Unity 08 plan concerns me. My suspicions about it.

[madfloridian]

I don't feel comfortable about Unity 08. I feel like their plan to run a Democrat and Republican for president and vice president is flawed. I could not support that.

I consider it a way for the Republicans to retain power by teaming with Democrats who are centrist.

I notice at their website today, Lanny Davis, one of my most unfavorite Democratic strategists has a video up. It is from his appearance on Lou Dobbs, pushing this plan.

http://www.unity08.com/

He also has this message up there:

"Former Clinton adviser Lanny Davis talks about a Unity Team in the White House with Lou Dobbs. The idea is spreading. It seems to be everywhere. Watch the video and read more below.

Eight out of ten Americans believe Congress is too polarized to solve our nation's problems. Unity08 is a citizens' movement to get our country back on track by nominating and electing a Unity Ticket in the '08 presidential"

In case you forgot, Lanny is the one Al Franken jumped all over the other day for some careless remarks about Democrats.

They are really getting public with this plan now. And the Clintons are in full public mode. There is almost no oxygen left for other Democrats to be in the public eye.

Now just think about it. Don't jump me, because this is not an attack. It is concern.

Terry McAuliffe's big "oops" about being Hillary's manager...Bill hanging with the Bush family so openly.

Now consider this..the Democrats are standing down on this issue of torture and letting McCain and his buddies handle it. My first thought was fine, but then I realize several things are happening.

Nicco Mele takes his stand with McCain for 08, though his company, EchoDitto has only progressive clients. After he comes out publicly for McCain he takes a leave of absence from Echo and still is with Unity 08.

Bull Moose is really getting started pumping up McCain and Lieberman. I mean wow this DLC blogger is pulling openly for Lieberman now, and calling those two his heroes.

http://bullmooseblogger.blogspot.com/2006/09/courage.html

"The Moose's two favorite leaders - Joe Lieberman and John McCain - stand out because they fearlessly take a stand for what they believe is right rather than what is politically safe. Joe has paid a price because he has defied the nutroots by refusing to retreat on his stance on the Iraq war. While others have capitulated, Joe has stood his ground.

Joe Lieberman and John McCain serve as role models for all politicians. There is far too much pandering and timidity in American politics.

We need leaders with gumption and guts. Like John and Joe."

Bill Clinton met with 20 bloggers. We can look at that two ways. We can oh look at the influence bloggers are getting. Or we can say getting ready for Hillary's 08 run.

I have no gripe with Hillary, she's a fine woman. But I don't want from now to 08 being dominated by the two of them. We have other fine possible candidates, and they I fear are going to be overshadowed.

All the President's Bloggers

"It is rare enough for 20 of the country's top bloggers, drawn from across the States, to assemble in one room. But to do so because they've been summoned for an audience with the former president raises interesting questions about the way things are going.

Will this be seen as the moment when the liberal blog found its feet, after years in which the rightwing appeared to have a stranglehold on the blogosphere? Or will it be looked back on as the point at which liberal bloggers were seduced into the big tent, kissing goodbye to their most important weapon: their opposition?"

See, no attacks, just concerns. And I feel there is a connection between Unity 08 and the ones who are making their moves right now. I will not vote for a unity team for the Whitehouse. I think it is the way for the GOP to retain power.

And one last thought. It should give us a clue when they have an internet game at the website with Howard Dean, Dick Cheney, and Jack Abramoff riding around in little cars. A hint for the clueless: it is not a compliment.

http://www.unity08.com/buzzworthy

Ok, I did not come out and say it, but I am thinking in the far back reaches of my mind....McCain/Clinton or Clinton/McCain. I think that might leave out a couple of others like the ones who were the nominees on 04. Something is wrong with that picture.

[lvx35]

1. Flip-flop 08

Is what it sounds like to me. I suppose their war strategy is to withdraw halfway from Iraq?

[undergroundpanther]

2. Pretend

To give the people what they want,as you take it away from them smiling.

I dunno about you but this is sheer evil.

A populist may arise that says the right words,is dem on the outside but a fascist behind closed doors. Beware!!

This tactic is straight out of the Art of War :
Strategy 3 - Borrow another's hand to kill. (Kill with a borrowed knife.)
Strategy 6 - Display in the east and attack in the west.
Strategy 10 - Knife hidden under the smiling face.
Strategy 16 - In order to capture, one must let loose.
Strategy 30 - Make the host and the quest exchange places.
Strategy 33 - Let the enemy's own spy sow discord in the enemy camp. (Use double agents.)
Strategy 34 - Inflict injury on one's self to win the enemy's trust.

BEWARE!!

You CANNOT negotiate or compromise with sociopaths!!
The GOP is a den of sociopaths!

[madfloridian]

3. A little more....fitting into what I said above.

" Elect a Unity Ticket to the White House in 2008, headed by a woman and/or man from each major political party or by an independent who presents a Unity Team from both parties.

(Well, there you have the McCain, Clinton, Lieberman scenario...just guessing)

– Have the American people choose that ticket via the first-ever virtual, secure online convention of millions of qualified American voters. Unity08 has no candidate — the Unity Ticket will be chosen online, by the people.

– Effect major change and reform in the 2008 national elections by influencing the major parties to adopt the core features of Unity08’s national agenda. Specifically, that means dividing the issues facing the nation into Crucial Issues (e.g., education, energy independence, deficit spending, global terrorism, health care, nuclear proliferation) and Important Issues (e.g., gay marriage, gun control, abortion rights), then focusing on the Crucial.
"
http://blog.jdwhitlock.net/?p=179

[saltpoint]

4. Polls all summer show Democrats in a stronger position than

in many years.

If one or both chambers flip Nov. 7th, the momentum stays with the Democrats, and puts a strong wind at our backs for 08.

This new group would be swimming upstream.

[wyldwolf]

5. There is no reason to be concerned

Unity08 has three stated goals:

1. Goal One is the election of a Unity Ticket for President and Vice-President of the United States in 2008 – headed by a woman and/or man from each major party or by an independent who presents a Unity Team from both parties.
2. Goal Two is for the people themselves to pick that Unity Ticket in the first half of 2008 – via a virtual and secure online convention in which all American voters will be qualified to vote.
3. Goal Three, our minimum goal, is to effect major change and reform in the 2008 national elections by influencing the major parties to adopt the core features of our national agenda. With a group of voters who comprise at least 20% of the national electorate, we feel confident that our voters will decide the 2008 election.

They can realistically strive for goals 2 and 3. Hell, I'll even go online and pick two candidates I like best of the choices just to see the final results.

As for goal #3, their "targeted market" comprises a bit more than 20%. That figure is likely an average of swing and centrist voters combined with other voters who feel like they do in regards to the two major parties and would consider voting for a third party ticket. But then you get dogged down in the ideology of those voters. While there are many who are tired of the antics of the entrenched powers, some would never vote for someone who is more liberal than they are and some would never vote for someone more conservative than they are if they were to cast a vote for a third party.

I believe the point of Unity08's mission will be muted anyway because both parties will be running moderate candidates in '08. Unity08 is correct when they say that neither of today’s major parties reflects the aspirations, fears or will of the majority of Americans. Both have polarized and alienated the people. Both are unduly influenced by single-issue groups. Both are excessively dominated by money.

Clinton won in 1992 by, among other things, rejecting the over-influence of single-issue groups. Money in politics is a huge concern now. Expect the candidates in '08 to both pick up on the national mood of these two concepts and run with them.

As usual, I believe you overstate Bullmoose's influence in the DLC and McAuliffe's big "oops" was just that. Honestly, do you believe anyone would put someone with the last name of "Clinton" on a Unity ticket?

In regards to the flash animation, this is just a more sophisticated (or juvenile) way of saying the Nader-like "no difference in the two parties."

[Q]

6. Another stop closer...

...to a one party system of government.

This is a wetdream of the Neocons/Neodems.

[madfloridian]

8. I tend to agree on that.

And two of my points above about the oxygen...and about the bloggers meeting is made by a front page post at Kos. The attention is everywhere.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/21/12939/6684

I do agree this is a step toward one party, and I have a lot of problems with that.

[karynnj]

7. Thanks for the great post, Mad Floridian

There's a huge amount to absorb here.

On Unity 08:
I agree with you. I really don't trust this and wonder why a Clinton person like Lanny Davis is involved. What I wonder about is whether it's not a less Democratic (Party) version of the DLC with a neo-con foreign policy plank. This would fit Lieberman and McCain.

I've come to think that one reason the media was so strange in 2004 was not just media consolidation. With Foreign policy, including Iraq and the war on terror, being the biggest issues, I think that there is a fracture in what once was the Liberal/Democratic party over neo-con ideas. This may explain the negative coverage throughout 2004 of Democrats like Dean and Kerry who were NOT neo-cons. The confusion was that this coverage came from media that normally had a liberal bias - the NYT, the WP, TNR, Newsweek etc. Consider how they drooled over Bush's 2nd inaugral speech or how they transistion so quickly to defining spreading democracy as the goal in Iraq - ignoring that that reason was specifically eliminated from the IWR - bacause it was NOT supported as a reason. There also was a NYT op-ed in fall 2004, that spoke of the switch of the Republican, not the Democrat having the more idealist foreign policy view.

It also might explain the lack of support Kerry got from people like Donna Brazille and Joe Lieberman. It also explains why the "party leaders" so quickly tried to strip Kerry of any claim to leadership. They would have been even more successful, if Kerry was less resiliant, staying involved. (I wonder if it also explains the 2002 mischaracterization of Al Gore as "angry" and "out of contol".)

How would a country used to 2 parties deal with these 3 parties and what would they be? How could this play out?

Here is my CONJECTURE (based on few facts)

- Democratic party - For domestic issues, consider any party platform for the last several decades or take either Dean's (or Kerry's) list of what Democrats are. For foreign policy, take Kerry's Ulster speech. Edwards, with poverty issues, is clearly here on the economic issues and he seems to have rejected the neo-con ideas. Gore is here.

- United - Neo-con agenda in foreign policy, conseravtive Democratic/moderate Republican economic values and libertarian social values Who would be here? Lieberman, Kerrey, McCain, if he can't win the Republican primary

- Republican - very RW - as the sane people might have left. Bush, Cheney, Sessions, Gregg, Santorum and all the others we don't like.

Notice I didn't put the Clintons in. It's because I have NO idea where they are on foreign policy. (I think it's most likely they would stay Democrat.)

If a United party were created, the question will be, given US political history, would it ultimately replace an existing party. (I know there have always been small parties on the sides.) If it were in the open, the Democratic party would at least be represented by people genuinely in line with them.

[madfloridian]

9. It seems to be connected to the Centrist Coalition...not familiar with it.

"Unity 08
Tue, 05/30/2006 - 2:26pm
It's public. The initiative that Hamilton Jordan hinted at in his conference call with the Centrist Coalition is now public. It's Unity08. New Organization Offers Voters an Answer to Partisan Paralysis, Seeks to Elect Bipartisan 'Unity Ticket' to White House..."

http://stubbornfacts.us/aggregator/sources/3?page=10

Here's the website for that group.

http://www.centristcoalition.com/html/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=4&meid=-1

I guess the list of blogs could tell me more than their goal does.

It all sounds very one party to me, and I don't like that.

[madfloridian]

10. Washington Monthly noticed the stupid game with cars...expresed concern.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_06/008941.php

"The idea, however, is not without flaws.

For one thing, like the "Purple Party" idea that New York magazine was touting a few weeks ago, Unity08 offers an agenda that sounds awfully similar to a Clintonian Democratic model. For example, the group explains that it wants to take on "crucial issues" that the two parties aren't addressing, including:

"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 health care of all, and the disappearance of the American Dream for so many of our people."

"Also, in terms of style, Unity08 also offers an oddly mixed message. The group says it's intent on focusing on "ideas and traditions which unite and empower us as individuals and as a people," while in the next breath its website features an online game in which Howard Dean and Dick Cheney run over people with their car, accompanied by the message: "Gotcha! Another trip to Democracyland cut short by the parties and special interests!" (They forgot Abramoff's car)

The whole thing comes across as a bit of a press stunt. I'll concede that there are some serious people involved with the project -- establishment types who are now railing against the establishment -- but it's an endeavor that's long on rhetoric, short on specifics, and more pie-in-the-sky than substance."

The kind of group who would put up such a game while trying to attract people has a real identity problem. Putting the party chairman in a stupid little care with Cheney and Abramoff is akin to one of the worst insults one could give. I worry how this group will mess up our election in 08.

[LWolf]

11. A unity ticket will not get my vote.

No republican will ever get my vote unless it's a local race that didn't offer anything else in my little local district.

I would suggest that any old-school fiscal conservative republicans who want to separate themselves from the neocon jesuscamp insanity club that their party has become form themselves another party with a different name and different image if they want to reach out for some cross over votes.

[madfloridian]

15. Amen. I agree.

There is such a crossing over right now from side to side, party to party, that it needs to stop.

[madfloridian]

12. NOW on PBS covered this last night. Said Dems chances overrated.

Boy, the people behind this are very very good. They have access. Angus King of Maine was pumping this on NOW last night.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/238/angus-king.html

Democratic Hopes Overstated?
Angus King shares his independent views with David.

This is going to screw up 2008 for everyone in the Democratic party so the Republicans can basically retain power. I suspect Lieberman, Hillary, McCain will benefit from this.

[madfloridian]

13. Where we are going as a party is crucial.

That is what this is about. I have been talking to myself in this post. So I gather that most people think it this is ok and the way to go.

[TankLV]

14. No way - no how. I will NEVER accept a "unity party"

I want DEMS in control and then I want PARTISANSHIP!

I want to UNDO EVERY FUCKING THING THE REPUKES DID TO OUR COUNTRY.

And, lastly, I want every one of them and their supporters PUNISHED SEVERLY as both warning to other in the future and to make sure they never DARE raise their ugly little minds again...

I WANT A FUCKING OPPOSITION PARTY!