Can Campaign '08 Be Saved?

CBS' Dick Meyer, Unimpressed To Date, Harbors Independent Thoughts

(CBS)  This commentary was written by CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer.

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In our last episode, your narrator declared that our villain – the corrupt and petty party duopoly that controls American politics – has become so dysfunctional that reform is not enough. It needs rehab. It needs detox.

You were promised a 12-step solution: it's called Unity08. Unity08 is basically a gang of smart, hopeful politicians and recovering consultants, young people and business types who want to run a third party candidate in 2008 who will be selected entirely by delegates to Internet convention, through online voting. The president and vice president must either be from different parties or independents. (If you want all the details, read an earlier column of mine or go to the Unity08 site.)

The E-Doors to Unity08 have been open for about a month and so far about 42,000 people have signed up to become delegates. There's been no real marketing and very little of what pols call "free media" – columns like this one. The viral moment has not come yet for Unity08, but I expect it will.

Now according to the Group Think that regulates smart and cunning political talk under the evil party duopoly, third parties in any incarnation are farcical pipe dreams.

Ballot access laws in the 50 states are hopelessly stacked against third parties. Big money will never flow to third parties and federal campaign finance laws tilt to the duopoly. The media treats third parties as comic relief. They usually aren't allowed in debates. Fine, maybe that gutsy, bold, hard-boiled analysis is right and will be forever and ever.

But I doubt it. A system that takes two years to hold an election when every other industrial democracy can do it in about a month is vulnerable.

And even in this endless process, only about three or four percent of voters will even get to cast meaningful votes in nominating party candidates (people in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and maybe a couple other states).

The campaign is infinite, irritating and non-participatory. It shackles government to the paranoia and machinations of "strategists" and hungry candidates. It will cost a billion. Besides that, it's super.

Also, remember that H. Ross Perot, a man who displayed weirdness to the point of craziness, captured 20 percent of the vote in 1992 against a sitting president with the best resume in modern politics and a politician so gifted on the trail he was nicknamed The Natural. He was even ahead in some summertime polls. Imagine how well a dashing and stable rich guy might have done.

This cycle is even more favorable for an anomaly. By most any metrics you could pick, American voters are repulsed by "the system." War, terrorism and the aging of the precious Baby Boomers are couple factors that have made the political climate moodier than ‘92. "The country isn't just in trouble, it knows it's in trouble," says Doug Bailey, one of key movers in Unity08.

But duopoly elite doesn't seem to have caught on: maybe the candidates have, but the rank and file and the operatives haven't. Morris Fiorina, the Stanford political scientist who proved (and I mean proved) that the American public is not polarized and fighting a culture war even though the polite elite is, sent out a note to his friends touting Unity08.

Further, this will be the longest campaign in history and already the candidates – a pretty good and interesting field – are devouring each other. Or maybe it's better to say that they are being devoured by the process and the posses, the parasitic forces that flourish in a billion dollar, two-year escapade that is essentially a for-profit business. I can't imagine the field looking very attractive in 12 months or 16 months when Unity08 hits its stride. Any voters who are still paying attention will have "blame-game fatigue," gaff-itis and buyer's remore, in Bailey's view.

Maybe the anomaly, the historic happening, of 2008 will be Barack Obama. Maybe it will be the first female president. Probably there will be no anomaly.

But what I wish for is something that cracks the cuckoo bubble of American campaigns. I flat out do not believe that can happen within the two-party system. So Unity08 deserves attention, support and enduring the wisecracks of the smart crowd. I don't see much choice.

Unity08 also deserves a big-time candidate. And that's the rub, perhaps a $250 million rub.

My jaded side (it's all of me, actually) says an independent candidate will have to fund most of the race. That is why I'm still pushing New York Michael Bloomberg, who is independent, essentially unpartisan, quirky, competent and insanely well-qualified. And he's richer than God. Again, the smart crowd has concluded there is absolutely no way Bloomberg will run in 2008 and maybe he has said as much. I think life is unpredictable and things happen.

Nebraska's Chuck Hagel has also been saying nice things about Unity08 lately too. Perhaps it's just mischief, I don't know. I also don't know if any other well seasoned and adequately spicy wannabes have been whispering to the guys running Unity08. But I am reasonably sure some are watching carefully.

More important, I hope that infamous "silent majority" is watching. And clicking.

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Dick Meyer is the editorial director of CBSNews.com, based in Washington.

E-mail questions, comments, complaints, arguments and ideas to
Against the Grain. We will publish some of the interesting (and civil) ones, sometimes in edited form.

[euge005]

While I do not espouse many GOP positions, due to Post Ronnie stress syndrome, but keep an eye on Gov. Crist in Florida. He has a few liabilities in the insurance policy area of his old record. But he sounds like a real conservative. Public service, people not power, relief for the working class by removing property tax and insurance burdens. It may be a snow job in Florida but it could be interesting. He is not too old to run for higher office and the worst his detractors could come up with is that he looks gay.

[euge005]

Ahem, a third party set up to take it from the party of Chaney, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld? The gent seems to forget that Ralph Nadar has been doing his stealth campiagn based on dis-sastisfaction with both parties for 2 elections. Near every vote he gets is one that otherwise would have gone Democrat. Frankly, he is ten times the man that W could every hope to be. But that applies to a lot of people. The idea that third parties need to have air to run is good. As a once capitalist nation once learned, there is nothing like competition to spur progress. What we could really use would be a resurrected TR. That is America's finest leader since Lincoln.

[condumism]

Rudy Gulaganni is the same as any fear mongering Rethuglicon, runnning for the presidency based upon peoples fears. And we all know that conservatives are the weakest people on earth. This thug has no platform beyond fearmongering, which will be proven beyond a shaodow of doubt in the months to come.

[joanpz]

I have voted "against" every candidate for the last 51 years! Start counting how many CONVERTS TO INDEPENDENTS over these last 6 years!
No-way-Jose, will DEMOCRATS or REPUBLICANS WIN AN ELECTION WITHOUT INDEPENDENTS - and WE DON'T LIKE WHAT WE ARE HEARING...GUILIANI & GW Bush RAN AROUND WTC like "lost monkeys" - it was all "follow the leader" only WHO IS ON "FIRST" was the scene.
At this point, only sensible thing is NANCY PELOSI REPLACES THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION...
NONE OF THE ABOVE CANDIDATES will do anything BUT DEFAME EACH OTHER!
Bi-partisanship or Tri-partisanship, maybe...

[srolen68]

So the Left has finally learned the lesson of '92 and '96 that the best hope they have of winning the presidency is with a third candidate to act as a spoiler, so it's no surprise that the two people this hack mentions in his article are both Republicans. The idea here is to get a Republican led Unity08 ticket and let a few depressed Republicans defect and vote for it while the power hungry and motivated Democrats who have been out of office for eight years won't even consider it. I can think of four times when a third candidate has been a spoiler (T. Roosevelt, Perot twice, and Nader) and none where he has won. This certainly won't be the year considering the Left won't even be tempted to vote for a third candidate after what happened in Florida in 2000, after not having the presidency for eight years, and after this president and the Iraq war. Their hope is the Republican ticket and the Unity08 ticket will split some votes and Hillary won%u2019t even need 40 percent. There%u2019s no doubt in my mind this is anything other than a Democratic plot, especially considering this is the internet, after all. It might actually work with a little more help from hack journalists like this guy.

[fascistusa]

None of the current candidates have a chance.

Zero.

America is a FASCIST COUNTRY. People know.

WE ARE IN FOR CIVIL WAR OR REVOLUTION.

The Elite get to decide which one it will be. :)

[adventurepa]

DDStiffler,
You idea of "Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would decide to join forces right now and make the run for President and Vice President" is the only chance the dems have of beating Rudy.
He will be the front runner.
I hope they do just that. Hillary needs to be the vice president. Why?
Her voice remind's every husband of a nagging wife, Sorry Hillary. lol

[karlimhof]

WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."

[tuckerndfw]

The dichotomy is that any person who is willing to run for the presidency isn't fit to be president.

The only way the US will ever attain true "representative" government will be through a process which selects qualified people based on a random lottery type system. Much like the way we choose jurors.

So long as we have elections, we will never have representative government, or, candidates who represent anything other than their own egoes and most of all their sponsors.

There is little point supporting yet another party or party candidate when the system itself is corrupt.

[ddstiffler]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Democrates could make a decision and stand by it.

Wouldn't be wonderful if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would decide to join forces right now and make the run for President and Vice President. Then we would have a woman and a black person in the two highest elected offices in our country. That would be a ticket that folks would vote for!

Then the 'good ole boys' might have to stop and think a bit!

[cozmoriggs]

What a joke of a picture posted above for the Demo's. I feel sorry for them, wait no I don't.

[cbs_oliver]

***, you need be honest that you are a Republican mischaracterizing himself as an Independent the better to sow seeds of discord into Democratic ranks. It is no mistake that your idea of middle of the roaders and Independents have been folks like McCain, Bloomberg, and Hagel - all Republicans. Cut it out.

[tejasdemo]

I am not really voting for anyone anymore. I am only voting against the republicans as they are the most hatefilled, God less group of flat out crooks on the planet.

[Syndicate]

What happened to true Republicans? They got tired of the Christian majority and the gay bashing. Neither of which is very American.

I like having a third party. That way I don't have to decide which of the two is the lesser evil. I have already decided if I don't like who they say I can vote for I'm voting for Mickey Mouse.

[marcodele]

"Giuliani provides key opposition to Bin Laden and Al Qada."

Hello? I think the score is Bin Laden 1, Guiliani 0.

There is nothing about this womanizing liberal republican makes him a better candidate in the fight against terrorism. Sending your firefighters into every collapsing building you see then calling yourself a hero doesn't make you a hero.

[mandy7772]

The only one anybody, Liberal or Conservative alike, should even be thinking about voting for is Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

A vote for anybody else is a vote for more of the same ***.

If you're not familiar with him, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with him. This guy really could help save the country.

[marcodele]

Excellent post jeffhorow. There are many things about the Republican ideals that I valued, but the party has been highjacked by religious zealots and mean spirited neocons.

[jeffhorow]

Speaking of political parties, what happened to the true Republicans? You know--fiscally restrained, practicing the politics of "less is more," not intruding on the private lives of citizens, etc.? I, for one, would like to see a candidate with traditional Republican values--not "traditional family values." The neocons and right-wing religious conservatives have overrun the GOP and the country, forcing their beliefs and practices on many of us who don't want them.

I'm okay with them believing what they want, and would even welcome a new Conservative Party that represents their views. However, I basically agree with Mr. Meyer's assertions that the political system is not working in the best interests of the people it is supposed to represent, but rather continues on in order to perpetuate itself. I don't know that Unity08 or any other "fringe" group will be able to upset the apple cart of American politics.

I also go along with other posters who said that all one really can do is vote his or her conscience in choosing a candidate who best represents his or her values. Unfortunately, for many Americans, the current primary system tends to eliminate an "optimum" candidate early, leaving the voter to choose between two non-preferred choices. But that happens in life, too, so the best bet is to keep informed on who represents what, and then support the candidate who comes closest to your match. I hope I get to choose the "greater good" rather than the "lesser evil."

[Razzl]

In pretty much every presidential election cycle the weak and the meek, timid souls who can't filter the cognitive dissonance of clashing ideas as well as the uninvolved and undereducated who lack basic knowledge of the larger world, fall prey to these crackpot visions of some kind of "unity" party effort, not understanding that ideas are not an annoyance but the essence of the matter. There have been few times in recent history where the choice between the 2 parties has been so clearly delineated as the coming 2008 election, and the moral imperative to make one of these choices at this historic moment precludes the usual bemused toleration we would normally have for this kind of feeble posturing.

There is no value whatever to this clumsy effort at this moment; fronting moral and intellectual vigor against the evil Bush world-view is essential in order to lead the society out of the dangerous path that torture, spying, warmongering, and dictatorship take us. I'm sorry for you timid souls who find moral and intellectual vigor threatening, but if you will stay with the process this time around the best choices will be made and the peaceful era after Bush Republicanism will return your inner calm. Understand anyway that only extreme right- and left- wing movements can give rise to new political parties, because "centrism" or populism are intellectual vacuums incapable of holding onto voters...

[cdnunn]

Think about what kind of world you want to live in. Read all of the political parties' platforms and vote for the one that most closely matches your worldview. Don't worry about the party's candidate; s/he will be fine in office. Stop falling for this cult of personality that drives American politics--too many people voted for Bush b/c they would feel comfortable sharing a pitcher of beer with him. What's that got to do with anything?? The guy's an alcoholic; he can't drink!