About a month ago, right before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, some of us in the various Hillary Clinton Facebook groups joined Americans Elect. The registration process was in two phases. One member of one of the groups then sent word out that to fully participate, after logging in, you needed to complete three additional steps to “fortify” your account (the term AE uses). I did go through the additional steps and warned my friends that it is a little scary. In each of those steps there are statements and you are to choose the one that is true of you. In every instance, one of the statements is true – not simply true, but very specific. When you complete the process you receive a message that your account has been fortified and that you have been verified as a registered voter.
Ohhhhhh!!!! The hesitation I heard from my friends! Who ARE they? Who is behind this? How secure is this? Etc., etc., etc. Well now we have an answer to those questions. The answer is both a surprise and should not be all at once. Lynn Forester de Rothschild appeared Cavuto this week and she is the big name behind this . Really, I should have suspected. She explained the AE mission and how the site works. For those who were concerned about security, she was very reassuring. She did not name him, but the fellow who set up security for ETrade left his job there to work with AE.
For some reason, always a mystery to me at WordPress, the embed code for the clip does not work here, but here is the link. I encourage you to watch (she mentions our HRC). I hope that knowing it is Lady Lynn will encourage my Hillary friends to join us at AE and go through the full process to become a Hillary Clinton delegate for the online convention in June!
Link to Lynn Forester de Rothschild on Cavuto discussing Americans Elect.
Still4Hill 
thanks for the info Still
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My pleasure, Robyn!
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It is a sad time for Americans when the majority of voters do not want any of the candidates running from either party. The disapproval ratings for leaders in this presidential race are just staggering, and yet we are given no options. The American people seem to be at a loss as to what to do about this disaster of an election.
I’m wondering if it’s worth it to vote anymore. There is strong evidence that there has been some sort of voter tampering in the last three elections. The 2,000 elections, 2004, and in the primaries/caucuses of 2008. With the people running this time, I find it hard to really care if they cheat or not. They are all still losers in my opinion.
I am a lifelong Democrat, but I will not vote for Obama, for many reasons. One huge reason being Obama’s having blocked the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party of California from being re-certified. Why would he do that?The Progressives dared ask that another Democrat run against him. http://www.laprogressive.com/occupy-occupies-burlingame/
This was hardly the change Progressive Democrats expected when they worked so hard to get Obama elected in 2008.
It’s an ominous sign to me, that Obama seems determined to crush any dissent in his party. Welcome to the New World Order, still running full steam.
True Democracy had become a misty memory, and the man who promised change has become a tyrant.
The indecision shown among Republicans regarding their candidates demonstrates that they aren’t happy with the choices offered them either, but at least they have a choice, kind of. Still, they seem as frustrated as many Democrats are with their candidate/s. Still, we all go along with it, like weary sheep. What has happened to our country?
What better way to strangle a “democracy” than what is happening in our 2012 election? Still, I don’t believe HRC will run against Obama and risk splitting an already weak party. It would be political suicide, since she would end up being blamed for any loss. If only Obama would deal with reality and clear the way for her to run, I think she would easily become our next president. Instead, I think we are in for four more years of ineptitude, no matter who wins this clown fest. Nope, not a great time for America. The best we can hope for is that Secretary of State Clinton will run again in 2016, in a fair election. Is that too much to ask in America? I sure hope not.
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I, too, am not exactly enthusiastic about voting in this election. Possibly doing some campaign work or working at the polls on election day – that has me interested – but not the actual voting part. My lack of excitement is based in the over importance of big money in our electoral process post Citizens United. It feels more and more like if you are not one of the handful of zillionaires donating seven or eight figure sums, this whole process has sort of passed you by. We all still vote, but was does it matter when the constituents that the candidates are really concerned about are a few political “sugar daddies”, for lack of a better term. The strategy of politics and the policy that comes from it fascinates me, but insane state of campaign financing is disgusting.
If the Secretary chooses to run in 2016, this new system of political patronage will serve her very, very well, but pay-to-play democracy will be no less foul a system to me. As to this year, I think barring a crisis of some extraordinary magnitude that can be directly and unambiguously linked to a glaring failure of the President, I don’t see him stepping aside and even if he did, her path to the nomination would be far from clear. There is no such thing as an inevitable nominee, just ask Mitt Romney.
I hope something gets me energized because I enjoy the process to much and feel that it’s very important, but this campaign finance system is eroding average people’s interest in getting involved in the process as well as their trust in those who do and that is my concern going forward.
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And that, my friends, is the worst of it all–Citizens United. As I believe Bill Clinton said, “One of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever.” Exactly. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Hillary could figure out how to use it, if she chose to run (huge if, I know). It makes me wonder how there can be future “movement” figures in the Party. Heck, either party, at this point. The two people who scare me the most? The Koch brothers. Apparently, there’s a third brother who sold his third to the other two and got out and wants nothing to do with them. I’m not surprised. They’re buying out our college campuses, forcing them to become right-wing, and they’re now buying out our democracy. Democra…what? Yep. ::sigh:: The tiringness of it all.
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Your research is paying off – for all of us! I did not know about that third Koch brother! Keep the deep background coming as you encounter it! (Seriously, you ought to think about a blog.)
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I’m getting it all from MSNBC. I appreciate the comments, though. I’m not sure I could keep up a blog at the moment.
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If things stay as they are with regard to politics and money, we will still have people who inspire and shape things in extraordinary ways – they will all just be from and/or bankrolled by a certain very small and highly influential subset of the population who will expect a certain return on their considerable investment. We will still have campaigns and elections, but they will be more a farcical reality show than a serious exercise in civic responsibility because the real electioneering will be happening behind closed doors as candidates and superPACs court mega-donors and, by and by, everyone will understand that. Just look at how ridiculous this current presidential primary/dog and pony show has been. Our elections are watched around the world and this is the example we set as we preach equality in the democratic process. Give me a break!
I attended an event last week about my state’s election policy. Some things that were mentioned were the declining number of people voting both statewide and nationally, what might be done to address that, and also what could be done to encourage civic involvement among those under forty. Well, I can tell you what is not helping rectify any of those problems – the growing feeling among average citizens that they don’t matter to politicians who are focused on pleasing million dollar sugar daddies. It’s not hard to believe that when you hear stuff like this.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-10/gingrich-seeks-to-ease-fundraising-woes-as-big-donations-slow.html
I know the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but damn, what neighborhood are they operating in?! If that is “grassroots” now, I don’t know what to make of things. The median American household income in 2010, according to the Census Bureau, was $49,445. Let’s be generous (and keep the math easy for me) and round up to an even $50,000. $2,500 is 1/20 of that annual income – not entirely prohibitive, perhaps, but with the cost of living on its perpetual upward track it certainly is for many earning that sum and it does shut out those making less than that. The seven figures that were mentioned as a goal draws an even starker contrast. One million dollars is 20 times the median American household income (nicely rounded up for optimism). If the focus of even “grassroots” efforts are barely in contact with most of the population, I don’t think widespread voter malaise should be much of a surprise to anyone and, if things do not change, I think we will see a lot more of that. Now I understand that not every problem with our election system has to do with the Citizens United verdict or too much money in politics, but I think a lot do and what isn’t caused directly by the never-ending hunt for more campaign cash is exacerbated by it. As things stand now, the vast majority of us are simply being priced out of relevance to those very people we elect to represent our interests.
I’m sorry for going on and on. This November 2011 op-ed from the New York Times is pretty good reading on this topic if anyone is interested. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/opinion/in-campaign-financing-more-money-can-beat-big-money.html
Rant concluded (for now).
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My fav “leader under 50”, Karen Finney, recommended this as her “must read” on the Alex Witt show this morning. I hope it makes you feel better.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72690.html
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Honestly, only a little bit.
Social media is great at uncovering shady dealings and spreading the outrage, but it will not change the fact that any serious political ambition – I’d say from gubernatorial on up – can only be realized if you have a certain number of zeros in your bank account balance and you have at least one political patron friend. Massive social media barrages will work to a certain extent in these elections as bullfunky detectors, but eventually somebody is going to figure out how to make the money game work to their advantage there too. The long term problem is the lack of any sort of real rules governing money in political campaigns and that will not change either quickly or easily because more and more politicians are beholden to it. As dumb as many say our elected officials are, they will not bite the hand that feeds their next run for office.
It doesn’t make me optimistic about involving younger voters either. It is a system that teaches that money, while not all that matters, is without a doubt what matters most. This is a mindset that has been gaining in popularity and acceptance since the 1980’s. For many young people in 2008, “Hope and Change” was at least partially connected to this idea of being an invited participant in the political process even though you weren’t wealthy or a VIP. Last week “Hope and Change” got a superPAC. Need I say more?
Still, you name Karen Finney as your favorite leader under fifty, but I’d challenge anyone to name many more young leaders. I’m going to bore you with numbers again. 313 of the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives (with three vacancies) are filled by individuals born before 1960 – 52 and over with the average age being 56. In the Senate 88 of 100 seats are fill by those who are over 52 – median age, 62. The median age of a governor is 59. I’m sure many here are thrilled by those stats – keeping the whelps at bay and all that – but it is concerning when you see the drastic drop in involvement by younger people. Who will step up when the time comes and who would want to if they feel like more of an observer to the process than a part of it?
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Sorry it didn’t help that much. MTK is another of my favs along with Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Greta.
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MTK? And does Greta even count as a young leader?
These seem to be all media people, too. This furthers my point that, particularly for Democrats, there is no talent warming up on the sidelines. To put it into perspective, Bill Clinton was first talked about as a presidential possibility in 1988 when he was 42. I can’t even imagine anyone taking a 42 year old seriously now unless they owned several big companies and their last name was Bush or Kennedy.
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I just meant that Maria Teresa wrote it. I like what she and Katrina say – I wasn’t casting them or Greta as leaders. I like their reporting. It was an article Karen recommended, and I do see her differently from the others. She happens to be in the media now, but when I listen to her I hear a lot of potential for bigger things.
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I just didn’t know who MTK is.
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OMG! I have caught the “initialization virus!”
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Ok, now I’m totally confused.
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I initialize people whose names are too long. Maria Teresa Kumar = MTK; Melissa Harris Perry = MHP. I should get out of that habit, I guess.
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The question is how many Facebook and Twitter users will really pony up with campaign contributions?
I mean, it was nice to see the outrage over the Komen Foundation decision go viral, and to watch as $3 million poured into the coffers at Planned Parenthood overnight. But $3 million doesn’t begin to touch the $100 million being raised by the Kohn brothers alone.
Anyway, I’m a bit cynical about the Obama campaign bragging how many “under $200” donations they’ve received, as if they’ve succeeded in resuscitating their “grassroots” fund-raising. I’m in the group of people who can and probably will donate $2500 to his campaign, but the last email solicitation I got specifically requested “$190.” I tried to give more but there was no “button” for that choice.
Why am I donating to Obama you may ask? Two words: Supreme Court. Whatever else you might say about the guy, Obama did appoint two liberal women. We better make damn sure that when Ruth Ginsberg retires, there’s a Democrat in the White House.
I still believe that in the long run campaign finance reform is the only viable solution to curbing the influence of the monied interests in elections. Ironically, Obama didn’t help the cause when he refused to follow McCain’s lead and accept public financing for the GE in 2008. I remember voicing protest about this at the time but was shouted down by the supposedly progressive liberal blogosphere who said it would be lunacy for Obama not to avail himself of every advantage to secure his election.
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In the end it will always be SCOTUS that rules in the booth, I guess. I have been continuing to give to HRC. This is such a pitiful pool of candidates. So discouraging.
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Signing up with a superPAC made it very clear just how little those small dollar donations matter. I can not afford to donate much and that decision makes me even less likely to bother donating to Obama. The younger voters that the Obama campaign is trying to appeal to on social media are not likely to donate. Student loan debt is burying young people and they just can’t make the kind of donations that matter these days. The same “you have to play the game to change the game” argument that was made about publicly funded campaigns in ’08 is being used again now in relation to the superPAC decision and it’s just as bogus now as it was then.
I am totally with you about the Supreme Court appointments. The last thing we need is a President Romney or Sanctimonium or whoever packing the courts with judges that think corporations and banks are the same as (or maybe better than) people and that a zygote has more rights than the woman it lives off of.
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Sanctimonium!
LOL – love it
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Don’t you LOVE it? Better than Tony Soprano’s “Senator Sanatorium.”
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Though that too is still incredibly fitting.
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Just guessing, but pretty sure David Chase came up with that one.
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Still4hill – checked out the AE link and sure hope it’s truly legit because after inputting a lot of personal info (I don’t quite get why they need your birthdate, cell phone number and last 4 digits of SSN), I kept getting an “ERROR” message in the final stage of the “identity verification” process. Both frustrating…and a little spooky.
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I know what you mean. It IS spooky. That’s why so many did not go through those last few steps. but when I did, I was amazed that they had verified my registration status. A LOT of people were afraid this was some plot from nefarious sources. That’s why, when I found it was Lynn, I had to be sure people knew. #1 She has her own software companies #2 She has that ETrade guy doing security and #3 As she states, HRC “any day of the week.” I have reasons to trust her. I don’t now why the error message, but if you go to help, maybe they can figure it out.
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About a week ago, we were eating dinner at a small restaurant outside DC, in the heart of rich DC elites neighborhood. A senior woman was sitting next to us eating alone and she struck up a conversation. It started with women’s place in society in various countries and I could not help comment on primary 2008 and how backward this country is. She was an OWS organizer (that is what she said) and Obama supporter. I mentioned the May 31 RBC meeting in Woodley Park and she didn’t know anything about it. She didn’t know much of what happened to Hillary in 2008. She listened to me (“tell me. “tell me”). I of course got worked up talking about all that had happened. Hers was the face of a hardcore Democratic party supporter. They really are an ignorant and dogmatic bunch.
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0-0 O*M*G*!!!! :0
They called US “low-information voters!”
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In obot code “low information voter” means someone who doesn’t believe all their bullcrap.
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I always found the HRC voters better informed. Jen, were you with us the night when after Matt’s show went off we invaded an Obama show? There were maybe 12 or 15 of us and they could not keep up with us. Told us we were typing too fast in the chat. They had no idea of anything we were talking about.
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No, I wasn’t there that night. I wish I had been.
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We had a lot of fun. They had no idea what we were talking about!
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It actually means a racist. Why else would a person not be enthralled by Obama? Hilary supporters were labeled racists. Remember his comments in San Francisco about the folks in PA?
The Obama campaign played the race card in the primaries, the GE and continued to do so in the WH. How many people have been accused of racism because they disagreed with Obama on policy? It is a way to be dismissive of those who criticize him.
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But he didn’t HAVE any policies. As soon as HRC laid hers out, he adopted (co-opted) them. In every debate, once they were down to the last two, she got every hard question first and he just said she was “right about that.” He had policies? Really?
And how ironic if that is what it meant since we knew every plank and nail in her platform. His platform was smoke and mirrors until he heard something from her that people liked.
As for the race card, I would like someone to explain how it could be that when I see her successor as Karen Finney. I see in Karen what I see in HRC. She thinks multidimensionally like HRC does, is ultra-fast mentally, also is truly, deep-down sweet, funny, and kind. I could go on.
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WE know that he didn’t have any policies, but the American public doesn’t even know who is the current vice president. As William Safire once said, we are nation of nitwits.
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*BIG HUGE ENORMOUS SIGH*
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I joined American elect. I answered over 200 questions and am a supporter of Hillary. She only has 110 supporters we can do better than that. Lets all elect Hillary join American Elect and support Hillary!!
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I am one of them. We need to get YOU on there, Candice, for your district!
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I went there and looked for you, but didn’t see you listed. Maybe the system needs to reboot overnight like ours does where I work. Sometimes it can take up to 72 hours. I will keep looking. When I find you there, I will support and track you and also put up a new post telling people to do the same.
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