Day: August 29, 2011

Another Con Job?

Politics seems to be more and more just a con job, a scam, perpetuated on the American people…just think back over the last couple of years…..change…a con…..death panels, a con……just to mention a few…..the whole of American politics is based in some con or another….whether it is jobs or the economy or international situations, everything is a con!

I have watched the “third” way in politics over the decades…..you know Green Party candidates, independent candidates, etc, etc……there seems to be always some form of the “third” way in any election……back in 2006 I got involved in a group called Unity08…..in case you do not recall them….

Unity08 was an American political reform movement that sought to offer all voters an opportunity to directly engage in politics by ranking the most crucial issues facing the country, discussing them with the candidates and engaging in an online, secure vote to nominate a bipartisan alternative to the Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential tickets for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.   Founded in 2006, the group gained attention from various media outlets, with Newsweek‘s Jonathan Alter dubbing the group’s efforts a kind of open sourcepolitics……Unity08 had four major goals:

  1. Enable Americans to rank America’s most crucial issues.
  2. Empower Americans to draft or evaluate Unity08 candidates and actively engage them in debate about the crucial issues.
  3. Empower Americans to nominate a bipartisan Unity ticket via an online convention and secure voting process.
  4. Elect the Unity08 presidential ticket to national office.

The Unity08 presidential ticket was to consist of two candidates that come from different political parties. This bipartisan team was to propose a bipartisan cabinet in an effort to end paralysis in government. Co-founder Doug Bailey explained “What we are trying to do is to create a forum for people who are in the middle who have been left out of politics.”

It was a valiant attempt to try to inject a little sanity into the election…..the group disbanded in 2008, way before the election, citing that funding was a major obstacle……to me it look like a con job that sole purpose was to get Michael Bloomberg to enter into the race as an independent, but they wanted us mortals to offer up a combo of Dems/Repubs that would be a balancing ticket to the crazy of the two party system……

Recently, I have seen an alternative to the two party system…they call themselves……Americans Elect 2012……..on the surface it sounds like a good idea….but the more I thought about it, it seemed that it sounded a bit familiar…….

The official website for Americans Elect states that the organization has no ties to any political group – left, right, or center – and does not promote any issues, ideology or candidates. Any constitutionally eligible, qualified citizen—no matter their party—can seek the nomination, or be drafted by the delegates.   Other materials produced by Americans Elect state that the organization will promote the “sensible center”, centrist budgetary views, and a resurgence of centrist politics. The bylaws of Americans Elect state “The ticket shall be balanced around centrist principles…”

The co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum has argued that this announced “centrist” ideology is inconsistent with the organization’s stated commitment to an open, democratic process, because delegates given a free choice might select a candidate whom the directors did not consider centrist.

Americans Elect 2012 is an organization that was formed by many of the individuals that were responsible for Unity 08, and has substantially identical goals for the 2012 presidential election cycle.

I knew it was too good to be a coincidence!  Check into it if you are looking for a ‘third” way….but keep in mind that it could be a con job to get you to nominate those that the founders want to run the country….you are just a tool to get them there…..

Shall We Try a Third Party? (Again)

The weekend is over….and I know the people along the Eastern Coast are happy as Hell…..now we return to the world of cowards, liars and pundits…..politics will be up and running…….so onward and upward!

Remember the media whore…Nader and his 3rd party run?  Some could argue that he assisted in the Bush years…….or how about Buchanan or Anderson or Perot or Wallace or yada, yada…….there is always another party besides the horrible two…..we just do not hear about them as much…..and that is the fault of the media….that do NOT want a third party….they are happy to promote the two party system….any more than that and they will have to re-tool their rhetoric……

This election cycle….we have a Dem president and a whole array of whack jobs that are trying desperately to win the GOP nomination……and we have not heard from the usual suspects that seem to always try to nose their way into the political stage….you know, parties like Libertarian, Reform, Green on and on……but could this election cycle be different?

This time around we have the possibility of a real lunatic becoming the nominee of the GOP…..if that happens could we see a sane person try to peel off and run as 3rd party?  A sane person……say Huntsman…..I am not a big supporter but he does speak like he has at least half a brain which is twice as much as the rest of the field…..

But what could be the straw that breaks the 2 party back?  According to Matthew Dowd of the National Journal…….

I have created the scenario for an opening for a third-party run. So what are the likely outcomes if that happens (and as each day passes, it becomes increasingly possible that an independent could run) in the general election?

1. Based on the allocation of votes around the country; the Electoral College, which makes third-party success very hard; and the history of failed third-party candidacies, it is unlikely that an independent could actually be elected president. The deck is just stacked in favor of the two major parties, and the inherent electoral structure makes it incredibly difficult for anyone else to win.

2. The third-party candidate draws a large minority percentage of the vote, but doesn’t win any states (and thus, electoral votes). This scenario likely would reelect Obama, who then would just need 38 percent of the vote nationally to succeed. He could win enough states with a vote percentage in the 40’s to gather a majority of electoral votes. The Republican base would be below this threshold; and without enough votes to back the GOP nominee to kick Obama out of office because of the third-party siphon effect, Republicans would watch as a president without a majority of the votes gets reelected. This has happened a number of times in American political history.

3. The third-party candidate is able to win enough states (and hence electoral votes), to actually block both major-party candidates from winning the required 270 electoral votes. The election would then be thrown into the House of Representatives, which — when looking at how the voting works — would likely elects the Republican candidate. Why? Because each state is given one vote in this eventuality, and the congressional delegation from each state gets to decide how that one vote is cast. So Alaska gets the same power as California! Today, Republicans almost always win more states in national elections, and they will likely hold a majority of the delegations state-by-state in a new Congress. (At present, they hold the majority in 33 delegations.)

Dowd has some good thoughts about the possibility of a third party or even an independent…..but how successful do YOU think it would be?

Thoughts?