I wrote here about a blood and bone marrow transplant screening drive held in the facilities of the congregation I now serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. Members of Saint Matthew spearheaded the event. Its members and neighbors here in Logan, touched by the illness of a young woman from Saint Matthew, responded with an impressive love of neighbor.

One thing I neglected to mention in that original post is that two community groups had a major hand in the event: the county Democratic and Republican parties, who provided a good deal of the refreshments and foods.

I loved this because it demonstrates a simple truth about America that gets lost in the sludge emitted by political professionals in Washington and by a vast, undiscerning cadre of journalists and bloggers. That truth is that while Americans may have their political preferences, they still can and do live together, work together, and respect one another. They’re grown-ups.

This truth was underscored for me when I read David Broder’s latest column, one that looks at the findings of widely-respected (and admittedly Democratic) pollster Peter Hart and at a book by former Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein.

Broder reports Hart’s finding that three words describe the mood of the US public as we approach making decisions in the 2008 presidential election. The words? Transparency, authenticity and unity.

Transparency, as explained to Broder by Hart, entails “honesty, openness, forthrightness in expressing views and clarity about the sources of the candidate’s support, I said that sounded right.”

That, I suppose, is something Americans have always expected of their leaders. Or, in more naive times perhaps, thought that they enjoyed it.

But authenticity and unity, which from my interactions with people I believe are major yearnings. They seem to especially flow from the public’s survey of today’s sorry political life.

Americans are tired of being played by partisan hucksters who chant proscribed ideological mantras to rile their bases and then hope to win just enough of those nonpartisan voters who haven’t given up on the political process altogether to win in November.

Then, when these people get elected, instead of thinking, instead of working together, instead of GOVERNING, they carpet bomb each other with bromides and cliches all designed to gain advantage for the next election.

The politician who doesn’t employ political strategy rarely gets elected and is even less likely to be re-elected. I get that. I even respect it. But can you imagine Washington or Lincoln accepting stalemate and policy paralysis as an ongoing feature of American life? Or, for that matter, lesser figures like John Tyler or Millard Fillmore?

This is no way to run a country. No matter what the partisan bloggers and their acolytes say, Americans don’t want partisan robots in the White House or the halls of Congress. Nor do they want actors so tied to their talking points that they’re incapable of governing.

That’s why the yearning for unity may be the most important of the three little words uses to identify what Americans are looking for as we head for the 2008 election.

Writes Broder:

The hankering for unity is…palpable and reflects the conspicuous absence of agreement — and excess of partisanship — in the contemporary political scene. I have been saying for months that voters care less whether the next president will be a Democrat or a Republican than that the person moving into the Oval Office be someone who can pull the country together to face its challenges.

For most of the past few months, I’ve felt that the 2008 presidential race was the Democrats’ to lose. Frustration with the war and increasingly alarming news about the economy appear to give the Democrats a built-in advantage for next year.

I still think that’s the case. And Democrats, as indicated by campaign contributions, turnouts for candidates’ rallies, and various polls, are more excited about the upcoming election, not to mention more satisfied with their field of candidates.

But there are also signs of disaffection with the way the current, unnecessarily long campaign is unfolding. In both parties. Especially in the early states in which candidates are pouring most of their attention and energy. Recent polls in Iowa, for example, show that Senator Barack Obama is tied with or is surpassing Senator Hillary Clinton. In that same state, former Arkansas governor is within shouting distance of the longtime frontrunner there, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

What do Clinton and Romney have in common? They each strike many voters as flip-floppers too clever by half, as careful parsers of verbiage designed to rile their parties’ bases. In short, they’re difficult to see as transparent or authentic. And, given their deeply partisan and shallow rhetoric, is it easy to see how they intend to work with others.

Obama and Huckabee, in contrast, although obviously both committed to some core principles, also seem willing to look beyond the political cliches and work with others. Obama speaks eloquently about the need for compromise and cooperation. Huckabee describes himself as someone who’s conservative, “just not mad at anybody.”

Whether or not Obama or Huckabee are authentic or they can overcome the enormous money advantages enjoyed by Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani is anybody’s guess.

But that increasing numbers of Americans are alienated from the political process, as evidenced by their failure to vote, or that they want political leaders who cooperate, even when they disagree, is undeniable.

They want an end to what Broder calls, “a dysfunctional political environment that has poisoned relationships between the executive and legislative branches and made this session of Congress notably acrimonious and unproductive.”

Americans want their leaders to be as grown up as the Republican and Democratic parties in Hocking County, Ohio.