Hate To Say I Told You So

In my first ever post for this blog, which had earlier appeared on the blog of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, I mocked New York Times pundit and professional centrist Thomas Friedman for his enthusiasm for the Americans Elect project. Americans Elect is one of a recent proliferation of high-profile attempts to elevate a moderate politician (usually in the form of Michael Freakin’ Bloomberg) to the presidency in place of those Democrats and Republicans whose partisanship stands between the chattering classes and the enactment of their neo-Hamiltonian, Something-Must-Be-Done agenda (and of course they ignore that Obama is enacting most of it anyway). Unity08 was the name of last election cycle’s equivalent, and it was destroyed by infighting (between its fanatically pro-Bloomberg wing and its moderately pro-Bloomberg wing) despite the presence of big names from the Carter White House. As I predicted, Americans Elect has gone the same way.

The process used by Americans Elect to nominate a presidential candidate was secretive and designed with a high barrier to qualify for the nomination. No-one did so (former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer came closest, after desperately seeking the AE nomination following the failure of his quixotic tilt at the GOP nomination), leaving its equally secretive backers empty-handed after qualifying for the ballot in twenty-seven states. The predictions of pundits such as Friedman, who suggested that Americans Elect would destroy the two-party duopoly the way Amazon.com destroyed the likes of Borders, have been proven wrong. (And not for the first time: the third-party shtick is one of Friedman’s stocks-in-trade. Last time he even came up with a catchy slogan: ‘Green is the New Red, White and Blue’.) The Big Two parties might be useless and unpopular, but Americans aren’t interested in a candidate who has no support outside the Beltway and Lower Manhattan.

2012 will see the American voter presented with a bumper crop of third-party candidates: former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson for the Libertarians, former Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode for the Constitution Party, and former Mayor of Salt Lake City Rocky Anderson for his self-created Justice Party. (Alas, comedienne Roseanne Barr missed out on the Greens’ nomination, losing to physician Jill Stein.) Friedman can support one of these if he wishes, or he can accept that the chattering classes already have their magical centrist candidate – Barackmitt Willard Hussein Obamney.