Whatever You Want Them To Be

Our old friend Doug "Third Party" Schoen is back in Politico today, screaming that Occupy Together really means America wants a centrist third party candidate who will tame the evil partisans in Congress and bring them together to push his Americans Elect effort to destroy "reform" Medicare and Social Security and save America.

In my recent polling, both parties and the congressional leadership all draw net negative ratings.

So there is good reason to believe that a credible third party may be on the ballot in 2012 — and would garner far more support than most political analysts would expect.

I recently polled for Americans Elect, a nonprofit political organization that is now planning an Internet convention to select a third presidential ticket for the 2012 election. They are in the process of securing ballot access in all 50 states.

This demonstrates that an increasing number of Americans are now searching beyond the two parties for effective leadership. Many now support an alternative 2012 ticket to break the two-party duopoly’s stranglehold.

Amazing.  He's polling for an organization that wants to create a third party ticket and he of course found that Americans really want a third party ticket.  Quelle surprise!

Voters desperately want the opportunity to change the political system. Polling showed they are looking for their voices to be heard by electing a centrist alternative to the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets in 2012. They believe, our results show, that this could force the two parties to work together, bringing logical ideas from both.

I'm having trouble figuring out how this would actually solve the problem, since the problem is Congress (and specifically Republicans in Congress), not the White House.  A centrist candidate would have what leverage exactly over Eric Cantor and John Boehner?  No, nobody expects this third party candidate to win...but it certainly would damage President Obama's re-election chances.  There's no way the Tea Party would support a relentlessly centrist candidate.  They'd line up behind the GOP for sure.

But Americans Elect would effectively split independents and Democrats, which is the point.  If these guys were serious about reforming government, they'd start with Congress, not the White House.  The fact that they exist to make sure the GOP wins in 2012 tells you everything you need to know about Doug Schoen (who has been trying to get rid of President Obama by any means possible) and the people he works for.