Should Independent-Minded Voters Rally to Unity08?
NOTE: I wrote this post in response to the Unity08 article that was posted by Michael earlier today. Although posted in the comments section following that post, I have elected to repost it here:
As an ardent critic of today’s two party system, I welcome the possibility of a strong third party candidate emerging during the 2008 Presidential Campaign. Over at the Centrist Coalition, I’ve written about the stranglehold the Democrats and Republicans have on our political system through unfair ballot access laws as well as the corrosive effect of black-and-white partisan thinking. Unity08, if successful, has the potential to weaken the two-party duopoly we have and fundamentally change our political system.
However, the problem I have with Unity08 is that it is extremely vague on the issues. It intends to allow Unity08 members to vote to nominate two centrist-leaning candidates (one for president and one for vice president) whose views will be the centerpiece of the campaign.
Apparently, the strategy of Unity08 seems to be to build the framework for a third party system first and then decide its stances on the issues later. In my view, this is exactly the OPPOSITE way that third parties should form. In my view, third parties should coalesce around issues first and then build the party only once there is a solid foundation upon which their beliefs rest. I argue this because:
1) Successful grassroots campaigns mobilize around issues.
Consider Ralph Nader in 2000. His message wasn’t simply that he was an independent candidate that hated the polarization and partisanship in Washington. He promoted a progressive agenda that talked about the control that corporations had on the political system.
Consider Howard Dean in 2003. His rapid rise in popularity came from the fact that he spoke out against the war at a time when few politicians were willing to do so.
Consider Ron Paul today. His surge in support on the internet has come about because of his consistent anti-war stance and courage to take on the establishment within his own party.
2) The long term stability of a third party depends upon policy–not personality.
Ross Perot was immensely popular during his 1992 Presidential Campaign, but support for his Reform Party quickly fizzled out afterward. Although Perot did bring up some important issues, his candidacy was largely about style over substance. The party didn’t seem to have any core values, leading it to nominate Pat Buchanan in 2000. Now the party is all but defunct.
3) The cohesiveness of a third party relies upon an acknowledgement of at least some common underlying principles.
It is not enough to form a third party on the basis that its members are all “independent-thinkers” who have grown tired of the polarization in Washington. People may consider themselves to be “independent-thinkers” and have completely opposite positions on key political issues. If a third party opens the doors to all “independent-thinkers” regardless of their stances on key political issues, all this does is inoculate this new party with the same polarization and bickering that goes on in Washington.
What is Unity08′s stance on the various issues that dominate the political landscape today?
Here they are in Unity08′s own words:
Unity08 on the Issues
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 health 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.
In our opinion — since the disintegration of the Soviet Union — our political system seems to have focused more attention on the “important issues†than the “crucial issues.†One result: The political parties have been built to address the interests of their “base†but have failed to address the realities that impact most Americans.
Apparently, Unity08 wants to focus on foreign policy and fiscal/economic policy and ignore personal/social issues. As a civil libertarian, I find this troubling. While I agree with Unity08 that the debate over personal/social issues (i.e. the culture war) has overshadowed the debate over fiscal/economic issues in recent years, the answer is not to simply ignore these issues.
American politics during the early and middle portions of the twentieth century was largely dominated by fiscal/economic issues, with “big government” types on the left and “smaller government” types on the right. However, this left-right dichotomy was fundamentally altered during the 1970′s with the emergence of the “New Left” and the “Christian Right.” Now, much of the most heated political arguments arises over social/personal issues such as abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, gun control, and lifestyle issues.
By refusing to address these issues, Unity08 is effectively supporting the status quo–leaving us in a limbo-like state in which some of our most basic rights are left undefined and/or unacknowledged. Nowhere in its Issues section does Unity08 even mention the issue of civil liberties. Given the furor over civil liberties that has occurred during Bush’s six and a half years in office, I think Unity08 owes it to the American people to state its basic stance on civil liberties BEFORE people invest countless dollars and hours to its campaign.
Finally, as I’ve often said before, defining what we are talking about is paramount in politics. We throw the terms “liberal” and “conservative” around as if everyone agrees what these terms mean, when this is not at all the case. But if it can be said that “liberal” and “conservative” are ambiguous terms, then that argument is even truer with the term “moderate.” Moderates do not typically take “centrist” positions on every single issue, but rather, take a mixture of “liberal” and “conservative” stances. As such, one person’s “moderate” may be radically different than another person’s “moderate.”
Among those who are deeply dissatisfied with the platforms of the two major parties, there are those who feel that the government overtaxes, overspends, over-regulates, and spends too much time and resources policing what goes on in our bedrooms as well as the rest of the world while there are also those who conversely feel that the government should tax the rich more, spend more on government programs, regulate businesses more, legislate morality, and rely upon the military to solve the world’s problems. These two groups, the libertarian-leaning types and the communitarian-leaning types have as little in common with each other as liberals do with conservatives, and there’s little incentive for these two groups should work together under a single party’s banner (other than the fact that they both oppose the two major parties).
I would like to see Unity08 challenge our two-party system. But I will withhold any endorsement of Unity08 until its members provide a modest platform spelling out their underlying positions on fiscal/economic issues, social/personal issues, and foreign policy issues.
18 Responses to “Should Independent-Minded Voters Rally to Unity08?”
I agree.
I’ve been sort of nibbling along the edges of this kind of analysis, but didn’t formulate my thoughts into a cohesice statement.
Nick has done it for me.
I agree as well and compliment NR on a very articulate post.
Just because the box has a new brand name on it, I’m not sure people will flock to buy it if the contents are unknown.
Nick, you might want to consider forwarding your thoughts to the Unity founders.
I’m one step ahead of you. Should you like to forward comments or inquiries to Unity08, the email is:
info@unity08.com
I should add that my criticism of Unity08 does not in any way signal an endorsement of either the Democrats, the Republicans, or the current two-party system.
In fact, at this point in time, supporting any third-party candidate (including Unity08) would be preferable to supporting the Democrat & Republican duopoly.
I simply don’t agree with endorsing a specific third party without even knowing where it stands on the issues.
Unity08 has some serious work to do in this department.
Yup. This resonates with my thoughts on Unity08.
I have expressed my skepticism about Unity08 before (here, here and here). I also thoroughly enjoy reading
AhabJim at the Irregular Times regular harpooning of this endangered white whale. Still I signed up as a delegate on the off chance that Unity08 actually becomes something politically meaningful.It is just so painfully obvious that the “unity” in Unity08 will last exactly as long as they support no actual candidates, have no platform, and have no opinion on any actual issues, and will not last one minute longer. As I said in my earlier post: “Best to delay as long as possible. Certainly there is no point in risking taking a stand on an issue, before they have raised a few million dollars…”
On the other hand, If Chuck Hagel becomes the Unity08 standard bearer… well, I know where he stands on the issues that matter, and that is a ticket I can get behind, regardless of whether it is under the Republican or Unity08 banner.
Yes, I have heard Chuck Hagel’s name being mentioned as a possible Unity08 candidate, and I believe he would be a fairly strong third party candidate. It’s not that he would be a centrist candidate putting forth a centrist platform (he’s actually rather conservative) but rather that he’s a maverick within his own party who has spoken out against an increasingly unpopular war as well as the mindless “You’re anti-American”, “You don’t support the troops” rhetoric that has been spouted by hardcore proponents of the war in his party.
That being said, I’ve also heard Joe Lieberman’s name as being mentioned as a possible Unity08 candidate. He too, is a maverick (or a pariah) in his own party, but for exactly the opposite reasons as Chuck Hagel. Joe Lieberman has supported the war in Iraq every bit as adamantly as Chuck Hagel as opposed it.
What message does it send when Unity08 has opened the doors open to both pro-war candidates and anti-war candidates. To me, it makes utterly no sense. You can’t nominate an maverick Republican as president and a maverick Democrat as vice president (or vice versa) and expect to win over the moderate middle.
As someone who has opposed the war from the very beginning, I feel that Chuck Hagel is a good candidate for every reason that Joe Lieberman is a horrible candidate. Nominating “centrist” or “moderate” or “maverick” Democrats and Republicans without regards to their positions on the war and civil liberties is more likely to piss everyone off who dedicated their time and money to Unity08.
Railing against the partisanship and polarization created by the current two party system is not enough. Promoting a moderate Republican, Democrat, or Independent who can forge a bipartisan consensus is not enough. Bipartisanship, afterall, is not the same as non-partisanship. It is an implicit acceptance of the current two-party system rather than a call for a geninely independent movement.
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Mr. Rivera, thank you for writing about Unity08. If I may, I’d like to correct some of your assumptions about the movement.
1) Successful grassroots campaigns mobilize around issues (“Unity08 is vague on the issues).
You are absolutely correct. Except that Unity08 is not vague on the issues. Unity08 has not yet created it’s agenda. In the very near future, we will be asking the membership to rank the issues that they feel are most crucial to the country. It is in this manner that we hope to move politics away from the fringe issues. Once the membership has ranked these issues, they will be able to pose questions about them to the candidates that are seeking the Unity08 nomination. Through this virtual debate, we will determine the agenda of the movement. Finally, the membership will vote securely through the online convention to nominate the Unity ticket.
2) The long term stability of a third party depends upon policy–not personality.
Unity08 is building a movement that will be able to dictate and respond to policy via the online tools for debating, ranking, and voting that are being developed.
3) The cohesiveness of a third party relies upon an acknowledgement of at least some common underlying principles (“If a third party opens the doors to all “independent-thinkers†regardless of their stances on key political issues, all this does is inoculate this new party with the same polarization and bickering that goes on in Washington).
Except that Unity08 will have given the “independent thinkers” a process by which they can come to a consensus.
In short, Unity08 is not ignoring any of the issues. In fact, the membership is debating them as we speak in our forum. I encourage all of you to take part in the ranking of the issues, the debate to follow, and the nomination of candidates that fit your belief structure.
The two party system in the United States of America has worked and will continue to work well after all of us are dead and gone.
What is transpiring right now is the advent of the Internet in which every man, woman and child in the world can get online and bitch about everything and anything.
This is why nothing is getting done. Our politicians really do not know what to do right now. They fart and we are smelling it before its odor hits the room. They have a martini in the same restaurant as a lobbyist and someone has it posted on a website before they have paid the bill.
They are confused and as a result are playing heavily to the base seeking comfort which is leaving many people disenfranchised. For this to end will not take a 3rd party. It will take a fundamental shift in the psyche of the American electorate as well as an important shift in the way Washington continues to do business.
I once said Rap would never last. I have said the blog will never last. But I think I am wrong on both counts and as a result the Politicians must change how they do things. They must realize that given 4 billion reporters that anything that is said or done hits the air before the words or deeds have even been completed.
There is massive amounts of liberty in the United States of America. The third party, disenfranchised Americans are people that are just plain fed up. This is a good country that suddenly is trying to come to grips with all these revelations of impropriety by our government.
They keep trying to be business as usual and have failed to grasp the significance of the blogsphere and 4 billion reporters watching their every move.
Unity 08 is just a result of the exasperation that has occurred at what our government has been doing for 200 years and only Under BUSH, who is the first president to suffer the Blogsphere, have we as citizens had our eyes opened to an institution of Corruption.
unitybroth,
Thank you for your reply. A number of TMV readers have had questions regarding Unity08′s nominating process, and I’m sure many will find your reply helpful.
I think what continues to puzzle me and many other TMV readers is why a third party would decide to build the framework for the party before actually deciding what its stances are on fundamental issues. This intuitively seems to be backwards to me.
Grassroots campaigns do not typically form an organization and then take a poll to determine what issues they are to tackle an what their stances are to be. Typically grassroots campaigns identify various issues they wish to tackle, determine their stances for their issues, and then form a coalition of people who take similar stances on those issues.
You seem to have invested much time and energy in Unity08, and yet you don’t even know what stances Unity08′s nominee will take. If the Unity08 nominee ends up being someone espousing views that conflict with your own, will you still support that candidate?
Don’t you have an obligation to offer some basic framwork of Unity08 stances before people go on dedicate countless time and money to your cause?
As an Independent voter who tends to support third party candidates, I would hate to donate time and money to a campaign whose nominee might end up taking positions 180 degrees opposite of another third party nominee that I might ultimately support.
Sure, consider Ralph Nader. Successful? By what standard? Grass-roots support? Or financial backing from otherwise pro-Republican organizations?
Consider Howard Dean. Successful? He was never even an actual Presidential nominee. And I understand he is currently chairman of one of those two parties you don’t like.
Then consider this: Somebody is going to be elected President in 2008. Do you think it’s gonna be Ron Paul?
Then consider this: Elections have consequences.
It is an intriguing method though, Nick. In a sense the idea is that we are going to find people who are committed to working together. If you don’t want to work as a group, don’t come. And then once you have the right sort of people in a room, you start doing the work. If the people selection process went well you get thoughtful discussion, a commitment to stay as one, and continuous compromise to build a platform together, because, after all, the government has to represent all these sorts of people in the end, anyway. It’s a commitment to people and compromise in many ways, rather than policies and argument.
I don’t know. It is intriguing. We will have to see how it goes, I guess.
This sort of has a spin on issues regarding Perot and the Reform Party. the party didn’t fizzle away after Perot’s first run, because it didn’t exist when he ran the first time. When Perot founded the party in 1995 it got on all fifty ballots at an astounding speed, and even after Perot ran on the ticket it attracted a lot of attention from major names, who never ended up joining for political reasons, and elected Jesse Ventura. the party is largely blamed for falling apart in that it took no position on social issues , like abortion or gay rights; it did have a strongly coherent platform on other issues. This caused people on the right and the left to both be in the party, but during a large part of the party’s existence these were moot issues. A lot of the problems in the party, truly, came because people within the party distrusted whether the party was ‘grassroots enough’, believed Perot was controlling things (this went as far as paranoia), and went in fits trying to take control of the leadership. the party was divided over internecine struggles far before Buchanan tried to use the party as a vehicle for a run. Buchanan found it so easy to take over the party, because the party was in disarray over leadership issues, but only divided the party because a large number of his supporters entered the party and swamped party conventions, using parliamentary procedures to take over the state parties. There was not a united and strong enough organization by that point to fend off Buchanan. People like Beatty and Trump saying they would maybe run for the nomination made it more of a joke. If Perot had got more attention in 1996—and his lack of attention really was because of the media and debate exclusion more than anything else—then he would have likely secured larger numbers int he party and prevented it from becoming a joke. Perot did have a coherent platform , and so did the party, which most Americans supported. Now, people who supported Lamm would say that Perot caused the party to fail by not stepping aside, and you get back to the source of the party’s problems. If a lot of the politicians who looked at joining the party (and spoke at the party’s conventions) actually joined, maybe the party would have had a loud enough voice in the media to get attention and attract activists who would strengthen its organization.
the irony is, the party failed, because people in it were too naive and too earnest about trying to be “grassroots”. if you talked to people in the party they were overly obsessed with the idea that “all politics is local” and thought the party had to start at the dogcatcher level and work up. in the mean time, their leadership struggles by grassroots activists made the front page section and made the party look like a joke and made it ripe for a takeover. this is why the party failed.
but history is history. However, if people don’t learn what happened within the Reform Party, and instead have this naive idea that the party failed because it was more about style than substance, then we will never, never have a successful third party, because it will fail in the same way the Reform Party failed.
Yes, but commited to working together to what end? Democrats don’t seem to have much problem working together amongst themselves. Republicans don’t seem to have much problem working together amongst themselves. But that doesn’t mean we should support either of them.
It’s not enough to simply argue that Unity08 is about people rising about the level of partisan politics and working together towards a common end.
There are a lot of honest, polite, well-meaning people who work together to support socialism.
There are a lot of honest, polite, well-meaning people who work together to support the Iraq War.
There are a lot of honest, polite, well-meaning people who work together to support laws regulating what adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms.
The fact that these people are willing to work together does not mean that they are to be embraced.
Granted, Unity08 is unlikely to support some of the more extreme positions I listed above. However, the candidate that they end up endorse might support certain positions that they don’t consider to be extreme but some of us do.
I consider the Iraq War and civil liberties to have been extremely important and divisive issues these last five years. I’m not about to support an organization that endorses the idea that the Iraq War was a reasonable endeavor or that the government should be allowed to erode away civil liberties for the sake of security. If the current members of Unity08 agree or disagree with these basic premises, they might as well be honest and state so now rather than attracting our support now and refusing to disclose their positions until 2008.
You’ve definitely hit on a few key things that are different about Unity08. So far, I’ve seen that our membership simply wants to be involved. They are intrigued by the concept, some skeptical but willing to see how it goes, and they look forward to being able to build the platform. Of course, once the platform is built, then there will be some percentage of members whose beliefs do not coincide with those of the movement. They may or may not stay involved as we go through the winnowing and nomination process (even though it will be the largest online, secure election ever! — sorry, tech marketing guy here) and they will have to make a choice amongst those candidates that end up getting each party’s nomination.
One thing that we have learned is something that your readers have mentioned a few times… that it is important to start building that agenda and platform sooner rather than later. We are evaluating what it will take for us to do so. I am excited to see the results from that process!
The two-party system was started by an English king, King Charles II, in an attempt to weaken Parliament. Charles II announced to Parliament that he would appoint all of the ministers of his cabinet from the faction that held a majority in Parliament. Accordingly, he appointed all of his ministers from the Whig faction. The Whigs became so corrupt that they lost their majority in Parliament, and the Tories came into power amid promises of honest government. Charles II’s idea had been so beneficial to royalty that it was written into English law during the reign of Queen Anne. The Whigs faded into political oblivion in England, and a new party called the Labor Party was organized in Parliament to oppose the Tories. Taxes were raised so high by the Tory and Labor Parties that the American colonies revolted.
There were no organized political parties in American government until the election of 1800, when a party started by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison was elected into power. Opponents of Jefferson and Madison, who had previously called themselves Federalists, lost no time in organizing themselves as a political party. Interestingly, the name they chose was the Whig Party.
The Republican-Democrat Party started by Jefferson and Madison and the Whig Party quickly passed laws at state level to prevent candidates not in a political party from being elected to public office.
Independent voters exist in the government today not because the parties allow them to exist but because they have not been able to prevent them from existing, notwithstanding their best efforts. The United States was organized and established by independent voters. Political parties are self-created societies which limit and control the participation of the people in elections.
The greatest weakness of political parties is their inability to register voters in numbers sufficient to sustain them in government. Voter registration in this state is typically around 50% of those eligible to vote. When independent voters started registering voters in 1986, the parties quickly passed a law requiring that deputy registrars be recommended by the chairman of a political party. All independent deputy registrars were sent a letter of dismissal on December 31, 1988.
The latest action of political parties in Arizona was to take the option to register independent off from the voter registration form. Independent voters need to start calling political parties what they are, self-created societies that limit and destroy free elections.
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Nick,
No disrespect but you’re really missing it. If Unity08 seeks to become a 3rd party it will go the way of the Green, Reform, Libertarian, & Natural Law parties (i.e. nowhere). Unity08 is not claiming to want to become a 3rd party and this is it’s genius.
Reform died because people weren’t too hip on Perot. Green, Libertarian, & Natural Law parties do have organizing themes but they are considered way too extreme for the bulk of Americans. They’ll never get over a few percentage points.
Unity08 does have an organizing theme (i.e. bipartisanship). You will correctly note that this is not a set of planks in a platform but rather a PROCESS of determining what should be done. i.e. Get the two major parties together, come up with compromise solutions and get those solutions passed so that we can move forward. Right now it is the extremists who preent compromise solutions from being enacted into law and so we have no solutions for immigration, health care reform, Social Security, etc, etc, etc.
To be most effective, Unity08 needs to remain a non-party and continue to run bipartisan Pres/VP campaigns chosen not by extremists but by a representative sampling of the general voter. This will let Unity08 choose very competititive tickets, keep it fresh (i.e. not the same candidate election after election), keep in the news, and, I predict, routinely get federal funding.
I really hope that Unity08 will then go to the next step and that is — apply the principle of bipartisanship to lower level campaigns. Registered delegates of Unity08 would receive information about their local politicians regarding the degree to which they have shown willingness to reach across the isle to work with the opposing party. For non-incumbents NPAT surveys could serve as a stand-in for a voting record.
With an empowered Center, the big two parties would feel the need to have legislators who are willing to act in a bipartisan way else the Unity08 swing voters will vote them out of office.
Unity08 could also establish rules of campaigning so that it could be done in a more civilized way.
Unity08 is genius! It’s big!