The founders of Americans Elect had a dream: A 50-state presidential campaign that would upend, smash, destroy the two-party system. Today, these founders admitted that it wouldn’t work. No presidential candidate had survived the first round of the online primary. At least $35 million had been spent on absolutely nothing.
Well, not quite nothing. We have three new tips for the next coalition of enlightened people who want to save American democracy.
1) Do not launch by telling the New York Times you’ve got “serious hedge fund” money.
2 ) Do not rent “swank offices a stone’s throw from the White House.” (Avoiding the serious hedge fund money could probably help with this.)
3 ) Don’t confuse the good intentions of Tom Friedman with an idea that makes sense.
Just how badly have they failed? To survive the primary, a candidate needed at least 10,000 supporters, 1,000 each from 10 states. Americans Elect claimed to have 420,000 or so such supporters. But Buddy Roemer, the former Louisiana governor turned Occupy sympathizer, had surged to the top of the pack with around 6,000 declared supporters—total.
When I reached him on Tuesday, Roemer was doing his clap-for-Tinkerbell best for Americans Elect. “They aren’t giving up,” he told me. “They will decide Thursday from what I’m told. They can’t get rid of me that easily, man!”
Sure, but what if they disappear? The Americans Elect die-off comes just over four years after the great Unity08 collapse. Both organizations promised red-blue bipartisan-détente tickets. Both offered the chance to be “founding delegates” from the comfort of your home. Peter Ackerman, a Unity08 veteran, attempted to correct the funding problems that plagued Unity08 by putting $8 million into Americans Elect. The results: ballot access in 26 states, a South by Southwest Interactive award, and bupkis.
Americans Elect can spin and prep for its latest delay (the May 15 candidate deadline used to be an April deadline), but we know that it’s failed, and we know why.
Read more at Slate.
