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There is also a serious problem with who is funding Americans Elect.
For the most part, AE is not showing the good faith transparency that a Progressive would want them to show. Americans Elect has raised $20 million from just 50 people, a whopping average contribution of $400,000 per person. Although I signed on as a "delegate" to AE, I can assure you that I am not one of those 50 people.
The only donations that are transparent so far are:
1. $1.55 million worth of contributions from Peter Ackerman
2. An undisclosed amount contributed by hedge fund operator Kirk Rostron.
Hedge Funds, as we all know, are filled to the brim with derivatives. Most of us know that derivatives are bets placed by Wall Street investors. We also know that these patriotic investors bet that Americans would fail to maintain their subprime mortgages and would default. Not surprisingly, most of them were right. They did bet on other pro-American "games" like pension funds. Again, they optimistically bet that pension funds would be wiped out and, again, for the most part, they were right.
Those bets were backed up by firms such as Goldman Sachs, whence many of the members of the last administration as well as the present administration came and, no doubt, to which they will return. When GS couldn't come up with the cash to pay all of the gamblers that they insured, we, the taxpayers, bailed them out.
They identities of the other 47 contributors are still a mystery.
Another mystery is what Ainsley Perrien, "Press Secretary" for AE, told OEN in a phone interview. "Americans Elect would like to see a ticket which contains two people who have differing ideologies." Can you see it now? Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will be on the East Coast while Vice Presidential candidate Rick Perry is on the West Coast disagreeing with everything Sanders is saying to the east of him.
Last but not least is a legitimate concern about the security of the site. Could someone actually hack the site and "stuff the ballot box", so to speak? Even though Joshua Levine, former Chief Technology Officer for E-Trade, is the person who will be overseeing this part of the operation, it doesn't seem to matter, does it? I'm more concerned about the hacking that may very well come from within the organization than from without.
Does this fly in the face of my original premise that such right of center people and organizations wouldn't even consider opening up our electoral process in what seems to be such a democratic fashion? Yes, unless, of course, those who created Americans Elect are hoping that more Progressives than Conservatives would find their methodology appealing. Of course, we Progressives are quite disappointed in President Obama's becoming the third best Republican president in American history - after Lincoln and Clinton. Many of us want to see Obama primaried, will cast our vote for the Green or Socialist Party or will just stay home on Election Day.
Ah, but now we have another choice. Americans Elect will help us not only to vote for an alternative to Obama, but will allow us to nominate those candidates. That's a hook into which Progressives can really sink the roofs of their mouths.
I don't claim to be able to read minds, but I would almost bet that the real purpose of Americans Elect is to take votes away from President Obama. It sounds so appealing that it just may work.
Of course, it's good that the Ackermans and their ilk have money with which to cavalierly play because I'm not really certain that they need to go through all of this trouble to pull votes from Barack Obama.
