Comments on: Boren on Upcoming “Unity” Meeting

By: DLS

DLS — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 23:29:50 +0000

“Unity” = unacceptable elitist status quo in much-oversized Washington.

There is no long-overdue serious reform unless a group or party admits the fact of the failed oversized-Washington model and insists on shrinking Washington massively and returning power and responsibility to state and local governments, where they belong under constitutional federalism.

“Unity” robotically insists on the status quo circa 1950s-1960s.

By: GeorgeSorwell

GeorgeSorwell — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 17:21:37 +0000

I agree with Paul. The President still needs to deal with Congress. A better long-term solution would be a movement that tried to elect candidates to the whole slate of offices.

I think the main needed reform would be an end to gerrymandered "safe seats", where the incumbents get to draw voting districts that keep themselves in office no matter what.

I favor the Iowa model, which is explained by this page at Centrists.org.

I hope that HTML works!!

By: PaulSilver

PaulSilver — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:55:45 +0000

I hope the meeting in Oklahoma can get beyond the role of a third party campaign and focus on the astute adjustments needed in our election process to promote the election of those who are moderate, collaborative, and pragmatic. For these kinds of folks to get elected they need to not be beholden to extreme or self-interested constituents.
Even if we elect a post-partisan president they would still need to deal with Congress. To me the most effective use of the resources of this Tri-partisan conference is to dedicate themselves to promote the most Centrist members of their parties to office. If this is successful then we may have a chance to adjust the election process to keep our legislature from swinging from one extreme to the other.