Is Unity '08 Ready For Prime Time?

The New Republic: Third Party May Be More Buzz Than Substance

(The New Republic) 
Anyone looking for larger ideas than a return to civility won't get much from Unity '08, however. In our conversation, Bailey and Rafshoon wouldn't take any policy stands, deflecting questions until after a candidate has been chosen in a "Virtual Convention" slated for next summer. "We're not interested in spelling out or even having the delegates spell out a precise platform, where, by God, you must meet these tests or we don't want you to run," Bailey tells me. "That doesn't make much sense." Doing so, he says, would repel candidates, not attract them. Rafshoon, too, focuses on process and ethics, rather than issues. "Campaigns are run on the negatives," he tells me. "That's the promise they make to the people: 'He's no good, vote for me!'"

But the issues they do discuss don't even seem that compatible. Bailey mentions three times the only Unity '08 issue that's historically a Republican idée fixe: entitlements and the deficit. "Has there been an effort by a single candidate in either party to talk seriously about the deficit and entitlements?" he asks me. On the other side of the table, Rafshoon does seem sympathetic to the idea of a candidate focusing on the deficit (he mentions in passing that one of Ross Perot's successes was to help set Clinton's budget-balancing agenda). But, balanced this issue with Unity '08's other, admittedly spare, stated concerns, the whole thing begins to look a little contradictory: cutting down on entitlements while also expanding health care, reducing income equality, and cleaning up the environment? How well can a platform built on flimsy, mismatched legs stand? (See Jon Chait's recent TRB column, "Bloomsday," for a fuller explication of some of these contradictions.)

Of course, Unity '08's coherence problem may be the least of their hurdles. As John Anderson, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader can attest, the deck is stacked against third-party candidates. Getting on the ballot in all 50 states, securing a podium at the debates, facing voters repelled by the idea of feeding a spoiler, and managing to win in the electoral college's winner-take-all system is well-neigh impossible for an outside contender. "The American political process is, in effect, hyper-gerrymandered [against third-party candidates]," Micah Sifry, author of "Spoiling for a Fight: Third Party Politics in America," tells me. Even Perot, in some ways an incredibly successful third-party candidate (and, incidentally, another one managed by Hamilton Jordan), who was able to buy his way onto ballots in all 50 states and the debate stages, won 19 percent of the popular vote but not a single electoral vote.

It's doubtful that Unity '08, even if it's able to spend at a Perot-campaign level (certainly easier if Bloomberg signs on), will fare any better. "We'll go through the period during the election season where it sure would be fun to imagine the possibilities," says Stephen Rosenstone, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota and an author of "Third Parties in America." "And we will be told, if that campaign goes forward, that this is the exception. [But] all the previous candidates: they, too, were going to be the exceptions."

Bailey and Rafshoon have an answer: This is the most important election ever, so all bets are off. But might the current situation, brought on by a vastly unpopular Republican president, send voters to the opposition party, rather than to a Democrat/Republican ticket? Not always, they say. "There is a tendency also to say that it's never happened, there's never been a third-party candidate. Not true. Not true," Bailey says. "At a moment of truth for the country - and that's where we think we are - 1860, the country elected a third-party president. It was Lincoln. And the Whig Party went out of existence." Right on cue, Rafshoon quips, "There was no real crisis then, was there?" Sure, it's nice to see a Democrat and a Republican joking together - just like it would be nice to see the end of partisanship in America. But Jerry and Doug's show doesn't seem ready for prime time.

[forthepeopl1]

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the report will be issued this morning, and spokesmen for both the White House and the director of national intelligence declined to comment. %u201CThe report says that there%u2019s been little political progress to date, and it%u2019s very gloomy on the chances for political progress in the future,%u201D said one Congressional official with knowledge of its contents.

[terrapin78]

Unity 08 will fail if Joe Lieberman is part of the ticket.

[jack3213]

Uity 08..nice concept, but highly unlikely, considering how divided the country is.

[down-ndirty]

Unity ''08 is NOT ready for prime time, nor is it ready for frustrated voters like me.

LOL!!! A bi-partisan ticket with TWO conservatives? Bloomburg and Lieberman? Who is kidding whom? Lieberman is more conservative than Bush.

A unity party ticket would have the names of people like Ron Paul & Dennis Kucinich; only THEN would I consider it serious.

[mrhoppy-2009]

There will be unity in 08. ALL OF AMERICA WILL THROW ALL OF THOSE SCUMBAGS OUT OF WASHINGTON!

Re-elect NOBODY!

[frb01]

You may not agree with Joe Lieberman on his positions on the issues but hear this. When he lost the Democratic primary all of his buddies urged him to give it up, the likes of Clinton, Kerry etc. They would not endorse his run as an independent and stayed with their party line. Partisan politics at its worst, and the one reason to be and vote independent.

[kansas1946]

I don''t know about Unity08. I am not really interested in a third party because a party is a party, and if they are a party, they will become corrupt. If you really want to break the strangle hold that Republicans and Democrats have on Washington, just drop your party registration and register as an undeclared or independent. It is the fastest growing "party" in the US. Then support the person who best represents your wishes, no matter what their party is, and be ready to support independent candidates with your money. That is the problem with independents, they don''t have that huge money machine behind them, so they will have to depend on you and me to support them.

[brianbwb-2009]

The New Republic: Third Party May Be More Buzz Than Substance

The Old Brian: Especially when some cast off scum from one of the existing parties controls it.