WASHINGTON, D.C., July 25 (DPI Commentary)  —  NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman this weekend channeled frustration over the Republican-Democrat duopoly by promoting a potential third political party that’s now little more than a survey site.

The initiative, AmericaElects.org, reportedly has more than 1.5 million signatures to get a new political party on the ballot in California, the start of a national effort to field a presidential candidate in 2012.

But as of now the initiative’s online presence has serious problems. Its site remains more of a survey-of-views site rather than any attempt at a platform or expression of political values, which is what a political party obviously is. Of course, the internet is the ultimate grass-roots forum, so the initiative appears to be letting the technology and its anonymous users create a political party first, rather than the other way around.

Further, there’s no individual out front leading the charge on the site, or anywhere else for that matter.

As a web site, AmericaElects.org is not quite ready for prime time — whole sections are inactive and labeled “beta”, and the survey questions tend to pidgeonhole the survey participants. For instance, questions on health care focus on types of insurance you would prefer, making the presumption that everyone must have insurance in the first place.

Further, the results — for now — all “skew young”, reflecting the user base. The site provides survey results from anonymous participants who believe education is the second most important issue facing the country today.  It all suggests that AmericaElects is an impressive internet platform on American politics, but is hardly a movement.

Friedman himself acknowledges that AmericaElects has a way to go. “I know it sounds gimmicky — an Internet convention — but an impressive group of frustrated Democrats, Republicans and independents, called Americans Elect, is really serious,” he writes.

That’s for sure. No sector of our society suffers from greater sclerosis than our political process, which has enabled two longstanding political parties to simply look past one another rather than seek to govern together.

Friedman may have rushed his introduction of an internet-based political initiative into print, but that’s understandable. With the debt negotiations stalemated, the political establishment needs a reminder that independent voters are looking for another option.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24friedman.html?src=me&ref=general