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Recently over a dinner of roasted panda cheeks on a bed of quinoa and small easily-digested diamonds, Lady Lynne Forester Sniffnose Wobblebottom LaDeeDah de Rothschild and some of her rich pals asked the help, “what exactly is the current mood of the common riff-raff these days, what with their #OccupyStuffBetterPeopleOwn and Tea Party That Is Not Really A Party Nor Is There Even Tea”, and the help- who were caught unprepared thinking they were only there to see if anyone needed more truffle shavings – kind of hemmed and hawed before admitting that the peasants were revolting … and not in the usual “If I were poor like them, I’d kill myself” revolting kind of way.
Sensing revolution in the air and wary that a ride in a tumbrel might make her ass look big, Lady Lynne ad infinitum and her buddies started up a phony-baloney We Care, No Really, We Do! non-profit to help Americans select the perfect candidate; someone without any values or strongly held opinions on things like abortion or defense spending or Mexicans or gay marriage or raising taxes or entitlements or gun rights or religion in the public square or legalizing marijuana or the BCS or paper or plastic or briefs or boxers or Ginger or Mary Anne.. that might put anyone in America off their feed.
The message is clear: as politicians become more partisan and less effective at governing, the electorate is ready for a radical restructure of our election system itself. Voters are refusing to be held hostage to the self-interests of either party. Thankfully, in true American fashion, our civic society has built the tools to meet the challenge; for the first time in our history, the means exist to level the electoral playing field for an independent candidate.
A not-for-profit organization, called Americans Elect is establishing ballot access in all 50 states for the candidates for president and vice president in 2012 who will be nominated directly by the people in an online nominating process. The sophisticated website of Americans Elect allows registered voters a revolutionary new way to nominate a bipartisan ticket to occupy the White House. To date, the website has over 300,000 delegates, more than 50 times the number that participate in both the Democratic and Republican Party conventions (in full disclosure, I sit on the Leadership Board for Americans Elect).
It’ll be just like American Idol! Taylor Hicks/Sanjaya 2012!
Think of it: you can personally have a hand in picking the next President of the United States who will beholden to no party which, as any student of recent American politics can tell you, is a sure-fire recipe for breaking Washington gridlock because of …… some reason or another.
If you want to send your thanks to the wonderful folks at Americans Elect who have selflessly created this opportunity for you, you might want to try going door-to-door on Wall Street with your laurel and hearty handshake:
Americans Elect claims that it receives no funding from “special interests or lobbyists.” Even though the group has refused to disclose its list of funders, there is enough evidence to show that this statement is patently false. (Most of this evidence has been indispensably collected by Jim Cook at Irregular Times.)
The group was started by Peter Ackerman, the chief of Rockport Capital, a wealth management firm. He put in at least $1.55 million of his own money to start the organization. (It was originally a 527 organization, which is required to disclose donors. It is now a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which isn’t required to disclose.)
According to various reports, Americans Elect has raised between $20 million and $30 million so far for its efforts. Other known funders are hedge fund manager Kirk Rostron and Melvin Andrews, president of Lakeside Capital Partners.
Another known funder is Jim Holbrook, president of Promotion Marketing Association, which is a trade association that does lobbying for the PR and marketing industry.
John Avlon, the founder of the corporate-backed “No Labels” group, wrote in the Daily Beast that Americans Elect has raised $20 million from just 50 people. That’s an average of $400,000 per donor.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was invited to tour the Americans Elect offices in DC, which he described as “swank offices, financed with some serious hedge-fund money, a stone’s throw from the White House.”
According to its website, Americans Elect’s “leadership team” is composed largely of hedge fund operators and wealth managers, including Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who is married into the notorious Rothschild family.
In August, Americans Elect added five new names to its “Leadership” list (something like a board of advisors)—all five are wealth managers.
…and when have those guys ever had anything but your best interests at heart?
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So their dream is to have the electoral process, not to mention the government, resemble as closely as possible the comments section of your average newspaper. Visionaries.
Looking at that Irregular Times piece, it’s interesting to note just who blew the whistle on them:
Talk about your choice of hired mouthpiece backfiring on you.
“Well, the good news is that we chose someone to publicize our rollout who is completely willing to shill for our oligarchic scheme disguised as populism. The bad news is that it was Thomas Friedman.”
If they’d done their homework they would have learned that Friedman ends up contradicting whatever point he started off trying to make, often several times, by the time he gets to the end of the
pieceparagraph.Hey, maybe as part of the next bailout for Wall Street, we include rules that they have to shut the fuck up about their taxes?
Nothing more selfless and middle-of-the-road than a bunch of fucking hedge funders. What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing sez 1% like this:
“Americans Elect is plainly undemocratic. Its board reserves the right to overrule the vote of its members, and one of its leaders, Peter Ackerman, has said that the organization will reject any nominee chosen by its voters if the candidate does not fit the board’s definition of “centrist.” ..”
What are these “rules” you speak of? I thought the only “rule” for the bailout was “Here, take this money.”
It’s not so much that the whole scheme is obviously, flagrantly meant to undermine the government, the Constitution and impose what amounts to the kind of monarchical system that George Washington (despite the wingers wistful belief)despised – it’s that the peonage is not supposed to notice that that’s the game.
“Hey, kids! My Dad’s got a Website and we could stage our coup there! Peter will do lights, Kirk can be the lead, and Melvin…well, Melvin, you can bring the snacks.”
Meanwhile, everyone head over to American Select and nominate John McCain. At last, good news for John McCain.
Oddly, John McCain’s starting to look reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeely good right about now…..
Mary Anne. But, of course.
This is so full of win for America. And I loved this bit: “[...]Jim Holbrook, president of Promotion Marketing Association, which is a trade association that does lobbying for the PR and marketing industry.” How putrid must your soul be, if you chosen day job is to do spin and lobbying for other spinmeisters and lobbbyists?
Lady Peggathath NooningtonHampshireThrockMorton’s little piggy heart must be beating with joy at this news! All her bestest friends coming together with a good idea for better “government.” Albeit Dame Peggathath has to wonder: who the fuck are “the small people” who’ll vote on this mechanical system? Where’s mah ‘ludes with a scotch back?
September, 2012
Personal Assistant Jeeves :M’lady, the results are in!
Lady Rothschild: (Setting down her china cup of puppy blood tea) And?
Jeeves: It’s….George Clooney/Megan Fox 2012! Shall I release the results?
Lady Rothschild: Oh, my word. Scratch that, and put in Santelli/Madoff. And Jeeves, start shredding those boxes filled with mortgages in the guest house for the ticker tape parade.
Jeez TB, I’m such an out-of-touch idiot. I thought you were making up that name, and frankly I thought that you just lost it completely. Come on — this is just too, too much of a parody…
Sorry. My bad.
Did these idiots even notice that their URL says American Select?
Another 3rd way…to get Republicans elected. I guess they also realize that the current crop ‘o clowns will need a lot of help if they are to have any chance of winning in 2012.
“American Select” sounds like a good brand name for tumbrels, guillotines & firing squad blindfolds.
Little Tommy as spokesdummy, that’s rich! These rat bastids can afford any one of a select group of fellating toadies and they tap the simpleton of simpletons! They might be the top 1% in wealth, but it appears to be the bottom 1% in intelligent thought. These assholes think they’ve got a better idea for democracy? Embellishing on the “Tea Party” template with a “American Idol” modifier pretty much guarantees the success of the aforementioned “American Select” brand of class warfare time-saving devices.
They’d have done better with David Brooks, all you have to do to gain his confidence is talk about being at the salad bar at Applebee’s last Friday………
As for Lady de Rothschild, she’s the Florence Foster Jenkins of American politics.
Interesting how, apprantly, the wealthy want our county to degrade to the point that they would have to take measures to prevent kidnappings and such that are common in places like Mexico, Brazil, Russia…Maybe they look forward to just doing their urban moving about by helicopter so they never have to travel on the road.
I’d love to mock these guys, but they’re rich, and if they pick Huntsman, the entire punditocracy is going to go Meg Ryan simultaneously (which will not be pretty).
Ah, Florence Foster Jenkins! Now there’s a role model for the ages!
This is why I love TBogg. In my near-future career as an entrepreneur specializing in tar, feathers, torches, rails, tumbrels, and lampposts, I’ll be using “Our tumbrels won’t make your ass look big!” as an advertising slogan.
who will be nominated directly by the people in an online nominating process.
If this isn’t a recipe for hijinx and Stupidity On the March, I don’t know what is. How many ‘real Americans’ are going to nominate Hugh Jass? And I.P. Knightly? Meanwhile, we note with amusement that the biggest challenge to fixing the ucked-fay up-ay electoral system is to GET MONEY OUT OF IT, and this group of savants is entirely bankrolled by hedge fund managers. Uh-huh.
Lady Lynn is perfect for them.
The best thing to do would be for all of us to band together and nominate Lady Lynn herself. Just think about how beautiful it would be. Her runaway egotism would ensure that she sees herself as nothing less than a viable third party candidate. Then when the Americans Elect board meets to break the news that she is a joke candidate and that her hedge fund buddies have selected Bloomberg, she will go ballistic. Polo matches and summers in the Hamptons will become battlefields where the primary question will be “Lady Lynn: Wi’ her or agin’ her?”
Probably beyond the imagination of any normal human.
Speaking from my own personal and professional experience, PR/marketing people are, to quote the great philosopher John McEnroe, “the scum of the earth”. If anything, Bill Hicks was being WAY too kind to them.
Speaking for myself, I would actually like to see the Democrats act more partisan and left wing. That imaginary no-values-or-beliefs party she dreams of is actually called the modern Democratic Party.
Not surprising. Last I checked the A. G. Edwards investment folks were still using “aged wards” in their URL.