The deadline for Americans Elect is here and they still don’t have a candidate.
This failure threatens to kill the effort to field a bipartisan third ticket for president before it ever really began—despite $35 million spent and 420,000 people signed up to serve as online delegates.
But supporters and advisors are planning to soldier on, extending the deadline and talking to delegates about possibly opening the process further to encourage greater participation.
“As of today, no candidate has reached the national support threshold required to enter the ‘Americans Elect Online Convention’ this June. Because of this, under the rules that AE delegates ratified, the primary process would end today,” organizers said in a statement released at midnight on the 15th. “There is, however, an almost universal desire among delegates, leadership and millions of Americans who have supported AE to see a credible candidate and ticket emerge from this process.” Read More…
It’s RINO hunting season, and Dick Lugar has a big target on his back.
The six-term Indiana senator was once Richard Nixon’s favorite Republican Mayor—but Tricky Dick looks like a hippie compared to the Tea Party crowd, and Lugar has several sins alleged against him that could lead his party to purge him on Tuesday.
First, he’s on speaking terms with some Democrats. Second, he once co-sponsored nuclear non-proliferation legislation with Barack Obama. Third, as the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he definitely knows who the president of Uz-becki-becki-stan is. Read More…
There will be an alternative to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney this fall: A bipartisan ticket chosen in an open online convention that begins May 15, courtesy of the organization Americans Elect and its founder and chief funder, Peter Ackerman.
It is an audacious if untested challenge to the duopoly of the Democratic and Republican parties, delivered by the somewhat reclusive and controversial multimillionaire who has avoided talking to the press—until now, when he agreed to sit down with The Daily Beast. Read More…
The headline should be striking: U.S.A. Stops Illegal Immigration from Mexico in its tracks.
That’s an underlying insight in a study by the Pew Hispanic Center released days before the Supreme Court heard arguments over the controversial Arizona illegal immigration law.
It represents a rare success on a contentious culture-war topic, driven in large part by economic trends that have driven down demand for undocumented labor but also by dramatically increased border enforcement under President Obama. The bottom line: a four-decade flood of illegal immigration through our southern border has been slowed to a trickle. Read More…
John Avlon on CNN’s Out Front talks with David Frum and Faiz Shakir about fairness and Mitt Romney’s campaign strategy for the begining of the 2012 presidential election.
