What’s Your Centrist / Moderate 2012 Presidential Dream Ticket?
Bumping this back up to the top & resetting the comments. The previous discussion went a totally different direction than was the purpose of the post – this is about who would be the best non-Bloomberg, realistic choice for centrists to back for the Americans Elect nomination. Scan over the following post and give your favorite candidate(s) and or ticket below. -SK
With it seeming likely that the follow up organization to Unity ’08, Americans Elect, will actually achieve their goal of getting a presidential ticket on the ballot in all 50 states, I think it a valuable exercise for the most engaged centrist and moderate types like us to start talking about who we might try to throw our support behind.
It’s likely that some bigger name figure from one side or another will jump in and pull in a lot of support, but there is also the chance that someone will pull a Buchanan. For those that don’t get the reference, Patrick Buchanan took over the Reform party in the 1999/2000 election cycle, after Perot let his ego get in the way of the party potentially evolving into a lasting force behind the candidacy of the probably nominee before he came back… Richard Lamm (former moderate democratic congressman from Colorado).
Buchanan had an army of disillusioned conservatives who left the Republican party to roll with the Reform Party, both failing miserably in the general election and destroying what was left of the Reform Party in the process.There is a lot of leeway in the rules for this sort of thing to happen… all the rules say is the candidates have to be from two separate political groups – either a democrat or republican, or replace one of those two with an independent – and anyone, regardless of party affiliation, will be allowed to vote.
It’s unclear whether the committee that will screen candidates will allow people like the following to run, but if they do we could be in for a nomination fight. For example… a crackpot right winger like Donald Trump or Tom Tancredo, a libertarian with a zealous following – Ron Paul, a left winger who has been rumored to be considering running against Obama – Bernie Sanders (who is technically an independent, so he could run with a democrat),
I really am convinced that Michael Bloomberg isn’t interested in running. If he changes his mind I think he immediately becomes the winner overnight, hands down. But lets, just for now, assume he doesn’t change his mind and look at other potential options.
In a best case scenario, we’d be able to come to some kind of consensus on a candidate several months ahead of time, and coalesce a loose Draft____ groundswell and help them onto the ticket.
Criteria (partially based on the Americans Elect vague criteria):
1) National Profile of some kind. Doesn’t have to be a necessarily major figure, but you can’t start from zero and have much of a chance.
2) Not a total political novice. Not necessarily an elected official, or former elected official, but at least very active in politics in a public way.
3) No serious personal defects (ala no Eliot Spitzer, or similarly disgraced former elected official).
4) Is likely to be able to have a good working relationship with a moderate on the other side, so the ticket can span a bigger tent and have a better shot at winning, or at least getting more votes.
5) And preferably has SOME charisma… some X factor that will attract people to them on a personal level, like how Obama is a hell of a speaker and Romney just looks the part of a presidential candidate.
6) If still a member of another party, a compelling case that they would want to leave (this probably disqualifies people like Olympia Snowe).
Names Mentioned Previously
(don’t limit yourself to this list… these are just the names I’m hearing about the most, and names that had a lot of support in the message boards of Unity ’08)
Colin Powell – Question is… is he interested, and will he leave his party? He’s said he essentially hates the idea of running for president, but as a moderate GOPer, he may be ripe for defection.
Alan Simpson & Erskine Bowles – Downside is these guys are ancient… upside is they pushed for what the country needed a while ago fiscally and the two major parties they used to be big figures in ignored them.
Tom Brokaw – Or some figure like him. Someone with a lot of respect, but not specifically political has some allure to it.
Evan Bayh – Although he damaged his brand significantly when he signed up to be a lobbyist after he left office.
Mike Castle – I met him at the No Labels launch in December… has got to be pissed that a wingnut like Christine O’Donnell was able to knock him out in the primary.
Richard Lamm – He’s getting up in the years, but he would have been a fantastic candidate ten years ago, and would still be now.
Eliot Cutler – Nearly won the governorship of Maine last year. Independent moderate, from what I’ve seen, and working on a state level moderate political action organization called OneMaine – a trailblazer for moderates in every sense of the word.
Dave Morin – Lesser known, but an internet multimillionaire that helped start No Labels. Someone with a compelling story like that, and some seed money in their pockets, might be an interesting addition to the ticket. Some other charismatic businessperson or entrepreneur might also be great, since a political campaign is much like a startup, and they’d be likely to be connected to money and be able to attract people from the small business community. I’d also put the owner of Panera on here.
Joe Scarborough – I’m not sure he’d even be interested, but he’s got a moderate streak and a huge following.
Who am I missing? Comments on folks mentioned above? Who’s campaign would you sink a huge portion of your free time into?
I’d definitely put Powell on the ticket, probably as VP since foreign policy (obviously his area of expertise) will be secondary to the economy in 2012. As for president, I’m inclined to pick someone like New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch or New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman.
I do agree with Jeff’s message about focusing on legislative races for now. One to two terms of making incremental gains in Congress, as well as a few gubernatorial elections, should open us up to challenging the presidency later.
I do think that this ticket doesn’t have much of a chance of winning this cycle, but if it makes a decent show of it, builds on the network it starts next year from 2013-2015, and other variables trending our way… I think 2016 is within reach.
But yeah, as my broken record says… more focus needs to be at the state level. But those efforts can piggyback on the groundswell this could cause and really amp up their own efforts.
Has to be Bloomberg. He’s not in the running now, but I’d bump the odds up significantly if a Bachmann or a Perry is the Republican nominee. It might sound far fetched, but I could envision a scenario where he wins.
Who would you pick if he chooses not to run? Probably not as a candidate with much of a chance of winning, but as a candidate who would help found a network that would lead to more down the line?
Point of this is to start identifying likely candidates that we might try and draft. Like it or not, every indication is Bloomberg is not a likely candidate.
As I read somewhere in 2008, there’s the following problem with a strong Bloomberg (or other) showing in Electoral votes. If no one won a majority of Electoral votes, the House of Reps chooses the next president, and each state has just one vote in that, which means (these days) almost an automatic Republican victory from that scenario.
There will always be growing pains and negative side effects, or in other words “taking a few steps back, to get a running start forward”, to starting something like this.
We can’t wait any longer. Americans Elect is here, right now. If we pass up on taking advantage of the opportunity, who knows if something like this will come again in the next 15-20 years, like the last time it did.
In other words, I’d trade a Romney presidency for the foundation for a lasting centrist party to finally be built.
Fund raising will be very difficult for the Americans Elect ticket. Unfortunately, personal wealth to finance the campaign will be a key ingredient for a win.
Without vast wealth, the AE ticket will need to build, rather than buy, a national infrastructure. Someone with great name recognition and a large personal network will be the key.
For me (and I recognize that I am not a typical voter), it is all about the substance of the message. I want a ‘doer’ – someone who can get the job done. I want someone running for the proper reasons. I want someone who is not acting ideologically – but pragmatically.
There are terrific pragmatists in both parties. Hopefully AE can begin to draw them out to the middle.
I’ll disagree on the money issue. I don’t think you need to have as much money as the two major parties do, you just need to qualify for federal funding. That amount is plenty to mount a competitive run. You run to win, but in the process you build the network for the next run as well, like any other major party race does. It’s not just about the win or loss… we need to look long term.
That being said, having a billionaire as a candidate would certainly make things easier. It’s just not an excuse to not go ahead.
And please folks… this thread is about who you think would be the best non-Bloomberg candidate, not about Bloomberg.
The story goes that Bloomberg isn’t interested unless he sees a significant chance that Obama could lose, particularly to one of the Republican right wingers. That doesn’t look likely.
For me, unless it’s a Bloomberg and the above scenario develops, or somehow Obama isn’t the Democratic nominee, I would not support a third party centrist ticket. In my view, it is essential that (relatively centrist) Obama be reelected as there is no longer such a thing as a relatively centrist Republican. With the Republican party in its present state of craziness, anyone with an “R” behind their name must kowtow to the right wing zealot base. That means to me, a lifelong Republican, that Obama is the only choice and anything that decreases the likelihood of an Obama win is dangerous for the country. Obama may not be perfect but he’s much better than any Republican alternative.
Just to frame this debate here…
We don’t have the option to not have Americans Elect nominate someone. They’re going to regardless of what people like us say, and will do so in all 50 states, or near to it. All we have available to us is the option of who we support. If the center doesn’t coalesce around someone, we run the chance of seeing some right or left winger take the nomination, and lose the opportunity to harness this wave and use it to start to build something nationally.
And if Bloomberg runs, he’ll win the nomination hands down, making this thread becomes moot. But he has said very plainly that he isn’t interested, and intends to finish out his term, so this conversation is not about him, it’s assuming he doesn’t run and talking about the best alternatives.
So just for this thread, please stick to the question at hand:
Who you think is the best candidate/ticket, using the criteria above?
I’d say Christie/Liebermann except for the final criteria so make it Petraeus/Liebermann
Christie is no extremist conservative, but he certainly is no moderate.
Do you have any indication that he would leave his party? He’s both squarely in the GOP tent, and popular in the party. I don’t see any reason why he’d even consider leaving…
Who knows about Patraeus.
Christie is certainly a moderate, he crosses the aisle on too many issues not to be considered one. What he is not is a centrist, or a person who tries to go for bipartisanship for its own sake.
No, I have no indication he would leave the GOP, and that is why I made note that I would disqualify him if I use your stated criteria due to your final one.
Christie is currently popular in the GOp because of his style, but there have been some attacks on him for being a “RINO”. Check out this piece from David Frum
http://www.frumforum.com/chris-christie-rino-tough
“If he were a soft-spoken, conciliatory Northeastern budget-balancer, he’d be dismissed as a Bill Weld/Mike Castle RINO. But instead, he’s an-in-your-face confrontationalist. So he can favor handgun control and still be the Coulter choice for president. Just so long as he’s rude about it.”
I think Mickey Edwards has to be part of the conversation here. If you don’t know know anything about him, read this piece:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/how-to-turn-republicans-and-democrats-into-americans/8521/1/
He’s awesomely centrist/moderate. He’s got a great attitude and a great perspective. He’s by no means young, but he really understands WHY the two parties are broken.
I’d say Cutlar/Edwards.
As I said earlier, Lynch or Bingaman/Powell.
First off, Chris Christie is no moderate. The guy is hard right.
OK, let me think here. The Republican party has been hi-jacked by the far right, but a couple of people interest me. Mike Castle is a good choice and David Gergen would be an excellent choice. Center left are people like Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford Jr. Arlen Specter.
Oh puuuulease.
Christie supports a path to citizenship
Christie is pro-gun control
He didn’t sign onto the Obamacare lawsuit
He supported the regional greenhouse gas initiative
He appointed Paula Dow (liberal) to be State AG
Believes in global warming
Refuses to end sanctuary cities in his State
Supported Mike Castle over Christine O’Donnell
Took a moderate position on the ground zero mosque.
Did not want drilling near the New Jersey coast (the Obama plan was for it)
—————–
Anymore hard right and he’d probably be a democrat.
I actually like Christie very much, but he would have to improve in some areas. He seems genuine, down-to earth and charismatic. I like people like who are able to commuicat in a clear, and decisive way . He would bring a freshness to the White House not seen in a long time. Since he will not run in 2012, I’d like to see him installed there after that. I think that is Christie’s strategy after all.
Yeah, he’ll likely run in 2016, unless his time in the NH Governor’s mansion somehow seriously tarnishes his national image.
He’s not an option here though.
As for the rest, Liebermann, Ford, and Castle are all good choices.
Gergan is about as exciting as a hemaroid, and Specter an opportunist politician.
Ford/Castle or Castle/Ford would be an EXCELLENT ticket.
Specter doesn’t have enough juice to run for president, and Gergen is a staffer, not a politician. But I’m a big fan of Castle, and the fact that I met him at the No Labels launch event in December is an indication he’s with us in spirit.
Lieberman would be good. I think Ford would be better because he’s got more of that X Factor going on, but I would certainly vote for either.
Put an older guy with a younger guy… Castle/Ford or Ford/Castle.
One captures some of the moderate dem vote, the other some of the moderate GOP vote – and they own the center.
One comes off as a stable leader in times like this, with a history of fiscal sanity (Castle), one is more of a charismatic type (Ford).
That’s a hell of a ticket. Best idea I’ve heard so far.
We really need fresh blood and the best frewsh blood out there would be Chris Christie
Chris Christie and Evan Bayh
No way Christie leaves the GOP… I was a fan of Bayh, and still am of his politics, but he seriously tarnished his image when he became a lobbyist pretty much right after he left office.
I agree.
Powell/Brokaw – Colin Powel brings leadership, experience, charisma. Tom Brokaw brings trust, knowledge, fresh viewpoint. Bring in Gergen as chief of staff and convince Bloomberg to accept a key cabinet position. Ticket also gives the African-American and Hispanic communities an alternative to Obama. This ticket would get my time, treasure and whatever talent I can bring to the election effort.
I could definitely get behind that.
Avlon/Snowe. Not nec in that order.
I don’t see Christie as hard right either. I think he has a lot of independent support, mostly because he’s fiscally responsible and has not, at this point (to my knowledge), expressed any particular interest in pandering to socons.
But it surprises me not one single iota that folks who lean liberal will insist that he’s very conservative. So much so that I wouldn’t even waste time on such an argument.
Essentially, the mileage is going to be this:
•If you lean liberal, you will think Christie is right wing.
• If you are moderate or independent, you will class Christie the same, serious on fiscal matters, tolerant to uninterested on social issues.
•If you are a social conservative, you’ll call him a RINO for failing to consistently voice socon platitudes.
Were Christie to decide to run for the GOP prez nomination, he would certainly be required to make peace with the need to somehow consistently voice those socon platitudes. If he wants to, you know, win the nomination.
That’s the political reality of it. And that’s why I am putting stock in the measure I’ve been taking of him for the last year or so. I feel pretty safe in presuming that he is not very interested in the pet issues of social conservatives, and that whatever he might say as a candidate would be lip service, and something I can safely disregard.
Now, I WISH that there was room for a straight shooter who was fiscally responsible and somewhat libertarian or at least pretty tolerant on social issues. But I believe the straight shooter part to be a fantasy. IMO such a candidate cannot win the nomination of either major party in the current political climate.
So I’m willing to settle for a candidate that I believe is fiscally responsible and tolerant on social issues but who has accepted the need to blow smoke up socon buttpipes. IOW, I believe that it’s a necessary condition for any viable presidential candidate to be full of shit on some subset of the issues, and it’s up to savvy independent voters to figure out which issues that candidate is passionate about and which ones he is not going to push on, regardless of the positions he has stated.
Notice that this is essentially backward from how the general public interprets the tea leaves. The public has much more of a tendency to put stock in the NEW positions and forget or disregard the old ones. For example, if and when Christie were to make vague but prominent statements supporting socon positions, many liberals will immediately throw him under the “hard right kook” bus. And if any GOP nominee sails towards the middle after capturing the nom, the hard right will begin to express doubt and dismay instead of believing that their guy has begun to blow smoke in order to win the general election.
My guess is that this phenomenon has to do with the very unwonky make-up of the general public. That overwhelming majority of Americans takes their first serious look at a candidate only a few months before the election.
I’d LOVE to see Snowe break off from the GOP… in a way I’m a bit disappointed that her primary opponent seems weak.
I’ll see if John Avlon would like to comment on this :)
You left out huge swaths of the spectrum in that little three choice thing about Christie. I don’t think he’s a right winger or moderate. I think he’s a mainstream conservative.
Just so you know, even though I knew he’d say no, I asked Avlon about this in the last email I sent to him.
I hope he doesn’t mind that I quote part of the email he sent me, but the crux of his reasoning behind not considering it are that he thinks that…
“people should build careers and lives before they run for office, otherwise they lose all perspective – if a person does it, I believe they should do it as a citizen first, for only part of their career. And start local, for god’s sake.”
As usual… I agree with him entirely.
My sense of figures with military backgrounds is that they seem to lack much understand or appreciation of the dynamics of civilian life. The military is a hothouse of sorts. Figures like Powell and Petraeus are guys who get the hero bump, but don ‘t they often turn out to be blank slates with no real relevant info to fill in the blanks? In other words, they only understand military politics and foreign policy to some extent, but seem lacking in domestic and economic expertise.
For this reason, I find it hard to imagine a high-ranking military figure becoming President without also gaining experience as say a governor. Unless we had extraordinary circumstances like an imminent military threat or the ouster of a President under Nixonian circumstances.
I think Powell has been around the block enough to be a good non military leader. For him the issue is that he’s turned down running for president several times already… worth another ask perhaps?
Patreaus is a total unknown quantity. We don’t even know what his beliefs are really, besides rumors he’s a republican that I’ve heard. Could be a moderate, could be into the Tea Party, who knows.
Sol, the problem with your comment is that it suggests that what you think of as a “mainstream conservative” really is mainstream. A good argument can be made that if you don’t strongly support socon views, you’re out of the mainstream.
Or alternatively, there’s this silent mainstream of conservatives that are pussies, afraid to stand up to socons.
If we look at the average political position of the republicans recently elected to congress, who’s the mainsteam, the ones who are fiscally responsible, or the ones who are BOTH fiscally conservative and mouth all the socon platitudes?
No need to call people names like that man, c’mon. The vast majority of the country will back off when a political freak show gets in their face… just because they aren’t as strong willed as people like us are, who will get right up in their face, doesn’t mean they’re “pussies”. They’re just normal people.
When I say mainstream I mean average conservative. Most conservatives are not hard line on everything, they are just in line with standard conservative thinking most of the time, and they will compromise when they can’t get all of what they want. This is the sort of conservative Christie maps out to being, from what I’ve seen of his actions and statements of political opinion over time.
But again… for the sake of this thread… totally moot.
Don’t forget Chuck Hegel- he’s conservative, but not dogmatic- broke with Bush over the conduct of the War in Iraq and Guantanamo- very respected, ethical guy- would make a great presidential or VP candidate
Long shot for ever leaving the party, but as someone who lives in Nebraska… I can tell you the republican party here does not like him, and would not be unhappy to see him leave. Still doubt he’d do it though.
Also, I think Christie would move to the center once he was nominated as a candidate as they all do.
But there is zero chance he’d accept a nomination from anyone but the GOP. He’s shown every indication that he’s building a network of support among republicans nationally… doing fundraisers for right wing congressman in Iowa just a couple weeks ago for instance.
Again… please use the criteria above. Christie just doesn’t work.
I though the criteria was to dream. :-)
Also I wasn’t imagining a new party, just a possible ticket that could appear on the final ballot. If Christie/Snowe appeared on the GOP ticket, I’d still view it as a “center-ist” ticket.
Side note: isn;t the debt ceiling debate a perfect moment to publicize and encourgae sentiment against both parties’ behavior in congress?
Criteria (partially based on the Americans Elect vague criteria):
1) National Profile of some kind. Doesn’t have to be a necessarily major figure, but you can’t start from zero and have much of a chance.
2) Not a total political novice. Not necessarily an elected official, or former elected official, but at least very active in politics in a public way.
3) No serious personal defects (ala no Eliot Spitzer, or similarly disgraced former elected official).
4) Is likely to be able to have a good working relationship with a moderate on the other side, so the ticket can span a bigger tent and have a better shot at winning, or at least getting more votes.
5) And preferably has SOME charisma… some X factor that will attract people to them on a personal level, like how Obama is a hell of a speaker and Romney just looks the part of a presidential candidate.
6) If still a member of another party, a compelling case that they would want to leave (this probably disqualifies people like Olympia Snowe).
X) The ticket also has to have people from different parties. You can’t have two democrats, two republicans, or even two independents.
“Side note: isn;t the debt ceiling debate a perfect moment to publicize and encourgae sentiment against both parties’ behavior in congress?”
Have you not been reading the news? I’ve seen a dozen or so articles from major columnists doing this very thing, and a slurry of third party talk. People are getting fed up.
That’s not dumb at all.
I voted for Obama. I ran the grassroots group in the Omaha area to try and help Obama win. And now I refuse to vote for him and I would love nothing more than to find a centrist alternative.
Powell is a moderate right leaner, farther from Obama ideologically than I am. Hell, he’s almost run for president as a republican two or three times, and his support of Obama was not exactly full throated.
And you’re also dead wrong on saying NOBODY mentioned would want to get involved with Americans Elect. Some of the people already mentioned above expressed interest in Unity ’08, Americans Elect is ten times more well put together and the American people are FAR more up in arms against the two party system now than they’ve been since the early 90′s… when the Reform Party sprang up (see a post on this from couple days ago, with polling showing this to be the case).
I haven’t been able to talk to the Americans Elect people directly, but I have managed to talk to some people who have. They are anything but naive. These are not people who are throwing money into a hole for a pipe dream that has no chance of making any positive impact.
As far as I’m concerned, the only way that I would be against something like this would be if I thought it would lead to single party rule in DC somehow. I don’t see that happening. I’m fine with Obama losing to Romney if it meant a loose network that grew into a centrist national party grew out of it. (Bachmann would lose regardless).
“I voted for Obama.”
Well that one kinda bit you in the butt, didn’t it.
He was charismatic but was more rhetoric than substance as time has shown.
I learned a valuable lesson (that dems are just as corrupt, holier than thou and dirty as the GOP), and I learned a lot about grassroots organizing in the process… one of those mistakes I’m happy I made in the long run. Wont make it again. I learned the same lesson about the GOP in 2000 and 2006.
I’m not very hopeful that top flight centrists could be recruited for such an endeavor and none of those mentioned above have the combination of magnetism and fire-in-the-belly that will be required. Here is the best I can come up with: Sen. Mark Warner and former Gov. Jon Huntsman. Both are charismatic, ambitious, intelligent, and wealthy. Though I think Huntsman will be damaged by the fact that his GOP campaign likely won’t get very far.
Neither fit the criteria… look at the last one. Neither of them show any indication they’d be interested in leaving their party, and even though they technically wouldn’t have to by running on this ticket, they’d be effectively booted for doing this. Not gonna happen.
On top of the fact that Huntsman has been running to the right lately, supporting Paul Ryan’s right wing budget, and the similarly right wing “Cut, Cap and Balance”. If he’s a moderate, he’s sure hiding it well. He looks like more of a hard core conservative with a handful of moderate views. The balance of his expressed views of late are nowhere near the middle. Even if he did accept this nomination, which I don’t see as having any chance of happening, there is no chance he’d be able to rebrand himself as a centrist, after running to the right mere months earlier.
Is Bill Richardson in the mix? From what I recall, he was a decent Governor, and seems like a centrist.
Do you have any indication that he’d be interested in leaving his party?
Colin Powell will be 75 in 2012. Bloomberg 70. Lieberman 70. Age has got to be a factor at some point.
It’s less about age and more about if they *seem* old. I’d say Lieberman seems the oldest of the bunch. I would have guessed Powell was the youngest of the bunch, although I haven’t seen much of him in years. All strike me as vibrant enough to run for office… who knows if that’ll be the case in 4 years though.
Did anyone notice that Thomas Friedman wrote “Make way for the Radical Center” yesterday a piece about Elect Now? As well, the comments were mainly intelligent and civilized and worth reading for what they say about reactions (from an admittedly biases NYT pool).
Here is a link to the comments, they are worth reading:
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24friedman.html
I dream about a moderate or non-ideological third party, but at the same time I am a realist. I used to love to read Bloom County and of course I remember the Meadow Party. But its more fun to read about a meadow party than it would be to be in one. By which I mean that a party that has no influence, the typical non major party politics, is a great way to meet people and have a party, but it has no impact on the world.
I’m psyched about Elect now, but realistically, the birth process of center politics, while blindingly obvious, is amazingly difficult. But you all already know that. I say it because reading the list of possible candidates is already, to be honest, depressing.
There is a “which come first” question to be asked here, which comes first, the movement or the Believable Candidate? Career politicians are just that, people managing a career. The third party thing right now would look like suicide to a career politician, a way to end their career. But without a truly first class candidate, the whole thing will just look like a freak show and reflect poorly on the power of the center and the idea of a middle third party.
So, somehow critical mass of enough potential voters to make this seem like a living thing and not a joke has to be obtained before people I could believe in as presidential timber would likely run.
Here is a name, Bill Bradley.
Since he already left Washington, and is an actual believable person, with intellect, integrity, and a good reputation, if by some chance this appealed to him, he would be a worthy choice.
Not to load this down with a New Jersey connection, but former moderate Republican NJ Gov. Thomas Kean is another believable person, no longer in politics, known as bipartisan, headed the Kean Commission, thus nationally known. However, he is 75, alas.
In any case, it would be good to have such people interested and supportive and get them onboard to bring gravitas. Moderates are the type of people who are not going to be very interested in a freak show.
Cheers,
Ian
The name of the org you are referring to is Americans Elect, and yeah… they could be a big development. I’ve been trying to get through to them so I can talk to some staff and report on what I find, but they are being very close lipped in the public sphere so far… Haven’t gotten through.
Unless a movement just ‘happens’, or a mountain of money comes in from someone like Bloomberg, the best way to do it is to start small, at the local and state levels, and build up. This is why some of us are working on putting together a grassroots PAC for centrists.
I like Bill Bradley… would have totally voted for him in 2000. But he only fits the qualifications I’ve said above if he has said something that indicates he’d be willing to leave his party. Even though you technically don’t have to, by doing this you will automatically be a pariah in your party from then on. I don’t see him doing that, but have you seen something that leads to believe otherwise?
Never heard of Kean.
Chuck Hagel was my preferred candidate in 2007. I thought he was the only Republican that had a chance of attracting Independents and Centrists and stopping a complete Democratic One Party Rule sweep in 2008. He looked like he really wanted to run. My sense is that anytime a politician looks in the mirror and sees a future President, they never stop seeing that reflection. So I think he can be enticed back into the arena. He also flirted with leaving the GOP, meeting with Bloomberg several times in the run-up to 2008, before the Unity08 thing imploded.
A Hagel / Bloomberg ticket (in that order) would be my ideal slate. Hagel would make a great President.
That said, I have a real concern about this Americans Elect org. Admittedly, I have not looked at them in detail, but if they are the same people who ran Unity08, I’ve got a problem with it.
There is no question that Unity08 was, from the beginning, a stalking horse for Bloomberg. No problem with that per se, but they basically lied to everyone who joined that organization. The secrecy around who is funding AE has some of the same stench that surrounded Unity08.
I don’t see much of a chance of Hagel giving the finger to the GOP like that, although that ticket would sure be compelling.
AmericansElect.org is no different than any other 501c4 “Super PAC”. Their donors are secret (even though a bunch of them have come forward), but the primary is open. If Bloomberg ran, he’d swamp it of course, but I just don’t see him changing his mind about not running. I hope he does change his mind though.
I think Jack is onto the most flawed part of the implied premise here. IMO moderates and centrists and even independents don’t think Obama is the big problem, so they are unlikely to lead a charge against him.
Sol, I know you seem hot against Obama now. You’re entitled to your opinion, but even you would probably concede that given the current make-up of congress, we’ll keep seeing “crap in, crap out” no matter who’s in the oval office.
Moderates and centrists and independents should try to reshape congress, that’s what will make a difference. Whoever’s President will come to THEM.
I’m not hot against Obama. He is clearly the lesser evil, but I don’t vote for lesser evils.
He’s not a centrist or moderate, and the crap he’s pulled with war powers, whistleblowers, the flip flop on individual mandate, how he “leads from behind”, how he is just as corrupt as any other president at putting campaign bundlers in charge of huge swaths of his administration, how little he’s done on the foreclosure stuff… I can’t see how anyone who isn’t liberal sees him as anything but a lesser evil.
I get how a lot of people are fine with voting for lesser evils. I’m not. Obama is SOFT with swing voters, and depending on what happens the swing vote will likely go his way in a strict red vs blue race, but again… not good enough for me.
Not about just this election. This ticket probably has a low single digit shot at winning the White House, if that. But it has a fantastic shot at building a skeleton network of organizations on the ground that could evolve into a national party. THAT is why I’m mainly for this… at least until I see who the candidate is.
Agreed.
War Powers is not a left-right thing. Is a rule of law thing, and plenty of people from all over the spectrum have given him hell for it.
Whistleblower stuff is the same. Thats not a left-right thing, thats an open government thing. Plenty of people on the right who are with that, as well as even fringe groups.
Obama flipped from being against the individual mandate during the campaign, to being for it when the rubber hit the road. I think it’s wrong, as does between 50 & 70% of the American people, from the polls I’ve seen over the last couple years (depends on how you word it).
Not being a forcefull enough leader also doesn’t have anything to do with left or right. It’s an effectiveness issue.
Do you really want to play this game? Do you want me to go to one of those sites that list a politicians stated positions on the issues, and give you his track record of votes over his career as a senator and in the Illinois state legislature? I’ve done that research before. He IS a liberal, he’s just not left wing enough for the far left, isn’t a hard nosed fighter (I respect the compromising he does) and is slow to act a lot of the time.
Believe me Jack, if you want to get your comments deleted, start telling me how I should use MY fucking vote. I can guarantee you 100% that I feel as strongly as you do that voting for Obama is the wrong thing for me to do that you think or feel otherwise. If you want to piss me off, then please do be that egotistical prick that tells people how they should exercise THEIR right to vote.
Obama is the lesser evil to the far left, because he’s not one of them, nor does he fight like the left wing champion they want him to be. Look at the polls… his highest numbers are to the left of center, just not far left. Not left wing, not moderates… average liberals.
And I don’t put up with people putting words into anyone’s mouths. I HAVE NOT called Obama a left winger… because he isn’t.
There is a big difference between telling someone how they should use their vote, and advocating your own position. Stick to the latter and you’re fine. You did not in the previous comment.
When I ran Omaha for Obama I found supporters of Obama and mobilized them. When I came across non supporters, I left them along and moved on. This was also what the campaign did… when door knocking, phone calling or whatever, they said just move on when you found someone who disagreed.
Left wing and liberal are not the same thing. This is not hair splitting… the majority of people who align with liberal ideas are in no way left wingers.
I am in no way “exasperated” at the prospect of having nobody to vote for. I leave most spots on ballots blank, because I either don’t know enough about the options to make an informed decision, or neither candidate meets my minimum standards. I’m used to it.
I’m not even saying that I’m going to necessarily vote for the AE candidate. For all I know some left or right winger will take the nomination, ala Buchanan and the Reform party in 2000, or the winner will be some centrist or moderate with serious nonideological downsides… similar to how I will not vote for Ben Nelson here in Nebraska because I’ve seen first hand how his political machine is as crooked as it comes. This does not exasperate me… if you want to talk about it in emotional terms it merely saddens me that our political options are so poor… and motivates me to work towards a day when that is no longer as much of the case.
Remember how Bloomberg decided not to run because neither main party had gone as fringe as it might have in its presidential nomination? Maybe if that’s the case again in 2012, it would make the MOST sense for an independent centrist, since the risk of enabling a fringe victory would be absent. I’m sorry Hagel voted for the irresponsible Bush tax cuts, but I like his independent streak and pragmatism.
If voting for the Bush Tax Cuts is your litmus test, then you are saying you will only support Democrats and you are voting exclusively as a partisan Democrat.
Pointing only to the Bush tax cuts as if it is the only or even primary contributor to the problem while ignoring the irresponsible spending increases of the Bush administration and the even more wildly insane spending increases under the Obama administration is just as ridiculous as ignoring the impact of the tax cuts.
Hagel isn’t a moderate. I live in Nebraska… followed him for years. He’s got a pragmatism to him and a few moderate views, but he is no moderate.
Just because I choose not to preempt every assumption that might follow a statement of mine doesn’t mean you can assume anything beyond what I said.
I condemn the Bush years spending bonanza. But it was clear already before 9-11 that the tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, with Boomer retirement right around the corner. That’s why they needed to put a sunset-expiration on them to get their Senate majority.
From 2004 to 2007, federal tax revenues increased by $785 billion, the largest four-year increase in American history.
Not exactly fiscal irresponsibility in my book. Tax cuts can and have boosted revenue including the Bush tax cuts during that period. Now whether they should have been allowed to expire is a separate issue, but the fact remains that revenues were raised from 2004-2007.
Is there a point in there? Of course they went up, we came out of a recession… that’s what happens when you come out of a recession.
You don’t think cutting the taxes helped to get us out of that recession?
Also it may be noted that after the Bush tax cuts the wealthy paid a higher percentage of income taxes than previously and that. Now why is that? Well because the wealthy were taking their money out of tax shelters and investing. Some of that investment lead to more hiring and a decrease in unemployment.
Now there may have come a time when the benefits of that dissipated to some degree or another but to call these tax cuts “fiscally irresponsible” doesn’t meet my definition of such (although I will admit a few components of the tax cuts might meet that definition in my book especially the increased child credit and the marriage deduction which I think were a stupid ideas).
Of course it did… spending did too, but I didn’t say anything about either, hence asking you what your point is. Stop beating around the bush. If you have a point, make it.
I said it twice already.
“to call these tax cuts “fiscally irresponsible” doesn’t meet my definition of such ”
“Not exactly fiscal irresponsibility in my book.”
This was in response to Jeff’s claim that:
“it was clear already before 9-11 that the tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible”
While Bloomberg will most likely not run, he won’t consider a decision before he sees who the Republican candidate is. He wouldn’t want to take a chance on splitting the centrist vote to the point where a really far-out right winger would beat Obama, whcih would be even more disasterous for the country.
Hegel-Bloomberg would make a great ticket but I’m not sure Bloomberg would want to play second fiddle.
There are three ways a third party could be formed- 1) top down- where national figures decide to establish a party, 2) bottom up- where it starts as a grass-roots movement, 3) fragmentation of the two current parties. While one of these three methods may start the process, in all likelihood all three will eventually be involved.
It’s all detailed in my new book- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Cetrist Third Party, which should be available on Amazon in a few weeks.
More on my website
http://www.robertlevinebooks.com
Thats not an option in this primary, for him to not decide to throw hit hat in until the VP is chosen. As an independent, he could run with a dem or rep.
Bloomberg will never get my vote. No matter what I cannot support a candidate who has a policy in direct contradiction to the US Constitution such as he has on gun control. It is not a gray area.
I’d have no problem if he was just seeking a new Constitutional Amendment to allow the States to make their own determinations, but he has not done that and has willfully gone against the 2nd Amendment in a mini crusade.
I disagree with the handgun ban in cities too, but besides that, what he’s been pushing for as far as better background checks makes a lot of sense to me.
Agreed, but I still take the position that no matter how much good work a candidate does, I will not vote on them if they will not honor a crystal clear part of the US Constitution. I simply can’t trust them on anything after that,
I feel ya. I disagree with the handgun ban idea, but it doesn’t matter anymore anyway, since the courts struck it down. I’m not even sure I think it’s necessarily unconstitutional (not that it matters, the only opinions that matter in that respect are the 9 people with robes on in that court), but I just think it’s wrong.
Thomas Kean was a hugely popular moderate governor of NJ, the president of Drew University for 15 years and the head of the 911 commission, to which he was appointed based on his impartiality and cross party appeal. He also wrote a book, The politics of inclusion, in 1988, which stressed, er, inclusion.
Bradley is just as much of a fantasy as anyone else on the list, simply he is not politically ambitious within the framework of the Democratic party at this point and would have nothing to lose.
Personally, I believe that the building of a “moderate consciousness” will happen slowly, perhaps excruciatingly so. Home run balls, aka runs for president can just as easily generate huge antipathy if one has the (call it the Nadar) effect of electing an inappropriate person.
I would just like to see moderates slowly but surely become a group that think of ourselves as a group and begin to identify moderate, as our own personal subculture, that we follow, care about, get involved in.
I’ve never voted for a Republican for President (although in hindsight I could have supported Ford or the first Bush) but I did meet work for and vote for Anderson, who in my opinion was the best third party candidate ever.
Whether well known moderate dems and reps will start to leave their parties in real numbers an y time soon is yet to be seen.
I see a slow slow buildup to a process that may come to a swift conclusion at some point, sort of like the Soviet Union collapsing, the ice will slowly slowly melt and then, boom give way with a rush.
I am unable to write anything short, I wish I could.
“I see a slow slow buildup to a process that may come to a swift conclusion at some point, sort of like the Soviet Union collapsing, the ice will slowly slowly melt and then, boom give way with a rush.”
This will probably be the case. That slow melt action isn’t happening though… the foundation needs to be built with more groups like No Labels and centrist third party local orgs, Americans Elect, etc. This is why it is so pivotal for people to get involved with those orgs.
I would have loved Colin Powell as President but the time for him has passed. Petraeus seems very attractive, but besides his impress war record, I really don’t know much about his positions.
No one else on your list is particularly attractive. Honestly, I would be ok with four more years of Obama. Regardless of his political beliefs, he has governed to the right of Nixon (where today’s center appears to lie).
Sol, what Jack said!
Sol, I truly hope you’ll take jack’s criticism to heart instead of being defensive and dismissing it. Really. Don’t even respond. Digest it. Then answer, then give it a couple days. Then revise. Then tell us what you think in a separate post.
Well, now you’re just being mean. In Sol’s defense, let us all give a shout out to the not dearly departed but to my astonishment still alive 89 year old John Anderson. Who, when asked if his 1980 candidacy for President was doomed to be no better than a spoiler, famously (for centrists and independents) replied “what’s to spoil?
This is a long thread and I’ve missed who this is directed at. regardless, what’s your basis for suggesting that all republicans will certainly vote against tax hikes? My sense is some of them would like to deal, and try to sell that as a victory.
Amen, brother. Having and practicing pragmatic centrist inclinations has clobbered me with the message to be patient, in the hope of someday eventually gather not just any critical mass, but a critical mass of the right people. Then the philosophy can be an emergent property.
BTW, that’s another reason why I am much more sanguine about the prospects of marginal improvement by establishing a foothold in congress, a race or two at a time. I view the notion of a viable centrist Presidential ticket to be every bit the dream that Sol himself has entitled it here. Anyone else like the idea of trying to find a way to get a couple more independents in congress. Slogan: one seat at a time.
The things you quote here don’t have anything to do with what I say. I’ve been very clear in saying I think he’s a mainstream, average, run of the mill (however you want to put it) liberal. By no means a left winger, far left, hard core or anything like that type liberal.
As to the spoiler comment…
One of the few things that I take personal offense to in all of politics is when someone tells me, or anyone else, that ME putting MY vote where I think is best is a fucking spoiler. It’s my fucking vote. I’ll put it where I damn well think it deserves to go. PERIOD.
Anyone who has the gaul to tell anyone how they should use THEIR vote… that’s the kind of bullshit I don’t have any patience for. If you want to vote for Obama, or Romney if you’re a right leaner maybe, as the lesser evil, I get that. I don’t agree with it, but I get that and I respect you using your vote the way you think is best.
Believe me. I feel just as strongly that voting for Obama is the wrong move for centrists and moderates, especially IF Americans Elect comes up with a decent ticket, as you could possibly feel about voting for Obama, or any other candidate. You don’t have to agree with me, but don’t pretend that I’m labeling Obama in ways that I’m not, and don’t tell me how I should use my vote. I’m going to keep speeking my mind on this, AND I’m going to keep posting submissions from people who think voting for Obama is the right thing to do (and I will endeavor to find a right leaning moderate to give the argument that voting for Romney is the right thing to do… should he be the nominee… I doubt I’d be able to find someone to take the side of Bachmann or Perry if they win, but I will try anyway).
This idea of spoilers necessarily relies on the idea that the vote that might have gone to somebody else otherwise was THEIRS to lose. Nobody’s vote is ANYONE’s but the person who’s name is attached to it. The moment they fill in that circle with the #2 pencil, pull the lever, or whatever fancy ways they do voting in other parts of the country… THEN, and ONLY THEN is that vote rightfully a candidates’ vote.
By the way cranky, this isn’t our Jack. This is that jackass left wing spammer guy who keeps changing his name and coming back here with new fake emails.
@Cranky – I guess this question was for me:
I was responding to Jeff in the immediate prior comment where he seems to dismiss Chuck Hagel as an acceptable independent voice based solely on his vote for the Bush tax cuts.
I agree with your comment regarding some Republicans being willing to deal. I was commenting on Jeff apparently excluding anyone who voted or supported the Bush tax cuts (past tense) as a viable “centrist”. To my mind, that is identical to saying he would only support Democrats as a centrists.
Oh, and let me pat Sol on the back in a big way while alluding again to Ian’s comment. Sol’s site has IMo quickly become the best centrist/moderate/independent/sons of john anderson site going. And that’s almost 100% to his credit, with a shout out to the other like-minded capable-of-a-decent-discussion posters AND thread commenters.
Please indulge my quick personal centrist’s yarn, as I think it’s illustrative of the trend we’re hoping for. I began searching out like minded folks probably around 2004, give or take a year. I used to like centerfield, the centrist coalition’s blog. But it was a backwater, and when traffic did go up for a good post, threads devolved via the douchebaggery of partisan drive-bys.
As that withered, my preferences shifted to donklephant. More posts, higher traffic, oftentimes better dialogue. But still a big problem with the douchebaggery of partisan drive-bys.
Rise of the center is IMO, at least right now, a very welcome evolutionary improvement. First, Sol has both a high quality and a high quantity of threads with useful insight, and useful insight that is often further developed by commenters.
I am delighted to have been accused of being both a lefty and a righty shill dozens of times. Some of the folks without such proud battle scars likely doubt my testimony that RotC has a much lower rate of douchebaggery via partisan drive-bys. If you do doubt, I hope you’ll trust me on this.
Donklephant and centerfield were both constantly plagued by
It was exhausting. Every time any politician was caught crooked and got disparaged, he’d get defended on the basis of an example of someone on the other side being worse. No insight. No criterion-referenced grading, only subjective grading on a partisan’s normal curve.
RotC is quiet and slow in traffic in comparison to the noisy (and IMO, insightless) windbags pumped up daily at places like say Red State or the Huffington post. (Just handy touchstones, never been to either more than once or rwice). But RotC has got the best level of the right kind of traffic that I have found so far. Sol, in case you’re missing it, this is about the highest praise I can offer a centristish blog.
Skate the cup round once for us, buddy.
I allow people (like this guy who is calling himself Jack today) coming in here and doing the occasional drive by that isn’t explicitly vitriolic, but I delete (or rather… 90% of the time I just let them sit in the moderation queue to die, since the moderation queue almost always picks them up) the vitriolic stuff that other blogs allow. My rule of thumb is I don’t allow anything that I wouldn’t allow in my living room. I love passion, I’m fine with a bit of colorful language as long as it doesn’t amount to something like “f____ you fence sitter!” (haha) but not name calling, putting words into peoples’ mouth, telling people they’re stupid, etc.
Also just keep in mind… we’re just about one year and one month old, and our monthly budget is in the double digits. Red State has been around forever, and HuffPo had a ton of money and some famous people behind it to expand quickly. DailyKos, MyDD, Red State, TownHall, etc is more of what we’re going for. We’ll get there eventually (at least to Red State… HuffPo is doing the liberal news thing, whereas I don’t intend for this site to wander outside of the politics and social commentary arena too much).
Thanks for the props man… but what does “Skate the cup round once for us” mean? haha
Stanley Cup, hockey. When you win you hoist it up and skate a lap round. RotC wins the 2011 stanley cup for centrists. let’s call it the JB Anderson Cup.
Irrespective of Jack’s geneaology and your objections to it, I wish you’d consider speaking to the substance of the comments as I’ve echoed them. You seem to be going ballistic and picking at the most objectionable bits and ignoring substantive criticism. IMO Its your achilles. In the eyes of me, jack, and likely others, you’ve been far less clear and consistent in your classing of Obama than you think. I strongly agree with the notion that your criticism of Obama seems to come from both sides, in a sort of “everything both sides say is wrong with him are true” style. I’m a bit baffled. Let that stew for awhile before whacking, OK?
You know what… I’m going to write that down, haha
Not for self-congratulatory reasons (I do appreciate the props though), but because I like the idea of having a regular award of some kind for centrist and moderate activism. I’ll put it in the area of a folder I have with ideas I want to add to the functionality of the new site.
As for the Obama stuff…
Listen guys… as I’ve said over and over… I wholeheartedly understand that you folks might disagree with me on this, but I have a very high standard for people who I vote for. I think Obama has been mediocre most of the time, and less than that on several issues that were a key element of why I supported him the first time around.
I do not vote for people who are lesser evils, and as I said above, I can guarontee you that I feel, believe and think that not doing so is the right thing to do, just as much as you apparently feel the opposite.
And please, show me where I’ve classified Obama as a left winger. If you take someone calling him liberal to mean left wing, that really isn’t my fault. Those things do not correlate in anything but a terribly oversimplefied map of the spectrum of political belief. I can’t explain that the spectrum I see has more points on it than centrist, moderate leaners and left and right wingers every time I use the word liberal or conservative.
Tell me how I could be more clear. That is not sarcasm.
I’ll show you where I characterize Obama as a let winger, right here.
Backed up by his voting record here:
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/barack_obama.htm
“I strongly agree with the notion that your criticism of Obama seems to come from both sides, in a sort of “everything both sides say is wrong with him are true” style.”
That is not what I’ve said…
You guys seem to be reading between the lines of what I’ve been saying. I’m not a nuanced writer, if you’re reading between the lines, you’re looking for things that aren’t there.
I can only speak from my perspective. A lot of the problems I have with Obama are at least somewhat non-ideological, for example this whole pattern of “leading from the rear”. That being said, I certainly do not think that all criticisms of him are true… and I’m pretty sure I’ve never said that.
For example… I like his penchant for compromising, which the far left hates, and I like that he’s finally found a backbone on the debt debates and is stopping the leading from the rear thing for a bit to fight for a balanced compromise debt deal (even though it’s probably too late now) – which is something the right hates. I happen to differ with the majority of the country on backing his play in Libya, and I think he’s doing about as good of a job in Iraq and Afghanistan as could be expected.
How is there a disconnect? I can’t respect someone for some things, while thinking that the downsides of that candidate outweight the positives? Give me a break. I disagree with Obama more than I agree with him… there is no THAT MUCH. I see plenty of people I can support around the country, I just don’t see them making it into the leadership of either major party.
“This isn’t strategically or logically sound and the “lesser evil” rhetoric is lazy and trite.”
blah blah blah, partisan tripe, blah blah
Are you going to call me a fence sitter now? Or how about wishy washy? Go take your partisan tripes elsewhere.
I *AM* angry, that there is a huge portion of the population standing between the two parties that isn’t represented, or is grossly underrepresented, in our federal government. I could give a rats ass if you don’t care about the center. Difference here is I think you should be equally represented too, I just think the center should have representatives as well.
And I also could care less if you think it’s some kind of cliche. It’s what I personally think.
I’ll make it super simple for you folks. It doesn’t matter if you agree with what I’m about to say or not, this is why I can’t vote for Obama again… it can be boiled down to one sentence:
“I disagree with him on the issues more than I agree with him, and I think he’s a mediocre leader.”
I have not painted myself into any corner, I’ve told you what I think. I’m not in any corner, I’ve been standing in the same space for a while now. I’m not going to support someone who I don’t agree with more than I do, or someone who isn’t at least a good leader, especially as president… and I think we’d all be far better off if we started having higher standards as well.
David Jon Sponheim for President. If you don’t know who he is check out:
http://www.americasthirdparty.com and join him every weeknight for live video chat about politics at: http://www.tinyurl.com/ATPBlogTV
On an interesting note, I’ve been in contact with head of ballot access over at Americans Elect. He said he used my website as a resource to help him in the ballot access quest. That’s the primary goal I wanted to accomplish this political season: Make information and petitions available so anyone can run. I am still completing this information, and sharing it with AE.
Ballot Access alone is a monumental task since the rules are different in every single state. I commend Americans Elect for being able to get this far. Want quick links to the information for the states: http://www.americasthirdparty.com/wiki I am still in the process of updating the states. Once the info. becomes available for 2012, I will download it to my harddrive as the Sec. Of State deleted the 2008 data from their end.
Thanks for starting this conversation/ blog Solomon. Id there any way to sort so recent comments are at the top?
I wish your candidate would decide to run for local office… but I wish you folks the best of luck anyway.
You know… I’m not sure if there is a plugin that would allow readers to shift comments from the usual way where older comments are lower, to the other way around. I’ll add that to the list of potential site mods. That sounds like something someone might have made a plugin for.
Kudos for your good work, ballot access is a crucial issue and fairness in obtaining it for 3rd parties is something that needs to be pushed more and more and brought to the media’s attention.
I honestly believe that this is the most important battle for centrists and independents (and other 3rd parties as well).
I am curious if there are any efforts at promoting the standardization of ballot access rules among all states. That would help to lower the barriers as 3rd parties don’t have the established resources to make nationwide ballot access an easy job when the rules vary so widely.
I’ll float another ticket
Nick Gillespie/Artur Davis
Who are they? The first guy sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.
Nick Gillespie is a libertarian who has worked with Reason, and co-arthur of “The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America” I like his approach to problem solving in his columns and interviews. He is fairly young, stylish and charismatic without being overbearing and has a wit and intellectualism about him without being snobbish
Here is a good one to watch to get a taste the Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey documentary series.
http://reason.tv/video/show/1050.html
Arthur Davis is a former Democratic member of Congress representing Alabama. He was magna cum laude from Harvard and cum laude from Harvard Law school. Also served as a civil rights lawyer and assistant US DA. and has had some of the better lines of questioning in Congressional hearings that I’ve seen. He aslo was co-chair of the centrist House New Democrat Coalition. Was only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to vote against Obamacare (and he comes from a heavy democratic district Cook PVI is D+18) and the first member of that Caucus to demand Rangel give up his chairmanship. His personality is down to business, smart, and free of the worst of dogma that you expect from major arty folks.
The hardest thing about that ticket might be to get Nick to wear a suit and tie instead of his trademark leather jacket.
Oh right, that’s why I know that name. Reason is in the firehose folder in my RSS reader. I don’t read a lot of their stuff, but I find them the most, dare I say ‘reasoned’, libertarian outlet around. He’s hard to forget, with that bad boy image he throws at you in their videos.
Gillespie, however, doesn’t fit the criteria.
This Davis guy sounds promising though…
Which criteria? 4? 6?
He certainly meets the others.
On four its hard to say because he has not been in a position where he is working directly with moderates, but he seems to be pretty calm when I’ve seen him debate with them.
As for 6 yes he is a libertarian and likely wont give up libertarian views but those span the views of both major parties. Fiscal conservative social liberal in a generalized nutshell.
Oh and furthermore, I would think that someone who might pull in a sizable libertarian vote would be a plus, since libertarians have been the strongest of all the third parties.
As a New Yorker, I think Bloomberg’s great. I am also a fan of Rep. Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who doesn’t get enough credit as being the kind of reasonable Republican that’d largely disappeared from the landscape in the last 15 years. A Bloomberg-Chafee ticket would definitely intrigue me.
But honestly, the most centrist candidate in the next election is probably going to be Barack Obama, especially given how this debt ceiling stuff has shaken out.
Joe Geni
Don’t Worry About The Government
http://www.dontworry.tv
I haven’t had time to look into this, but I’ve had a few people tell me that Lincoln Chafee has taken a hard left turn over the last few years, and when he ran for Gov in R.I., he ran to the left of the democrat. Any comments on that?
That is true. Chafee ran WAY to the left of the Democratic candidate. Chafee is on the record as describing himself as a Progressive.
Chafee nailed down the endorsement of almost every public employee’s union in the 2010 gubernatorial race.
His economic platform consisted almost exclusively of a sales tax expansion in a state with one of the highest overall tax burdens in the country.
He is a very nice man – and free of the stain of corruption – which in RI is a very refreshing change.
I would like to see Rocky Anderson (http://www.voterocky.org) get more into the conversation and added to the list of candidates on AE. Right now AE seems very disorganized and fumbling around with technology. Their goal is commendable but I think they’re putting up too many roadblocks in the way for honest and frank discussion to happen in time for the 2012 election.
Here are a couple of problems I’ve encountered:
All the problems with the site make me really not want to go back although I really REALLY like the idea of nominating a candidate (regardless of the candidate’s party) from outside the primary system. However it almost seems like AE is attempting to create a second election to select the single “most electable” candidate to run against the two primary party candidates. I would prefer to see AE be an organization that provides the platform for multiple grassroots efforts to get a candidate onto a ticket for the general election. If they can do it for one, why not more than one?
I disagree on security… they need to do whatever they can to make sure their system is secure. The hoops they make people jump through to verify who they are are important. No way to do that in a manner that doesn’t pose a problem for somebody.
You’re right on the need to be able to search for a candidate. I’d say they should only have people on there with some remote chance that they’d consider running on the AE ticket. No point in having Obama and Hillary on there for instance.
Candidate can in fact be added. It just takes a bit – an economist just threw his hat in the other day and in a blog post said he’d be in the system by the middle of the month.
They clearly don’t want people to speak their mind on a message board… this came up in the Americans Elect volunteer leader training I went to last week. I’m setting up a site with a forum that people can use for this, for this very reason.
Rocky Anderson… I lived in Salt Lake City during part of his tenure – would be a better fit with the Green Party, and would do the same thing to AE that Buchanan did to the Reform Party – in other words destroy it. We need people who match up with the mainstream, not people out on the fringes. When the main “news” outlets talking about a candidate are Alternet and Democracy Now, they’re not to be taken seriously.
For an organization that boasts accessibility to all Americans it should be able to back up that claim and right now falls sadly short.
Two groups of people I know for sure will be affected by their “security” are the blind and elderly Americans. Not only does the PIN system force you to be able to see to move and click a mouse, it scrambles the numbers on the PIN pad each time you visit the page which can be very confusing for someone dealing with the onset of demensia or other brain-affecting affliction that impacts the ability to read numbers.
You can have security without this sort of mechanism. For example, by simply allowing keyboard entry of the pin they can add a captcha to ensure it is not being used by a bot (and most captchas support alternate methods of presenting the information to be entered for accessibility reasons). But most importantly, there are literally thousands of other high-security applications that people use all over the place that don’t place these sort of access restrictions on the user nor require a PIN number (indeed a PIN is less secure than a long password or brief pass phrase that is often far easier to remember).
Regarding AE and Rocky Anderson. Given that they are currently listing Obama, Al Franken, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich – if those candidates don’t destroy AE then I doubt Rocky Anderson would. Also my understanding of AE from what I’ve read on their site is they are non-partisan and don’t take sides. Their goal is to produce a presidential ticket selected by the American people.
If all AE is going to do is promote mainstream candidates already in the mainstream then I might as well cancel my account right now. There’s no point. All it will become is a forum for partisans to push <Democrat Here> and <Republican Here> and maybe if we’re very lucky <Independant Here>, but not actually give non-mainstream candidates a chance to garner attention.
Take your bullshit elsewhere. I didn’t say AE was promoting anyone – and they obviously aren’t from who they have on their system. They posted everyone in congress and the senate, as well as many others. You sound like you’re buying into the bullshit conspiracy theories that nutcase on over at Irregular Times vomits all over the place.
They did however say they only accept candidates who put together a balanced ticket, and if you think anyone outside of the left would go on a ballot with a left winger like Anderson you’re in la la land.
I sure as fuck didn’t say that that Obama, Franken, Romney, Gingrich, etc should be considered… wait, *gasp* I said the exact opposite thing. Stop playing bullshit rhetorical games or fuck off. You’ve been here long enough to know I don’t put up with people putting words into other peoples’ mouths.
I’m sure I don’t have any idea what nutcase you’re referring to (I’ve never read the Times). Sir, you really need to learn to chill out a bit. I was responding to your statements (that I read as a description of how AE should work in your view):
In point of fact Rocky Anderson is in their list of candidates – I simply missed him in my first browse through.
It certainly wasn’t may intention to feed any words to you (or place them in your mouth by any means). As someone who knows nothing about Rocky Anderson, all I know is what I’ve read today (and while some of his stances are certainly liberal he appears to take a fiscally conservative stance on budgetary issues — I won’t really know until I research more). As someone who’s lived under his governance you’re certainly entitled to your own opinion as well.
It’s good to be back on RotC!
Last thing I have to say is now that I’ve looked at his responses to the “core issues” I’m not sure he’s someone I can support at all.
I’ll be looking forward to the point when AE matches up my “colors” with the “colors” of the candidates and shows me who the closest matches are ideologically speaking.
My apologies – I used the word “promote” when I should have said “allow me to elect.”
Candidates like Rocky Anderson, Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul, etc already have parties. They’d be on the ballot all over the country already if they had enough support, and in many cases they do have ballot access but nobody votes for them because very few people align with their views – ala the Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, Constitutionalists, etc
It’s already costing tens of millions to pay for the signature gatherers to get all the petitions. Each line on the ballot would double the cost, and frankly make it look like a joke.
AE is not a party though and doesn’t endorse a particular candidate (or so they claim time and again). Obviously there would have to be a pretty high bar to cross before an AE candidate gets a line on the ballot. But my concern is that if AE actually has a large swath of delegates (normal people) from across the political spectrum all voting for the one man or woman who will “win” getting on the ballot they’re going to get mired up in ties all the time with no clear winner (or worse a “clear” winner by a very small margin of votes and the other half of the delegates leave feeling once again disenfranchised with the alternative system that was supposed to include them).
Again, it’s a noble goal to be sure but I’m not sure how it’s going to work out.
They CAN’T endorse a candidate, literally by law.
The delegates vote like any other primary voters, and the winner wins. The way the voting works is on their website.
So AE is basically an unofficial open national primary?
I wouldn’t use the word unofficial, since winning does put you on the ballot in all the states AE gets ballot access, but otherwise it’s the most open national primary there is. Take a ton more to get on the primary ballot in all 50 states individually… tens of thousands in fees, tens of thousands of signatures gathered, etc. With AE they need to put together a balanced ticket, and gather the support of 10k-50k online supporters to be eligible for the national convention, to which the top six go, more or less.
As an Independent, centrist and moderate myself – I wish Jon Huntsman would run as an Independent,
I’d be more interested seeing Hiliiary Clinton run as one. Or Evan Bayh. Just to see how many more moderate democrats would abandon Obama.
I would vote for Hillary, but back to the reality of today – what do you all think of Huntsman. He has a wide appeal to Independents: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/17/huntsman_banking_on_success_with_nh_independents/
I don’t think Huntsman would do as well as people think he would, and when centrists and moderates take a look at where he stands on the issues, they’d find someone more conservative than the image most people have. He really doesn’t have much campaign mojo either. As I’ve said repeatedly, he’s the kind of guy that would be a good VP pick, but would only be good at the head of a ticket after coming in with the coattails of someone with more mojo.
There are worse out there, but he’s nowhere near ideal. And talking about Hillary is a waste of time. She’s very much still within the democratic tent, and would never burn all those bridges with a run outside the party. Evan Bayh might… I’d be very much for his candidacy… far better than Roemer. It’s a shame he got a lobbying job when he left the Senate… that wouldn’t help his image if he jumped in. Lots of moderates from both parties who have been primaried or left partially because of partisanship… crossing my fingers that the ones that decide to are ones with some solid appeal and a bit of name rec.
Rocky Anderson and Buddy Roemer. Neither would take campaign donations over $100. Rocky is fairly left and big on civil rights. Buddy is fairly right, wanting to simplify government, but is a fan of a progressive tax rate.
The key here is that both will attack the biggest problem facing this country; money controlling politics. Both understand we currently do not have a government for the people, and will set righting this as their number one goal. War. Corporate bailouts, while millions are evicted. Oil prices. Sugar prices. ( we could go on all day) are all a result of money in politics. Don’t know what Buddy’s plans are now. Rocky has started the Justice Party and is running for President.
I seriously doubt they’d run together… Roemer has said his preferred VP is more like Joe Lieberman.
And I lived in Salt Lake City while Anderson was mayor. He’s more than “fairly left”. He’s started a party that’s even more liberal than the democrats are… Justice something or other.