Unity08

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Unity08 is an American political group that aims to offer an alternative to the Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential tickets for the 2008 U.S. presidential election through a secure online vote. ^[1] Founded in 2006, the group has gained attention from various media outlets, with Newsweek's Jonathan Alter dubbing the group's efforts as a kind of open source politics. ^[2]

1 History
2 Goals
3 Criticism
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

The group was initially founded as a non-profit organization by several political figures, including Maine governor Angus King and former presidential aides Doug Bailey, Hamilton Jordan and Gerald Rafshoon. ^[1] In an interview that aired on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in May 2006, Unity08's founders said that the group was formed in response to the polarization between the Republican and Democratic political parties. The group cited a poll it commissioned from Princeton Survey Research and claimed that 82 percent of Americans think that the two major political parties are unable to address the country's problems and that 73 percent of Americans are in favor of alternatives to the two parties. ^[3]

The group's status as a non-profit organization came into question when they asked the Federal Election Commission if the group could defer registering as a political action committee until after its candidates for the 2008 presidential election are named. A draft released by the commission in July 2006 concluded that "Unity 08 must register as a policy committee and therefore is subject to the reporting requirements and limitations and prohibitions". ^[4] In October 2006, the commission voted on the matter and declared that the group must register as a political action committee. ^[5]

[edit] Goals

The group's primary goal is to create a presidential ticket consisting of a Republican and a Democrat for the 2008 U.S. presidential election through an online political convention. ^[3] The group claims that it does not intend to create a third political party, but that it does aim to make the other political parties adopt aspects of its centrist agenda. Co-founder Doug Bailey claims "What we are trying to do is to create a forum for people who are in the middle who have been left out of politics."^[1]

[edit] Criticism

Campaign watchdog groups such as The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 have criticized the group's initial classification as a non-profit organization, "because Unity 08 makes clear that it's [sic] principal purpose is to influence the 2008 presidential election". ^[4]

The group has also come under criticism by political commentators such as David Harsanyi of The Denver Post, who contends that the Unity08 ticket will serve as a "spoiler" for one party's ticket, siphoning off enough votes from one candidate and delivering the election to the other (while failing to win the election itself). Harsanyi points to the third party tickets of Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000 that may have delivered those elections to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. ^[6]

Liberal bloggers have also expressed frustration with Unity08 because they contend that the group promotes "establishment" centrist or center-right politicians in the molds of Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg while at the same time doing little to promote the progressive values it would seemingly represent. Chris Bowers of MyDD, a blog that has long denounced Unity08, called the group's supporters "rich, center-right, "non-partisan" donors who trash progressives and never criticize conservatives in power," and claimed that the movement has no grassroots support.^[7]

More recent criticism challenges the grass-roots classification and centers around the heavy representation of lobbyists among the organization's officers.^[8]