In last year’s March issue of the Prospect, I profiled Americans Elect—an extravagantly funded but terminally confused organization that sought to create a centrist third party in American politics by funding signature-gathering operations in every state to qualify a presidential candidate for the ballot and creating an online primary in which people who affiliated the party could choose its nominee. As no major, or even prominent minor, political figures chose to throw their hats into Americans Elect’s ring, however, the effort was aborted—but not before the organization had raised roughly $40 million, chiefly from donors it declined to identify.

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