Unity08. A people's movement to take our country back.

‘Blog the Campaign in 08’, a blog about social media in the politics, posted an entry about Unity08 and our use of YouTube.  Check out our YouTube videos here. ‘Blog the Campaign in 08’ has been doing a series of video blogs on how presidential candidates have been incorporating YouTube into their campaigns. Check out the blog entry here.

Thanks to everyone who has come to this website over the past few days, given us consideration, and said “Yes!” to becoming a Unity08 Founding Delegate. And thanks to all of you who’ve been with us for months and have been reenergized by this latest effort. We’ve received careful inspection and thoughtful comments from new names and new faces. We’ve received emails from Americans we’ve never heard from before, telling us they’ve passed along word about Unity08 to hundreds of other people. We had the single largest traffic day ever on this website, and the single largest day of online giving. We’re inspired by what’s happening.

Sam Waterston made us all proud on Hardball this evening. Sam’s commitment to the Unity08 mission came through loud and clear. We hope that American citizens hear his call and respond by signing up as Founding Delegates to the first online national primary where ALL Americans, not just those in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada, can have a voice and a vote. Only by spreading the word about Unity08 as a viable alternative to the two-party system, can Americans take back political power.

The Tampa Tribune has written a great story on Unity08 and our vision to win the White House with a bipartisan Unity Ticket. “In a country spinning apart from centrifugal politics, they [the Unity08 founders] contend, the center is where consensus, common sense and political cohesion can be found,” the story reads. Check it out on the Tampa Tribune website.

Would you vote bipartisan in ’08? On CNN’s The Situation Room on Jan. 31, Anchor Jack Cafferty quoted a recent column by Lanny Davis on Unity08. “Davis says a bipartisan presidency will be important to find solutions to the war in Iraq and to enact new taxes. There's even a group out there called Unity '08 that wants to draft a bipartisan presidential ticket. They want it to be chosen online and what they say would be the country's first national primary.”

Last night, President Bush delivered the State of the Union, and Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) offered the Democratic Party’s response. President Bush and Senator Webb had the opportunity with these speeches to usher in real change to Washington and to set the tone for the next two years. Last night’s speeches are a kind of litmus test for the upcoming two years in Washington. Based on the tone and content of last night’s speeches, do you think President Bush and the Republicans are as committed to bipartisanship as the president’s State of the Union presented?

In an opinion piece in The Hill (a Capitol Hill newspaper) today, Ben Goddard gets it right on when he says that "Since the (Unity08) convention is conducted online it won't require the $100 million war chest required to fight through the early caucus and primary states."

That opens the field to a lot of good candidates, he asserts, who have held back and will be hard-pressed to raise the money to compete. He mentions Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as an example. "Pair him with Barack Obama, in either order, and you have my dream team for the Unity08 nomination," he writes.

It’s official -- Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is going to run for president. (See the story in the Chicago Tribune here.) His star power will certainly impact the Democratic field … and undoubtedly will make it harder for other candidates to attract the lobbyist dollars that seem so critical to having any chance of winning today, unfortunately. Will he become the ultimate Democratic nominee? If not, might he be someone who would raise his hand and say, “I want to be ½ of the Unity Ticket”?

We’ve never even spoken to Helen Kennedy at the New York Daily News, but she’s speaking our language. Look at her article, "Wanna be prez. First get $100m," from today. The bottom line: pity any qualified candidate for president today who lacks glitz or fundraising prowess. Unity08 intends counter this big money trend by electing a bipartisan ticket to the White House on the strength of small-dollar contributions, setting an example that high-profile office can be won without pandering to corporate lobbyists and special interests.

There are two news stories that caught our attention today amidst the latest presidential candidacy announcements (check out Pulse of America for those links).

A chilling effect on third parties?

We’re a little late coming to the first one, but a big thanks to GEA for posting it in the Shoutbox. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a Pennsylvania court ruling that requires Ralph Nader to pay $89,821 for costs incurred by Democrats who challenged his ballot access papers in the 2024 general election. (Read an AP article on the topic here.)