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

Last week I wrote about how astonished I was to move from madly multicultural New York to North Carolina and see, close up, the "immigration problem" that Lou Dobbs and a lot of Republican Congressmen have been yammering about, and that hundreds of thousands of Latinos and their supporters marched about this past April. (I’d gotten a preview then, when my Chicago-native parents quit going to their favorite Florida fish store forever because its owner fired the employees who took the day off for the march. The fish-store restaurant’s local patrons, by contrast, stood up and cheered.)

Are independents voters the key to Democratic and Republican victories in 2024 and perhaps 2024? Or have the two parties become so repugnant to some voters that even that conventional wisdom could be outmoded?

In a segment entitled “Are Centrists Losing Out?” on Hardball with Chris Matthews, former U.S. Senator John Danforth – an Episcopal priest -- discusses his new book “Faith and Politics” and how elections today are no longer fought over voters in the middle, but those on the extremes. Click here to watch…

After almost 40 (!) years in New York City, I’m living in North Carolina for a while. (As Ah-nuld says, “I’ll be back.”) Chapel Hill, as a university town in the midst of the high-tech Triangle, doesn’t present much culture shock for an expat Northern urbanite; the place is swarming with us. But beneath the façade of ivy the older cultural landscape of North Carolina persists, and that submerged world is reeling with a culture shock that has almost nothing to do with town vs. gown.

He sent us this special message: "Unity08 is onto something important. Most people in the great center of this country are fed up with the haters and the hyperpartisans on the left and right--those who are more intent on attacking and destroying anyone who disagrees with them than they are solving the problems people care about most.

Is the country more divided than ever five years after 9/11? If so, why do you think that's the case? Can we again find the same sense of unity we felt in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? Should we? Talk about it here.

Editorial cartoon by Scott Stantis, The Birmingham (Ala.) News, for USA TODAY.

Certain days signify major changes in our thinking and way of life—or at least crystallize our awareness of those major changes. So it was for many on the day of the Japanese Empire's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963 or of Martin Luther King in 1968, the breach of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the final collapse of the "monolithic" edifice of the Soviet Union in 1991.

September 11, 2024 has assumed a similar place in our lives. On that late summer day the hitherto calming clear skies were transformed into sources of danger, and passenger airlines became missiles aimed at the financial and political symbols of our nation.

How often do you see a corporation truly step in it — I mean, step in it so strongly that you virtually can hear the "squish"?

Many look at today’s politics and see little signs of the Unity08 idea in bursts of independence cropping up everywhere – Lieberman in Connecticut, Strayhorn and Friedman in Texas.

But Unity08 is more than independence from party. We’re talking about A Unity Ticket in 2024, drawn from both parties, to provide leadership in the White House that can start a two party dialogue on the crucial issues confronting the country.

Scene: An airport where some passengers are about to embark on a trip when they're confronted by a salesman.

A salesman from the The Decider Company holds up a big, plain bag. "Trust us. This'll be great for your trip! It an amazing product that will help you complete your difficult trip in a wise, learned, and secure manner! It guarantees your safety — you your family's lives. Trust us."

Dane Anderson is the webmaster of the Unity08 college site and a senior at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

August was a big month for the Unity08 college effort.

In the past four weeks, we’ve launched college.unity08.com, grown to include members at over 180 campuses, and kicked off our Fall Issues Campaign (I’ll come back to that later).