[EL] RE; Americans Elect

Fri Oct 14 16:50:32 PDT 2011

The political world is a cycle of well-intentioned, naïve, sophomoric
attempts to “fix everything” with simplistic actions coming from people who
become passionately wedded to their own ideas of what is good for us.

Other than that, all is fine.

Larry

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Thomas
J. Cares
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 3:54 PM
To: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] RE; Americans Elect

(I had trouble last time I tried to post to the list-serve, so I'm honestly
mostly sending this as a test (in that I probably wouldn't have sent this if
not partially motivated by the curiosity to see if it would work)).

I think AE shot themselves in the foot, with the requisite that their
Presidential and VP nominees not be of the same party. To me, this is like
walking up to a roulette wheel with the intent of making a sizable bet on 32
Red, but then taking an offer from the pit boss to bet on it landing 32 Red
twice in a row, with only one-and-a-half times the payout.

Even without this requirement, the odds would be stacked against AE
affecting how we elect Presidents. The odds of them also moving the American
people to agree with their insistence of having Presidents and Vice
Presidents from different parties - arguably even partially going back to
the days of Jefferson and Burr - are probably even worse, and they'd have to
compel both changes simultaneously. Not to mention this could incentivize
frivolous impeachment efforts from a highly polarized congress where power
alternates between the two parties, or, much much worse, incentivize
assassination attempts (to my knowledge there have been some plots against
just about every President in modern times, and that's without the
prospective that control of the White House would shift parties). 

With this requirement, AE has also prohibited themselves, in the 2012
election, from giving any fair consideration to the incumbent
administration. This, to some extent, destroys their credibility of being a
'real thing'. (And it provokes curiosity - fair or not - of impropriety over
whether this is just an anti-Obama group, as no one would expect Obama to
dump Biden just to appease this new organization).

And, of course, the merits in favor of the requirement are a bit flaky.

If it weren't for this, I would find AE to be rather promising (and very
exciting), but this is like the roach in the lobster bisque.

Thomas J. Cares

202-64-Cares
Tom at TomCares.com

On Friday, October 14, 2011, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com> wrote:
> It is far too early to predict that Americans Elect will injure President
Obama's chances of being reelected.  The policy preferences of the
relatively few people who have already signed up for AE's poll means very
little.  Once some powerful presidential candidate shows some interest in
the AE nomination, supporters of that person will vastly outnumber the
people who have already signed up, within the AE primary.
>
> Richard Winger
> 415-922-9779
> PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
> --- On Thu, 10/13/11, Paul Gronke <paul.gronke at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Paul Gronke <paul.gronke at gmail.com>
> Subject: [EL] RE; Americans Elect
> To: "law-election at department-lists.uci.edu Law"
<law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
> Date: Thursday, October 13, 2011, 10:14 AM
>
> Vince
>
> There is serious money behind this, but one of the criticisms of the
effort is the source of the money.  Youngish hedge fund managers from Wall
Street currently constitute the bulk of the financing.  They claim this is a
"loan" that will be paid back via other fundraising, but right now they are
constituted as a 501c(4) and do not have to report on fundraising (the board
membership is listed here: http://www.americanselect.org/who-we-are).
>
> I debated their national field director on a PBS show (archived here
http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/americans-elect/) since they are
circulating petitions in Oregon, and it's pretty clear that they are still
facing some growth pains.  For example, when asked about their donors, the
field director claimed that while they encourage their donors to reveal
their names, as a 501c(4), they  cannot legally release those names.  The
readership here can correct me if I'm wrong, but I told him I thought that
was not correct--they are not legally obligated to release the names, but
certainly could do so if they wanted to.  The whole point of a c(4)
designation, I thought, was to remove the disclosure requirement.
>
> They are doing some very interesting things.  They want to have a months
long national "convention" that could play the role of a deliberative forum
such as James Fishkin has sponsored in past election years.  They claim that
they will limit participation in the forum to validated registered
voters--though it is not clear how they will validate registration status
and how (or if) participant names will be permanently associated with
"handles" in the "convention."
>
> The biggest concerns I have expressed are two.  First, if they are really
concerned with partisan extremism, then focusing on the presidency is simply
the wrong target.  It's a pity to see substantial resources directed at the
wrong kind of reform.  They should, in my opinion, look to state
legislatures and the U.S. Congress if they are concerned with gridlock and
lack of competition.
>
> Relatedly, at the presidential level, they are quite obviously going to
act as a spoiler, and given the political leanings of their "membership",
they can only act as a spoiler on the Democratic side.   You can figure out
the political leanings by registering and filling out the issues poll--after
each survey item, they give you the opinions of the current membership.  Of
the responses a week ago, this sure looks like a Obama-esque agenda:
>
> 72% think it is good or very good to continue the payroll tax reduction
>
> 80% think it is a good idea to use fed funds to pay teacher salaries, and
82% fed funds to pay for music and art programs
>
> 40% recycle always and another 47% often
>
> 70% support a health insurance mandate and 92% either support either very
strong (68%) or weak (24%) federal regulation of private insurance
companies.
>
> 60% oppose the death penalty
>
> 60% want to withdraw all troops from all foreign countries
>
> 60% support more and 9% the same level of federal spending for an economic
stimulus
>
> 63% support a federally standardized abortion law
>
> ---
> Paul Gronke                Ph:  503-517-7393
>               Fax: 734-661-0801
>
> Professor, Reed College
> Director, Early Voting Information Center 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
> Portland OR 97202
>
> EVIC: http://earlyvoting.net
>
>
>
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