Americans Elect: Early Dirty Tricks
Another dirty trick tsunami may have been launched on Sunday by a group which calls itself "Americans Elect" (AE), a new political party that claims it's not a political party - just a movement. Put aside the hubris in their branding, the idea behind AE is to circumvent the party nomination process and put "non-partisan" candidates directly on ballots nation wide. Already promoted by Tom Friedman and Chris Mathews; David Gregory, on NBC's Meet the Press, gave the grifters a kick start with their first national Sunday network exposure -- and a soft ball set of questions.
Gregory mentioned Ross Perot and the Libertarians, but not how a third party "movement" helped to elect Bill Clinton twice. Clinton never got more than 50% of the vote in either election, but the Republicans lost enough votes to lose. Like the Libertarian Party, AE is attempting to cash in on the "plague on both houses" sentiment; more pervasive today than it was during Perot's marginal campaigns.
It's very unlikely that AE will have the juice to get anyone elected, but they may have the mustard, like Perot, to get more than a few Republicans beaten. And like the Libertarians, AE is likely to pare more votes from the Right than Left. There's a volatile mix of disaffection on the Right this year, the Left seems to know it's Obama or a Republican. In any close 2012 race, true conservatives would be most vulnerable to AE's back door tactics -- a slight of hand that could put a poison pill on ballots in every close race.
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