Edward Luce repeats a number of dubious myths in his discussion of Americans Elect:

Americans Elect is close to reaching the 2.9m signatures it needs to put its candidate on all 50 ballots. If its eventual candidate polls above 15 per cent – not a tall order in a season that briefly put Herman Cain in the driving seat – he or she would qualify for the presidential debates.

Anyone who watched Britain’s debates in 2010 will remember how much more exposure they gave to Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader. A third candidate could disrupt the course of politics. Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose candidacy in 1912 paved the way for the progressive era of Woodrow Wilson. The monomaniacal Mr Perot helped lay the groundwork for Mr Clinton’s fiscal conservatism in the 1990s.

There are several things wrong with this. The volatility inside the GOP primary electorate does not mean that there would be automatic support in polls for a “centrist” third-party challenger. When “very conservative” voters launch a half dozen candidates into fleeting contention with Romney because they cannot abide the former governor, it does not follow that there is an opportunity for a “centrist” candidate to poll in double digits. The 1910 midterms paved the way for Wilson’s progressivism by electing a large Democratic majority in Congress. Roosevelt’s candidacy was a function of Taft’s political weakness and not a cause of Wilson’s later legislative agenda. Perot’s candidacy benefited from economic discontent and hostility to support for NAFTA from both major parties, but his candidacy had no effect on bipartisan support for the trade agreement. Fiscal conservatism as such was not a priority of the Clinton administration until after the ’94 midterms when it was compelled to adapt in the wake of the losses of both houses. Third-party candidates often force one or both major-party nominees to adopt some of the third-party candidate’s rhetoric, but their effect on how the eventual winner governs is not that great.

What limited success Perot and Clegg had helps explain why Americans Elect has always been a bad joke. Perot tapped into voter discontent by challenging the new bipartisan consensus on trade, for example, and Clegg provided a serious challenge to New Labour more or less from the left. The “centrists” aligned with Americans Elect are the most reliable supporters of bipartisan consensus views on virtually everything. They object to the bankruptcy of the duopoly, as well they might, but the agenda they would like to advance is a litany of the most unpopular and/or most misguided policies taken from both parties. By design, Americans Elect would like the two parties to be less representative of their core constituencies and more attentive to the demands of “centrists.” The organization seems not to understand that it is the failure of both parties to represent their constituents that fuels so much voter disaffection with the current system.