Unity 08

Unity08 merited an article in Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times:

Voter dissatisfaction with some top-tier presidential contenders and with extreme Republican and Democratic partisanship has spawned a Web-based movement to field a bipartisan ticket.[...]

Unity08.com, created in part by former political operatives for the 1976 Ford and Carter campaigns, thinks it has the answer. The group plans to hold an online national primary in June 2008 to select a bipartisan presidential ticket, and is laying plans to begin qualifying for the ballots this fall. Its main requirements: The presidential and vice presidential candidates not be from the same party.

I don’t know how effective Unity08 will actually be. Because their unabashedly centrist/moderate, I suspect they have a better shot than a third-party or pure independent candidate. However, a notable personality needs to be tapped (I’m still hoping for Bloomberg), and the dust needs to settle on the D and R nomination races in such a way as to create enough of an opening in the middle to have a centrist/coalition candidate be viable, rather than just be a spoiler.

Goodness, this is going to be a long, but potentially extremely entertaining season for armchair political junkies like me.

A few days ago, I referenced a news report claiming that Bloomberg isn’t planning to run for President in 2008.

Perhaps it’s true, but speculation certainly hasn’t diminished. Today’s Wall Street Journal includes an article (subscriber link) fueling the fire:

That is leading to talk among even establishment activists that voters might be especially willing next year to look beyond the major parties. Former aides to Presidents Carter and Ford are helping to promote an effort called Unity08 that seeks to put a bipartisan ticket on the presidential ballot, after an online primary. That could be a natural vehicle for Mr. Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican.

Mr. Bloomberg’s opening would come if voters were to grow so disenchanted with the big-party nominees that they begin looking for an alternative, says Ed Rollins, Mr. Perot’s campaign manager. He attributes Mr. Perot’s 1992 popularity to Republican disaffection with the first President Bush, who had reneged on a pledge not to raise taxes, and Democratic uncertainty about Bill Clinton, whose campaign was rocked by charges of womanizing, draft avoidance and excessive political calculation.

If I were Bloomberg and if I were seriously considering a run for the White House, I would be very tempted to wait until the landscape becomes clearer next February before committing.

If the R’s end up nominating Giuliani, I think Bloomberg could be very tempted to run. Bloomberg is fiscally conservative enough to draw enough conservative support (with conservatives presumably not terribly hot on Giuliani due to his socially moderate/liberal bent), and is socially liberal enough to be a viable alternative to any Democrat running, thereby diluting the potential of simply being a spoiler.

However, if the Republicans end up nominating anyone other than Giuliani.like McCain or Romney, I suspect that Bloomberg couldn’t attract enough conservative support to avoid being just the spoiler that keeps the Democrat from winning.

At least that’s my opinion as an armchair political spectator.

There’s been interest expressed in some circles in seeing Bloomberg make a centrist, third-party run for President in 2008.

The New York Times has reported that wishful thinking has been for naught. It sounds like Bloomberg has better things to spend his money on:

“I do not anticipate being a candidate this time or any other time,” he said on a visit to the Mexican capital.[.]

Bloomberg, who cannot run for mayor again because of term limits, has insisted he will sell his news and financial-information services company Bloomberg LP at the end of his term to focus on philanthropy.

While I think he would have made an extremely viable nonpartisan candidate, I’ll tip my hat for his recognition that there’s better things to spend one’s fortune on than the political circus.

As seen at Politico:

Unity08, a fledgling organization seeking to nominate a credible third-party candidate for the 2008 presidential campaign, released the rules for its online nomination process today.

Candidates seeking the Unity08 nomination must pick a running-mate before the balloting starts, and must be “serious about public service.” Tickets must be bipartisan, formed with at least one Republican and one Democrat, or with independents running as part of a unity team.

Convention “delegates” will vote to select the candidate. Those delegates must be registered voters and sign up online. A first round of voting in May 2008 will narrow the list of contenders to five candidates. In June 2008, there will be multiple rounds of balloting held until one candidate wins a majority of the vote. The voting will all be conducted online.

So, has anyone put the question to Bloomberg yet? From what I know of the guy, he would be a rather well-funded centrist candidate. And, the idea of a 3-way race among Clinton, Giuliani, and Bloomberg seems incredibly amusing to me.

I do, however, question the wisdom of starting the balloting process in May of 2008. It seems fairly likely that both the pachyderms and the donkeys will have their ballots distilled before then, perhaps even by the February mega-primary. If Unity is serious about fielding a viable candidate, I’d think that they’d want to have a nominee decided upon about the time the rest of the ballot becomes clear, in order to minimize issues with differentials in fundraising time.

Several months ago, I I posted an article on an intriguing group called Unity 08, which seeks to get a centrist slate of candidates on the ballot in 2008.

It seems that they’re moving ahead, if this WashWire piece is to be believed:

Unity08 — the brainchild of Democrats Gerald Rafshoon and Hamilton Jordan (both of whom helped to elect President Carter) and Doug Bailey (President Ford’s media adviser) — is up and running, and Waterston, a star of “Law & Order”, is making the rounds in Washington to promote blended politics. If all works according to plan, perhaps millions of Internet delegates would nominate “an absolutely credible bipartisan ticket” of a Republican and a Democrat.

With recent polls pointing towards 2008 being an interesting race between Clinton and Giuliani (both of whom seem refreshingly non-wignuttish able politicians and administrators), I wouldn’t have high hopes for Unity 08’s prospects in the Presidential race… although a 3-way campaign among Clinton, Giuliani, and Bloomberg would certainly be even more entertaining.

However, I would be interested in seeing what they could do down-ticket, particularly if they take advantage of the ability in some jurisdictions to cross-nominate candidates running in other parties.

There’s another recent writeup of Unity at Politico. Quoting that article on Unity’s goals for the 2008 elections:

Such a unity ticket would help leaders come to consensus answers on vexing issues such as climate change, lack of health insurance for millions of Americans and the looming bankruptcy of entitlement programs, actor and Unity08 spokesman Sam Waterston said during a meeting Tuesday with Politico editors and reporters.

“The idea is to create a space in which it’s possible to discuss these ideas honestly and directly, to come to some kind of solution,” Waterston said. “I’ve been watching with a combination of horror and fascination how politics is usually done.”

It looks like a group is trying to get a new, albeit temporary, moderate
third party off the ground: Unity ‘08. Here’s how Chris Cillizza describes the group:

Although details of the group’s aims are somewhat spotty,
Unity ‘08 hopes to harness the power of the Internet to build a community of
activists who will be tasked with choosing a “unity” ticket (made up of one
Democrat and one Republican) during an online “convention” in June 2008.
“That will be after the two parties are likely to have decided in their
primaries who their nominees will be, so the Unity ‘08 convention delegates
would then be able to consider who is best to run against them,” according
to a four-page question and answer document being circulated by the
group.

The document summarizing the group’s plan outlines a series of “crucial
issues” that it hopes its presence will force the national parties to
address. These include “global terrorism, our national debt, our dependence
on foreign oil, the emergence of India and China as strategic competitors
and/or allies, nuclear proliferation, global climate change, the corruption
of Washington’s lobbying system” and many, many more.

From Unity’s beliefs section:

We are not looking to build a new and permanent party. That
might happen, but our objective is to fix the old parties. A Unity Ticket
in office for one term or even taking part in just one election can bring
new ideas, new integrity and new leaders to the fore.[...]

Unity08 divides issues facing the country into two categories: Crucial
Issues - on which America’s future safety and welfare depend; and Important
Issues - which, while vital to some, will not, in our judgment, determine
the fate or future of the United States.

In our opinion, Crucial Issues include: Global terrorism, our national
debt, our dependence on foreign oil, the emergence of India and China as
strategic competitors and/or allies, nuclear proliferation, global climate
change, the corruption of Washington’s lobbying system, the education of our
young, the heath care of all, and the disappearance of the American Dream
for so many of our people.

By contrast, we consider gun control, abortion and gay marriage important
issues, worthy of debate and discussion in a free society, but not issues
that should dominate or even crowd our national agenda.

I’ve got to hand it to these folks — they may be adopting a very realistic
starting position. They aren’t seeking to form a new party, but instead to
focus attention on a few key issues, while tabling a few polarizing issues
that would challenge the formation of any moderate group and create an
entity that is likely to only act as a spoiler.

I’ve written previously that I would like to see the duopoly of the
Democratic and Republican parties broken up, and that I don’t realistically
expect such to happen barring a major change in the domestic political
climate.

The ideas being tossed around by the Unity folks might be a decent short
term goal. It’ll be interesting to see if they get any legs between now
and June ‘08.

An article at Donklephant points to a Dick Meyers commentary that I missed last week
which touches upon the subject.

Donklephant exhorts its readers to check it out, and I’ll do the same rather than try to summarize it.

If anything, however, it highlights the need for a viable third party to get its act together, and get a big-name at its head
(Bloomberg has been mentioned by many) soon, if it is to be viable for the 2008 election cycle.

I love reading and dreaming about the idea, but given how politics works in the country these days, I still don’t see it happening.

Interesting article here:

Friedman is appalled by both parties’ pandering “solutions” to the gas-price crisis, craven schemes for bribing
voters out of the pockets of our kids and grandkids. He believes that both parties’ utter abdication of the responsibility to get
very serious about the energy crisis that is upon us - and is also, of course, our national-security crisis - creates a huge opening
for a third party, and that such a party will field a presidential candidate as early as 2008.

I’m not holding my breath, but I wouldn’t be displeased.

One of the projects on my to-do list, which may or may not happen, is to add a set of static pages to this blog describing what I’d
like to see as planks in a third-party platform.

However, as I toy around with doing that, I’m reminded about one of the big challenges in a viable third “centrist” party being
formed — is there a cohesive enough set of views to build a viable party around.

In some of the writeups I’ve seen proposing a centrist party, some ideas have been tossed around. Some of them I agree with, and
others I don’t. I can’t help but wonder if, as more centrists are collected to form a core of a third party, there will be enough
fracturing of views to cause such a movement to coalesce. The common theme among those of us holding such views is only that the
Elephants and Donkies fail to adequately represent us…and I’m afraid that “anybody but them” is too shaky of a platform to be
viable.