Per Jim Cook at Irregular Times, the libertarian millionaires running “nopartisan centrist” Americans Elect still haven’t been able to sell their preferred trojan horse on the open online market:
Out of three originally scheduled ballots, there is only one ballot left in the Americans Elect presidential primary process, because no candidate to date has qualified. The privatize-social-security draft candidate David Walker is painfully far behind. In order to get on the Americans Elect ballot, the rules stipulate a candidate must obtain 1,000 votes of support from each of 10 states by May 15. That’s 10,000 votes in a candidates top ten states; David Walker has accumulated only 318.
In its last gambit, the Draft Walker campaign has “invited” Buddy Roemer to make David Walker his Vice Presidential candidate…
(Poor Buddy. On the other hand, he did volunteer for this sideshow.) Much more information at the link. I guess the “good” news is that, okay, at least the Average American Voter isn’t quite stupid enough to throw his allegiance at a bunch of Rich Fvcks just for the ideological purity of it all — you have to offer at least a public carnival or some primetime TV spots if you want the rubes to vote for disenfranchising themselves.
And since we’re speaking of time-wasting and idleness, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Yutsano
My last OT shift before I get carved is close to over. Gonna drive home by the zoo. This day is awesome weather-wise.
Litlebritdifrnt
Baby back ribs and a crackling cold French Chablis. Bliss.
jenn
Oh, my word. There is not enough brain bleach in the world. I wanted to make sure that the plumbing term I was going to use in an email was correct – so I googled the definition of rotorooter. I really wish I hadn’t done that.
kdaug
Trying to recover from drinking until 5:00 AM.
Probably not smart, but definitely worth it.
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Best with your procedure (if that’s the right word)!
Hope everything goes well. Hoping you get some agreeable male nursing.
BGinCHI
@kdaug: Pictures or it didn’t happen.
Tony J
So, let me get this straight.
The awesome Third Party juggernaut that was going to smash the 2012 Election wide open by giving the electorate a moderate-centrist choice for President that wasn’t Barack Obama and/or blackity-black and crazy liberal can’t even get enough votes to qualify for the job? And it’s only 10.000 votes spread over 10 states?
So Friedman is still in with a chance of being nominated from the floor at the AE Convention? Smart! I knew this day would come.
Tony J
@kdaug:
It’s never smart, but it’s almost always worth it.
But as my sainted granny always said, “Wait until your seratonin levels have bounced back before you make that judgement, young man.”
pat
Canvassing in La Crosse, Wisconsin, selected addresses, for the recall election on June 5. Found 28 people home, 21 will be voting for Tom Barrett. A few “undecided.”
King salmon (broiled), boiled little yellow potatoes with butter and chives, avocado, cucumber and yellow tomato salad with goat cheese.
No TV tonight, so we will eat on the porch. Lovely weather.
Bought impatiens to plant tomorrow.
Yay spring!
Tony J
@Yutsano:
See these fingers?
X
Enjoy the zoo. If you see Clime Acts, throw some back.
jurassicpork
I apologize in advance if you live in any of these states so don’t say I didn’t warn you about my list of the 25 Most Embarrassing States in America, perhaps my most vicious post of all time.
kdaug
@BGinCHI: Ain’t got no pictures, but I sure as shit got the hangover to prove it.
Wasn’t a sexy-time thing, it was a bizdev thing.
It will serve me well in the future.
And for the record, I was wearing my Tunch shirt.
BGinCHI
@kdaug: Nice on the Tunch shirt. Obviously it was bizdev casual.
They make apps that map your bike ride and your run. They need one for pub crawls. It would track your progress in miles, drinks, money spent, and maybe, um, other.
RossInDetroit
Agenda? People have agendas on Saturday? Where am I and where did Balloon Juice go?
Tony J
@pat:
Does ‘selected addresses’ mean canvassing known supporters to keep them motivated? Because if it does that sounds a bit “Ooohhhhh”. 1/4 of the vote still isn’t sure? Hopefully that’s not the case, and ‘selected addresses’ means possible swing voters in a certain area.
Your American terminology is confusing to me. 8-)
David Koch
surprised that Kucinich isn’t running for the American Select nomination
kdaug
@BGinCHI: Game industry. Everything’s casual.
pat
Yes, “selected addresses” seem to have been selected to “get the vote out.” Mine not to question why….
We did the same thing in 2008, as I recall.
The undecideds might have just been coy about naming their choice, and as I recall we got few who were absolutely going for Walker. Some of them were against the recall per se… As I said, I don’t plan it, I just follow orders.
edit: It is going to be a squeaker. I met Tom Barrett today at headquarters. Nice guy, well spoken, taller than I expected.
Gin & Tonic
@jenn: You must use a different Google, as all I get is links to the drain cleaning/plumbing franchises. Nothing that requires brain bleach.
Amir Khalid
Americans Elect basically tried to build itself as a new kind of political party from the top down. The Very Serious People who thought up Americans Elect apparently believed their Very Seriousness would be enough to make it a force in presidential politics.
But you don’t build a house by suspending a roof in mid-air and then putting up the walls to support it. This scheme to pick a presidential candidate on the Internet was never going to succeed. Americans Elect has not built up a real party base to choose a candidate. And it has only fringe candidates to choose from anyway; no serious candidate would want to tie his fortunes to an essentially nonexistent political party.
Not enough people even know about Americans Elect, let alone take it seriously. It is not the force in the presidential race that it staked its credibility on becoming. It has failed. And its Very Serious backers will wind up blaming the American public for not being Serious enough about choosing a national leader to do it their way.
kvenlander
I was really disappointed to hear Lawrence Lessig shilling for American Select on my radio the other day. I thought he was smarter than the average bear.
JoyfulA
@jurassicpork: You’ve got your Carolina senators mixed up. And that ugly American is merely porky.
Egg Berry
@Amir Khalid:
Yes. The Internet would predict this. Maybe they should have asked /b/
Suffern ACE
Watching James Carville on CNN. I’ve wondered about that vaunted Clinton War Room and the advisors they brought in. Dick Morris, Mark Penn, David Gergen. How did such negative fools ever help the party?
Jay C
@Amir Khalid:
Naaah, I wouldn’t imagine so: for one, I think the Serious Money Folks backing AE seem to have rigged their financing
scamarrangements so that even if he whole thing tanks (which seems likely), they will get their money (or most of it) out of it off the top. For another, even dilettantish political dilettantes like AE usually don’t incinerate ALL their bridges after driving off them: even though they might want – very badly – to rant away about how stupid the halfwitted Public might be for failing to get the Great And Glorious Message they’ve been peddling, enlightened self-interest usually impels them to keep mum….David Koch
@Suffern ACE: Clinton won in spite of those idiots.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suffern ACE: Mr Mary Matalin and Gergen pretty much sum up why I don’t bother with CNN anymore. And I rarely agree with Cenk Ugyur, but he was right on that score, they need to start over again from scratch.
The Sailor
@kdaug: “Trying to recover from drinking until 5:00 AM.”
EDIT: I recovered from drinking by starting at 5:00 PM.
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The basic message was that Obama needed to run the perfect campaign and now it’s over. I had to laugh. Does he honestly think same sex marriage polls as poorly as say fucking aspiring country music stars who arent your wife did in 1992?
David Koch
@kvenlander: Lessig doesn’t seem to understand politics. He thinks you can win an election without money simply on issues and using the … wait for it.. the bully pulpit.
Seriously, that’s retard. Elizabeth Warren is running in a well educated, deep blue state, and even though she’s a great communicator, there isn’t a person who believes she can win without raising significant money.
He naively and foolishly believes the hedge fund billionaires running American Elect are altruistic and wouldn’t ask for anything in return for their cash. He really believes that all money corrupts, except his set of wall street money men.
He also has grandiose delusions that electing a president alone can break the logjam of obstruction from the GOP House. I’m mean, really, does anyone think the teatard House, who oppose all government, and who are funded by their own set of billionaires, are suddenly gonna start passing major big government legislation, simply because some wrinkly old bald guys asks?
Some people just aren’t cut out for politics.