Kuttner on Americans Elect:" No Such Thing As Radical Center Party"

[KoKo]

(When I read this all I could think is that those Wall Streeters just never give up! This has it's big seed money from a Hedge Funders Kid) :grr:


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Kuttner on Americans Elect: No Such Thing As Radical Center Party


With Americans Elect creating a placeholder slot on the 2012 presidential ballot in most states, a critical election gets yet another wild card. If someone like Ron Paul or Donald Trump decides to make a go of it, then the third party will siphon mostly Republican votes and help re-elect Obama. If Michael Bloomberg gets the itch, he will likely siphon off more socially liberal independent votes that would otherwise go to Barack Obama, and help the Republican win. And in this age of televised political celebrity, there is even an outside chance that the latest celebrity flavor of the day could be elected. Trump as the ultimate political survivor; Bloomberg finds another office to buy.

Note that this hedge-fund-spawned third party is most likely to attract self-financing billionaires. This is one hell of an exercise in the people taking back their politics.

In a momentous election year, we are very likely to see two parallel political campaigns. In the main arena, Barack Obama, the Democrat, will duke it out with Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney.

But there will also be a shadow arena, in which Republican operatives try to make sure that the third party nomination goes to a quasi-Democrat, the better to draw off Democratic votes; and Democratic operatives try to do the opposite.

So we have wrongheaded ideology, married to a misguided diagnosis of what ails America, yoked to a perverse politics. Just about what you'd expect of hedge-fund billionaires meddling in electoral reform.

MORE...A good read at:
http://www.alternet.org/news/153589/kuttner_on_americans_elect%3A_no_such_thing_as_radical_center_party?page=entire

[countryjake]

1. Kick!

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