Americans Elect does EVERYTHING it wanted ... except do everything it wanted

We should've run Jesse La Greca. Better than parody:

A Statement by Americans Elect CEO Kahlil Byrd

Over the past two years, Americans Elect has focused on achieving three clear goals:

* Gaining nationwide ballot access for a third presidential ticket to compete in the 2012 race;

* Holding the first ever nonpartisan secure national online primary at AmericansElect.org; and

* Fielding a credible, balanced, unaffiliated ticket for the 2012 presidential race.

Through the efforts of thousands of staffers, volunteers, and leadership, Americans Elect has achieved every stated operational goal. Despite these efforts, as of today, no candidate has reached the national support threshold required to enter the 'Americans Elect Online Convention' this June.

Did you catch that? Americans Elect had THREE goals, and there was nothing opaque about them. The most important one of all, the entire reason they existed, in fact, was "Fielding a credible, balanced, unaffiliated ticket for the 2012 presidential race."

That was a tall order, but as they tell us in the next sentence, "Americans Elect has achieved every stated operational goal." Huzzah! That's f'ing amazing! I can't believe they pulled it off! Okay, I was wrong when I wrote that this Joke non-partisan effort had turned out to be genuinely funny. Who knew that a competition with the likes of Buddy Roemer and Rocky Anderson would deliver a centrist ticket? Mea culpa!

But wait ... what's this? I'm suddenly confused. The sentence after that points out that: "no candidate has reached the national support threshold required to enter the 'Americans Elect Online Convention' this June."

So, uh, how did they meet their goal to field a ticket for the 2012 presidential race if they've failed to field a ticket? And to think that they had gotten me all excited about their goal achieving!

That's not all, though. Goal #1 was "Gaining nationwide ballot access for a third presidential ticket to compete in the 2012 race". So they must at least have that, right? Well, not really. From their own site, a month ago:

Press Release: AE Hits Halfway Mark for Ballot Access!

Since then, they've claimed ballot access in two more states, so that means ... carry the two ... 27, which is quite a bit less than 50 (plus DC). Laudable, perhaps, but that's still just half a goal.

But hey, at least they held "the first ever nonpartisan secure national online primary at AmericansElect.org", which proved that  "build it and they will come" only works with dead baseball players. And Kevin Costner didn't spend $9 million on his lunacy.

Of course, everyone with half a brain saw this coming a mile away, which of course means that the Mustache of Understanding, aka Thomas Friedman, didn't:

Thanks to a quiet political start-up that is now ready to show its hand, a viable, centrist, third presidential ticket, elected by an Internet convention, is going to emerge in 2012. I know it sounds gimmicky ' an Internet convention ' but an impressive group of frustrated Democrats, Republicans and independents, called Americans Elect, is really serious, and they have thought out this process well [...]

Write it down: Americans Elect. What Amazon.com did to books, what the blogosphere did to newspapers, what the iPod did to music, what drugstore.com did to pharmacies, Americans Elect plans to do to the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life ' remove the barriers to real competition, flatten the incumbents and let the people in. Watch out.

Hilarious.