Anybody who reads here knows that Polimom’s biggest political concern by far is the polarization of America. The wings (sometimes politely referred to as “the bases”) of both parties are skewing things out of proportion, paralyzing the political system with expectations that can only be called pandering, and creating a truly unhappy electorate.
So skimming around my usual haunts today, I ’bout fell out of my chair when I came across an entry at Donklephant talking about a net campaign to shake the presidential nomination system out of its polarized lethargy.
It’s called Unity08, and here’s a paste from their Beliefs and Goals page:
What We Believe
Unity08 believes 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.
For most of the 20th Century, the contest for the U.S. presidency was waged over those “in the middle.” Recent Presidential elections, however, have not been focused on the middle but on the turnout of each party’s special interest groups – with each party’s “base” representing barely ten percent of the American people.
We believe that, while the leaders of both major parties are well intentioned people, they are trapped in a flawed system – and that the two major parties are today simply neither relevant to the issues and challenges of the 21st Century nor effective in addressing them.
As a result, most Americans have not been enthusiastic about the choices for President in recent elections, the key issues they ran on, or the manner in which the campaigns were conducted.
Therefore Unity08 will act to assure that an alternative ticket is presented to the American voters in 2008.
Oh my. Polimom’s all aquiver.
Chris Cillizza at WaPo’s The Fix wrote about this today, and his piece includes this:
If polls are to be believed, voter disgust with politics is an historic levels — an unhappiness that could benefit the Unity ’08 efforts. The group also has a number of experienced political professionals guiding its efforts, distinguishing it from some of the less organized efforts in the past. Even so, The Fix remains skeptical about the chances of any third-party slate given the significant financial and institutional hurdles.
He’s right, of course. There are enormous hurdles for any third party. Joe Gandleman at TMV wrote about just that not long ago:
In fact, if you study third parties they have served mostly to (1) inspire major parties to co-opt some of their measures and eventually put them out of business, (2) serve as spoilers (sorry about that phrase Ralph Nader but it’s true, as you illustrated in 2000) that merely siphon votes away from one major party and help the other major party to win.
But what they’re proposing at Unity08 is rather different, it seems, than what one traditionally thinks of as a third party. They’re not trying to create a permanent alternative; rather, they’re hoping to shake the parties back down to earth. But the tree needs millions of hands shaking it before anything will move.
What a concept.
This is a much different animal from Joe’s #2, and as for #1? Yes. That works for me — “Inspire the major parties” to adopt more moderate measures. Please, by all means, co-opt away…
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Update: More from Joe at the TMV (who still sees #2 as the overriding third-party risk), and Lullaby Pit has more details.
And on a side note: Joe also mentions the strange view often held by the partisan-mired: if you’re not firmly committed to one party or another for its own sake, you’re seen as wimpy. (Gods forfend one try to work with those evil demons from the other side.) He’s right, of course, but for me, that’s all the more reason to push for something unifying.