Late Returns: Americans Elect Candidates Still Not Doing Well

Late Returns: Americans Elect Candidates Still Not Doing Well

Last week, we reported on the newly minted "Draft David Walker" movement, a campaign to get the former head of the Government Accountability Office into the presidential race on the Americans Elect ballot line.

At the heart of this campaign were several people who played a role in the creation of Americans Elect itself, who, finding that Walker hadn't gained any traction merely being one of the site's "draft candidates," decided to lay all of their efforts behind driving up support for Walker ahead of Americans Elect's May 15 deadline, at which point would-be candidates would have had to have crossed a qualification threshold. That threshold? One thousand "support clicks" from 10 states.

When we last looked at Walker's Americans Elect page, he had garnered only 307 support clicks. After eight days of effort, what does the Draft David Walker have to show for itself? He's now up to ...385 support clicks. He still trails Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton, Jon Stewart, Dennis Kucinich, Elizabeth Warren, Stephen Colbert, Gary Johnson, Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Jon Huntsman, and Ron Paul on the list of "draft candidates." And Buddy Roemer, who tops the list of "declared candidates," has 4,354 support clicks, placing him squarely in the lead of this race to fail to qualify for the Americans Elect candidacy.

So, at the rate the Draft David Walker campaign is going, they will have their man qualified by about noon on Dec. 19, 2014.

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In a scene reminiscent of the season finale of "The Bachelor," Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are frantically wooing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in hopes of earning his endorsement. Mitt Romney hopes Bloomberg will remember how much he hates the Dodd-Frank law (and not much else, the two men share very little agreement on the issues). Obama will hope Bloomberg remembers the minimal support he offered his last mayoral opponent, Bill Thompson. (Though that race was closer than almost anyone expected, so Obama himself may regret that decision.) What to expect? Alex Pareene says, "I would be surprised if Bloomberg ended up endorsing anyone," which is probably how this story ends. [Pareene @ Salon]

How is Dick Lugar going to claw his way back in the GOP Primary contest for the Indiana Senate against Richard Mourdock, which he is probably losing? Well, he's gonna give the ol' flag-burning amendment issue another try, for auld lang syne. (It will not work.) [The Corner]

Newt Gingrich said that the "truly wild ride" that was his presidential candidacy is now over. But not for the many people to whom Gingrich still owes money! No, no. For them, the wild ride is just beginning. Fun fact: "Many of the campaign's creditors are small businesses that say they will suffer major hardship if they are not paid." Gingrich, of course, is set to endorse Mitt Romney, and I'm sure he's hopeful that Mitt will help retire his debt in return. This means that very soon, Romney may have his own successful corporate bailouts to tout! [Destination 2012 @ Yahoo]

Here is everything you could possibly want to know about the bird shirt that Ann Romney wore on TV. It cost $990, she bought it herself, the Obama campaign doesn't want to criticize her for it (because why, exactly?), and it has a bird on it, like the famous "Portlandia" sketch, "Put a Bird On It." The best part of this article, however, is this line: "The Romney campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment." For campaign reporting novices, that informs the reader that the Romney campaign did not call back the Politico reporter who had a question. About Ann Romney's bird shirt. For some reason. [Politico]

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