Walker's "three presidential appointments with unanimous Senate confirmation from Presidents of both major parties" and to his decade as Comptroller General of the United States have been deleted.

Second: It no longer is possible, as it was before — and as it remains with every other Co-Founder and, indeed, with every Citizen Leader and back office staffer on the larger No Labels list of "Our People" — to click Walker's name and get a dedicated photo-and-bio page for him.

::   ::   ::

What's up with all this shuffling and scissoring of
David Walker's bio?

Why is Draft Walker cropping David Walker's
No Labels and Americans Elect connections — if, in
fact, that's what it's doing?

Why, in its bio of David Walker, did No Labels trim the reference to his presidential appointments, including the one — Comptroller General — that anchors his brand as
a fiscal reform advocate?

Why is the biography of the tonsorially challenged Walker getting all these haircuts?

Perhaps even more to the point: Who is ordering them?

Another Question or Two for Mr. Walker of Americans Elect

David Walker wears a lot of hats.

• Former Comptroller General of the United States.

• Co-founder of No Labels.

• Beneficiary of Pete Peterson.

• Member of the Americans Elect Board of Advisors.

• Draft candidate of Americans Elect.

To name just a few.

Recently, Walker talked to the Washington Post (emphasis mine):

[Americans Elect founder and lead investor Peter] Ackerman's enlistment of advisers is formidable....

And from those advisers may come Americans Elect’s face-saving option. In the past month,
a small group of activists has emerged to recruit Dave Walker, an independent who
once ran the Government Accountability
Office, to run for president. Walker, who is
on the Americans Elect board of advisers, said that he knew about the effort and that an Americans Elect employee had stepped down to lead the draft movement. Also
in recent weeks, Americans Elect changed
the requirements Walker needs to meet to
win the nomination, revising the number of online supporters to 1,000 in 10 states
instead of 5,000 in 10 states.

“This is an issue-oriented movement, and they’re trying to put a face to the movement,” Walker said in a phone interview. He said his mission has long been deficit reduction and
the reorganization of the national debt. “For whatever reason, they believe I’m a person who symbolizes that. I guess they kind of view me as a means to an end.”

He remained, however, undecided: “My mama told me a long time ago you never say never.”

On Tuesday morning — the day after the Washington Post ran its piece on Monday — Walker released the following statement through his Comeback America Initiative (emphasis mine):

Reports in the media have mentioned an
effort to draft me as a candidate for President through the Americans Elect (AE) process, and I want to clarify my position. I am aware of this recent independent movement to draft me, which is an initiative by people who evidently share my views regarding the need for fiscal, political and other major reforms to keep America great. Importantly, their effort is unrelated to the Comeback America Initiative (CAI), No Labels, and AE organizations.

While I appreciate and am humbled by their efforts, I am not a candidate and don't expect to become one. Rather, I am focused on my many responsibilities, including serving as
CEO of the non-partisan CAI, as a national co-founder of No Labels, and as a member
of AE's Board of Advisors.

And then, by nightfall on Tuesday — be warned that, if you don't already have whiplash, you may be about to get it — Walker was out with a tweet saying (emphasis mine):

I am not a candidate for public office but will seriously consider it if the Independent Draft Committee qualifies me for the AE ballot. DW

::   ::    ::

Nobody does Americans Elect forensics better than Jim Cook at Irregular Times. And there's very little that I could say, about the connections and disconnections that Walker revealed with these three forays, that Cook didn't already say in his masterfully crisp untangling, on Tuesday evening — before word of Walker's tweeted re-reconsideration began making the rounds on Wednesday morning — of the web of relationships between Unity08, the 2008 Draft Bloomberg committee, Americans Elect, No Labels, Pete Peterson, David Walker and a 2012 Draft Walker committee.

But there is one — OK, a two-in-one — question that especially comes up for me right now, and I'd like to
put this to David Walker...

Mr. Walker, you make reference to "the Independent Draft Committee" and to "this recent independent movement to draft me." You are able to say what "they believe" — and this evidently is a specific "they," since you also are able to speak with declarative confidence in asserting that "their effort is unrelated" to three specific organizations. You even — according to the Washington Post — "knew about the effort and that an Americans Elect employee had stepped down to lead" it.

So, I have to ask...

Exactly which "Independent Draft Committee" —
and which former Americans Elect staffer — are
you talking about?

(Please don't think me rude, everybody, but the rest
of this is addressed to Mr. Walker. Do stick around, though.)

One might hope, I suppose, that someone who liked Americans Elect well enough to go work for it, and who then left the organization to draft someone else who actually was on the Board of Advisors of Americans Elect, would use AmericansElect.org to do the drafting.

Your profile at AmericansElect.org lists only one draft committee — the "'Let's get it done' draft committee for David Walker" — and two leaders of that committee: John Knubel and Richard Sulkovsky.

Is this "the Independent Draft Committee" — and is either John Knubel or Richard Sulkovsky the former employee of Americans Elect — that you're talking
about? Or is this the committee — but the former
staffer is behind the scenes and unnamed?

Or...

I notice that, among the Twitter accounts that re-tweeted your Tuesday night tweet were these two:

1
Rise of the Center — which is associated with the Web site of "centrist" politics run by Solomon Kleinsmith

2
Draft David Walker — which is associated with the Web site DraftWalker.com

Interestingly, a Whois search reveals that Kleinsmith is listed as the registrar of the DraftWalker.com URL.

Yesterday morning, DraftWalker.com was nothing more than a splash page, with this logo

Screenshot of DraftWalker.org, 19 April 2012 a.m.

and this sign-up form.

Screenshot of DraftWalker.org, 19 April 2012 a.m. (click to enlarge)

I noticed that this page was "Paid for by the Committee to Get Walker Running," and that the contact email was [email protected]

This group seemed to have set up a YouTube channel on Tuesday, and posted its first two videos yesterday (albeit with no credit to "the Committee to Get Walker Running.")

And, by early yesterday afternoon, there was a full-blown Web site — for how long had this been queued up? — listing the committee co-chairs as Yoni Gruskin and Ryan Schoenike.

A news item on the site even goes so far as to characterize the Washington Post report — including
your comments? — as a "preview" of the committee's efforts.

The committee still has the same name. And although the telephone number — 202-670-6365 — did, when I tried it, direct to a message from "the Committee to Get Walker Running," I couldn't help but notice the new contact email: [email protected]

Screenshot of DraftWalker.org, 19 April 2012 p.m. (click to enlarge)

So, is this "the Independent Draft Committee" — and
is Yoni Gruskin, Ryan Schoenike or Solomon Kleinsmith the former Americans Elect staffer — you're talking about? Or is this the committee — but the former staffer is behind the scenes and unnamed? (On LinkedIn, only Kleinsmith, of the three, cites any formal connection
to Americans Elect — but he lists himself only as a "Delegate Leader" of Americans Elect, and these are unpaid, i.e., free-labor, volunteer positions.)

Or...

Is there altogether some other committee that a former employee of Americans Elect "stepped down to lead"?

::   ::   ::

Oh, and, while you're here — sorry, I know I promised to ask just a couple of questions, but I do have one more...

You were careful to point out, in the statement that you released on Tuesday morning, that you are "focused on [your] many responsibilities, including serving as...a national co-founder of No Labels" (video at 0:02).

So why are you now scrubbed from the No Labels leader list?

 

Postscript: Jim Cook — whose tenacious and indispensable new analysis went up a couple of
hours before this more generally scoped piece — drills beneath many of the surfaces I scratch here and comes up with much new information. Ultimately, though, David Walker needs to answer all of these questions himself.

Depends What You Mean By "Reform"

The Big Hitch in Lawrence Lessig's Plan to "'Occupy' AmericansElect.org"

There is a moment, about two and a half minutes in
to Buddy Roemer's appearance with Americans Elect advisory board member Lawrence Lessig last month,
on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" (video), when Roemer
very emphatically — in a way that makes it clear that
this is the one message he wants the audience to remember — says:

"And the issue is reform — the issue is reform."

This dovetails very conveniently — perhaps
a little too conveniently — with Lessig's own
message in his compelling new pocket treatise,
One Way Forward, in which Lessig calls for citizens
to "'occupy' AmericansElect.org." Lessig discussed
this with the historian and journalist Colin Woodard,
for a piece that appeared a few weeks ago in the Washington Monthly.

Specifically, Lessig writes (emphases mine):

Become a delegate. Today. Make reform your number-one issue. Work to convince other AE delegates that this number-one issue for you should be the number-one issue for Americans Elect. And then cast your ballot only for a candidate who promises reform first.

Lay aside, for a moment, the fact that, in promoting —
and, indeed, campaigning with — Buddy Roemer as the "reform" candidate for whom Americans Elect delegates should be casting,* while at the same time serving in an official capacity as member of the Board of Advisors of Americans Elect, Lessig is in violation of both the spirit and the letter of the corporation's strict policy on neutrality (Section 10 of the corporate Rules and Sections 4.12 and 6.1 of the By-Laws).

Lessig's plan calls for Americans Elect delegates to use AmericansElect.org as the mechanism through which to identify and organize as "reform" delegates, and then to vote for a "reform" candidate.

Could Lessig's Web-based plan actually work?

::   ::   ::

NOT IF Americans Elect delegates would be relying on the Americans Elect Web site, to know what candidates mean by "reform."

Let's take another walk in the weeds, shall we?

Click in to any candidate profile at AmericansElect.org, and you'll see a list of nine "Priorities" — Economy, Education, Energy, Environment, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Immigration, Reform, and Social Issues — each with a numerical percentage that is meant to indicate the relative importance of that Priority to the candidate.

Screenshot from AmericansElect.org

Americans Elect uses this same list of nine Priorities to organize a much longer list of hundreds of multiple-choice questions — called the "True Colors" survey — that the corporation invites delegates to answer at AmericansElect.org (under "Colors"). Each question is identified as an Environment question, a Foreign Policy Question, a Reform question, and so on.

At the outset of this True Colors process, delegates
are asked to "Rank Your Priorities," then are invited
to answer nine "core questions," one question for each
of the Priorities.

The Web site uses these nine answers and self-
rankings to generate, for each delegate, a ranked
listing of "matches" — declared and draft candidates who, according to the "matching algorithm" at AmericansElect.org, most closely share the Priorities
of the delegate.

So, one would think that the definitions of the Priorities themselves — for example, the framing of "Reform" that Americans Elect uses for delegates and the framing of "Reform" that it uses for candidates — should, well...match. Yes?

Think again.

::   ::   ::

DELEGATES who begin the True Colors process are shown a wheel, like a pie — with each slice representing one of the nine Priorities.

Adjacent to the pie is a set of nine draggable sliders, each slider corresponding to one of the Priorities. As the delegate adjusts all of the sliders to reflect how s/he "ranks" the Priorities, the pie slices fill up with colors to reflect this weighting.

Screenshot from AmericansElect.org (click to read "Reform" pop-up)

Hovering over either the "Reform" slice of the pie or the "Reform" slider reveals the following explanatory pop-up text, which obviously is intended to guide the delegate in deciding how to rank this Priority:

Government regulation, campaign finance reform, judicial reform, legislative reform, electoral reform

Which is what most people — including Lessig — mean by "reform."

And, as one gets deeper into the True Colors survey,
the "Reform" questions do cover these sorts of issues.

But, once a delegate has completed the "Rank Your Priorities" section, the initial "core question" on
"Reform" — the one Americans Elect uses to help establish a delegate's candidate "matches" — would seem to have little at all to do with the establishing commonsense framing of "Reform" that is used
in the pop-up.

Screenshot from AmericansElect.org (click to read "Reform" question)

Which of the following comes closest to
your personal opinion?

A. To make this country great, we should return to the examples and values of our forefathers.

B. This country is already great, we shouldn't change a thing.

C. To make this country great, we should keep building and adapting for the future.

::   ::   ::

HERE'S where things start to get complicated.

Go to any candidate profile, and you'll see that the ambiguous "Reform" question and responses above are the same ones that Americans Elect uses to tell delegates and the public (1) what "reform" means to a given candidate and, given that definition, (2) how important "reform" is to the candidate.

Screenshot from AmericansElect.org (click to read "Reform" question)

But the candidates have not framed or answered this question themselves. Nor have they assigned their own ranking to the Priority to which this or any other of the questions and answers are meant to correspond.

Rather, Americans Elect pulls this information from OnTheIssues.org, a Web-based research service that tries to sift the votes and public statements of political figures into a matrix of various ranges of answers to questions.

The "answers" are not the actual answers of these figures. Rather, they are symbolic answers created by the On the Issues service; and these "answers" correspond to equally symbolic keywords and phrases, also developed by the service, to which the service has assigned actual "citations," in the form of a political figure's votes and public statements.

In other words: On the Issues has "plugged in" to its
own framework — as represented by its "questions" and "answers" — the on-the-record votes and comments of political figures.

Evidently, Americans Elect has contracted with On
the Issues to create, for the candidate profiles that appear at AmericansElect.org, a special "cut" of nine Priorities questions (and corresponding "answers") — based on the existing OnTheIssues.org database — called the "AmericansElect quiz." A "10th question" creates the relative weighting of candidates' "responses" to the first nine. These weightings are the percentages that appear in the Priorities graphic in Americans Elect candidate profiles.

From the explanation of the "AmericansElect quiz" at OnTheIssues.org (emphases mine):

The 10th question is the "weighting" for the first nine quiz questions. We weight the questions based on the relative number of citations for each question. If a candidate talks a lot about a particular issue, we include more citations on that issue; and hence that question gets weighted more....we infer each candidate's relative importance of an issue by how often that candidate talks about the issue....

We use a "framework for analysis" to associate each citation to an answer choice. For each possible quiz answer, we list keywords that
we associate with that answer choice. If a politician talks about the issue using the keyword listed below, we assign that answer (assuming the rest of the citation hints at that same answer — keywords might also
be used negatively!).

So, in theory, AmericansElect.org could flag someone as a "reform" candidate, simply because that person had spoken in ways that criticized "reform" or that ridiculed "reformers," and had spoken in these ways — a lot — using words and phrases that rang the bell of the On the Issues "framework for analysis."

::   ::   ::

BUT HERE'S WHERE the wheels really fall off of Lessig's plan — at least, to the extent that Lessig seems to see AmericansElect.org as a sufficient logistical resource for Americans Elect delegates committed to "reform," as he defines it, to identify, support and vote for an Americans Elect candidate who shares the same commitment.

Bear in mind that it is the Americans Elect corporation that has decided that this question...

Which of the following comes closest to your personal opinion?

coupled with one of these three "answers"...

A. To make this country great, we should return to the examples and values of our forefathers.

B. This country is already great, we shouldn't change a thing.

C. To make this country great, we should keep building and adapting for the future.

are all that any Americans Elect delegate needs to
know, in order to:

1
determine both what Candidate X basically
means by "reform" and, given that definition,
what "priority" that candidate places on
"reform"; and to

2
trust that the candidates that Americans Elect
"matches" to her, using this information, are
indeed reliable matches.

Recall, however, that On the Issues generates a political figure's "answers" by associating his or her specific on-the-record citations — votes, public statements — with one or more keywords and phrases that On the Issues has selected to signify that "answer."

Only by taking stock of all the keywords and phrases
that drive the three "answers" to the question on "Reform" can one fully understand how Americans
Elect is using the term "reform" on its Web site.

Why this matters: Since Americans Elect uses this
same question-and-"answers" combo on "Reform,"
both in candidate profiles and as the "core question"
on "Reform" in the delegate True Colors survey, the meaning of "reform" on which this Q-and-"A" trades features prominently in how Americans Elect uses "reform" to make delegate-candidate "matches" at AmericansElect.org.

So, here, from the "AmericansElect quiz" at OnTheIssues.org — question number 9 — is the
"Reform" question and the "answers," together with
the corresponding bulleted keywords and phrases that explain what the "answers" really mean.

You won't find this at AmericansElect.org.

Which of the following comes closest to your personal opinion?

A. To make this country great, we should return to the examples and values of our forefathers.

• Founding Principles

• Citing Founding Fathers

• Citing original Constitution

• Remove 10th amendment / 14th amendment

• "No foreign entanglements" (as a constitutional principle rather than as unilateralism)

• Free trade (if an issue of principle rather than a specific trade agreement)

B. This country is already great, we shouldn't change a thing.

• Maintain our sovereignty

• Support our troops

• American first

• Love it or leave it

• America is unique / light on the hill / an idea / shining city

• American exceptionalism

• American armed forces second to none

• Peace through strength

• Increase defense spending

• Restrict free trade (if on principle rather than a specific trade agreement)

C. To make this country great, we should keep building and adapting for the future.

• No Pax Americana

• No American empire

• End military adventurism

• Don't police the world

• America's long-term future

• Close all / most U.S. bases abroad

• Reduce American armed forces

• Decrease defense spending

• Free trade benefits both sides (if on principle rather than a specific trade agreement

::   ::    ::

THIS DRILL-DOWN is what lies beneath the "Reform" Priority in the online profile of every declared and draft candidate at AmericansElect.org.

Two things stand out. First: An Americans Elect candidate presented as picking "answers" A, B or C still could be presented as a candidate of "reform" — even though these "answers" can be diametrically opposed.

Second: The notion of "reform" that emerges here has to do with U.S. military and defense (and, to a lesser degree, trade) policy as refracted through various competing ideas about war and peace; nation building; and empire.

This obscure framing of "Reform" has nothing to do with the commonsense framing — "government regulation, campaign finance reform, judicial reform, legislative reform, electoral reform" — that Americans Elect uses to invite a delegate to consider how to rank "Reform" as a Priority, in the first section of the True Colors survey.

Nor, in guiding a delegate directly from this "Rank
Your Priorities" section of the survey to a "core questions" section in which the "Reform" question is wired to the obscure framing, does the interface at AmericansElect.org either (1) alert the delegate to the disconnect or (2) explain the connections between (a) the obscure framing, (b) the echo of the obscure framing in the candidate profiles, (c) the "AmericansElect quiz" at OnTheIssues.org, and (d) the use of both the obscure and the commonsense framing in the Americans Elect delegate-candidate "matching algorithm."

To be clear: On the "Reform" Priority, this "matching algorithm" is wired for failure. The algorithm seeks to make the closest delegate-candidate correlations, using for each a combined index of (1) one's perspective on "Reform" and (2) the level of importance that one attaches to that perspective, relative to one's perspective on eight other Priorities. For candidates, both the "perspective" and the "level" sides of the index are
based on the obscure framing of "Reform." But, for the delegate, the "level" side of the index is pegged to the commonsense framing and the "perspective" side to the obscure. Under these conditions, it simply is not possible for the algorithm to generate a reliable delegate-candidate "match" on "Reform."

Most problematic for Lawrence Lessig, this obscure military-defense-trade framing of "Reform" is not, in any way, the notion of reform that Lessig had in mind when he called on citizens to "'occupy' AmericansElect.org,"
in part, by using the site to identify and "cast [their] ballot[s] only for a candidate who promises reform first."

Lessig's chosen candidate, Buddy Roemer, told Joe Scarborough — twice in a row — that "the issue is reform."

But it's hard to imagine that Lessig has done his due diligence on this. Even Buddy Roemer right now is listed in his profile at AmericansElect.org as having made the "Economy" — not "Reform" — his top Priority.

Screenshot from AmericansElect.org (click to enlarge)

And, as we've seen, even if Roemer was flagged on his profile with the icon showing "Reform" as his "Highest Priority," it wouldn't mean what Lessig means.

The truth is, it's highly unlikely that delegates will be able to "'occupy' AmericansElect.org" for reform.

But, if they wish to try, they won't be able to use the Americans Elect Web site to find out who the true
reform candidates are.

* Lessig, in One Way Forward, also promotes Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz as a possible Americans Elect "reform" candidate.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet or Throwing in the Towel?

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.

:: :: ::

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 the message that Americans Elect is selling on Twitter or on Facebook, where two of its top stories today are about how "the two-party system" is "getting old" and about how this system "divides our government" and "stands in the way of progress."

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.

:: :: ::

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.

:: :: ::

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...

[Democracy] ÷ [D + R] = [meh]

Independent, Schmindependent

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."

:: :: ::

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?

Was it sending Bat Signals to Michael Bloomberg?

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"?

:: :: ::

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.

:: :: ::

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.

Americans Elect: A Duopoly Joint.