Which logistical challenge do you believe is the toughest Unity08 faces?
Verifying voter registration for delegates
7%
Determining when and how a candidate can seek our nomination
18%
Forcing focus on crucial issues without specifying an issue platform
40%
Assuring the security and authenticity of online voting
35%
You must be signed in to vote in this poll. If you don't remember your username and password, click here. If you're not registered yet, please click here.
User
Recent blog posts
- Why We're Doing This -- Today's News (10/12)
- It's getting crazy out there!!!
- Why We're Doing This -- Today's News (10/11)
- Why We're Doing This -- Today's News (10/10)
- Your ideas make a difference
- Why We're Doing This -- Today's News (10/9)
- Help Unity08 get on the ballot in Maryland!
- Let’s Turn One Small Step for Oklahoma into a Giant Leap for Ballot Access Reform!
- Bobbie's Story: What we can all do for Unity08
- Want to help? Want a job? Here's How...
I for one don't like this American Agenda thing. I think the delegates should decide 3 to 5 crucial issues , then submit questions (determined by delegates) to potential nominees. After reviewing their responses, the delegates should then nominate the two candidates.
A Sooner Independent
Arent we looking for them vs them looking for us?
GEA You are assuming they will be flocking to unity's banner. If that happens then you're right. But what will we do if no one seeks the nomination? That was my point, I need to be clearer next time.
A Sooner Independent
I actually was trying to agree. I think that we should be realistic and know that candidates are not going to beat down to doors to get on our list.
We would have to recruit, but what do we offer?
WELL, MILLIONS ARE SO TURNED OFF BY THE SHAM ONE PARTY STATE WE HAVE (REMOCRAT/DEPUBLUICAN DISUNITY PARTY) that they may turn to the net as an alternative medium.
STANISLAUS G HILTON
The toughest thing is really ballot access because it is controlled by ththose in power. All other things can be overcome with effort, but the judiciary holds the key to ballot access, and they don't have a check or balance on their decision.
That is the repubocrats ace in the hole.
Until Unity08 decides what it stands for with respect to critical issues, there is no use even thinking about candidates or ballot access. Saying that you stand in the moderate middle is cute but useless. If your movement cannot articulate exactly where it stands on the critical issues of the day -- homeland security, privacy, Iraq, global war on terrorism, abortion rights, Iran, North Korea, education & No Child Left Behind, etc. -- then it is already dead. DOA.
spikepleasepass has it exactly right. How can anybody vote for a candidate who has no core beliefs or principles on which he/she stands? How can anybody reasonably expect an elected official to represent a synthetic viewpoint in which he/she has no intellectual investment? If you elect a mixed ticket, don't you realize that the vice president is irrelevant unless he is needed to cast a tie breaking vote in the Senate, or the President, for some reason, cannot perform his official duties?
It may be desireable to develop a platform, and put forth candidates who believe in it. Anything which is less intellectually substantial is merely a feel good excercise based in fantasy land.
Let's get out of the blogosphere, and rejoin the real world.
As ann added thought: If we eliminate the Electoral College,we will all have to secede from Californyork if we want our votes to count.
The American Agenda thing sounds an awful lot like setting policy through polling. Yeah, 71% of us disapprove of how the President is managing the war in Iraq, but that does not make adopting the Iraq Study Group's recommendations a per se good thing to do. Foreign policy is much more complex than that. Remember how many people supported a nuclear freeze when Reagan was in office -- both here and in Europe (he was as hated in Europe for deploying new, land-based nukes as W is now for Iraq). Well, if Ronnie went along with them, it would have been an economic plus for the USSR (allowing them to divert $$ from the military) and the Soviet Union might still be standing today. So, Anya and Sam and the rest of the folks trying on this new dress ought to explain how unity08 will deal with the American Agenda if it doens't fit (and the bloggers have plenty of bad ideas to espouse).
Give us time, we'll get there. As far as I know this is a pretty recent development. I think the premiss I heard was that if we create a platform then we can "interview" and endorse candidates who fit it - I think this is the whole point of the two parties but it doesn't seem to be working. It seems like both are high-jacked by the cult of personality, and "everyone loves a star" mentality which Americans (and the most of the rest of the world) seem to endorse. We need to look at the ideas and give credence to thoughtful people - we need to elect he "unknown" candidate - that is, everyone should campaign with bag over their head. Only political parties (no special interests) should be able to "endorse" candidates and then only on the basis of the quality of their thinking.
Last I heard we’re a nation of about 300 million people. Personally I do not want a wacko from either political extreme steering our ship of state. The nuts on either end of the political spectrum are “useless” at best because they’ll be unable to reach consensus with the rest of us, and dangerous at worst because if they do manage to get their radical agendas forced through somehow the nation will inevitably wind up in a place where at least %50 of us don’t want to be.
On the other hand, USEFUL people are ones that can articulate moderate positions on maters truly critical to the good and proper functioning of our country that a strong majority of us can at least tolerate. Being a moderate, pragmatist is usually dull, boring, complicated and does not led itself to sound bites nor is it likely to ignite extreme passions. Moderate means having to bargain, compromise with those in opposition so that you come away having won the day on the issues most important to you. If you extrapolate this process up to the many functions of our government, you end up with most people getting most of what they want most of the time. It also gets us to the place where the prevailing wisdom of most people is pretty well reflected in the government’s undertakings. If you would like to look at it from the opposite angle, if some government action or policy does turn out to be wrong it’s not as likely to be as wrong as it would have been if a more extreme tack had be taken, not to mention, more easily corrected.
Our ship of state is large and very powerful. It’s more like an aircraft carrier than a pleasure boat. We need wise, sober and circumspect people at the helm that understand the strengths, weaknesses and tendencies of our nation and will use that knowledge to make sound and practical decisions. The radicals that want to crank the wheel one way or the other should drive jet skis for excitement.
I agree with your analogy whole heartedely, however I have noticed a reluctance on the part of most elected to office to address the tough choices. The issues of taxation is one, we all want the programs and benefits, but we are not willing to accept the taxes that support these benefits, especially the wealthy as they view these benefits as a form of welfare or wealth distribution.
America will only remain strong if the vast middle class remains strong, healthy, educated and motivated by the basic fairness of our governing institutions. We are not going to be judged by how many of us are successful, by how much per capita we earn, how innovated or entrepneurial we are, BUT by the way we treat the least capable among us. How we treat the aged and infirmed among us, is the true measure of our compassion. Slogans like "a thousand points of light" or "compassionate conservative", while you cut the funding to those compassionate programs, is the distorted perception of the slogans, that does not match their realities. The use of the Social Security Trust Fund to make the budget deficit look smaller, and put that debt on our children and grandchildren. Refusing to raise taxes to pay for a war of choice, at the same time cutting the taxes of the wealthy and well off, is dishonest at its core. Fundamentally we are being dishonest to the next generation, and for the first time I see us leaving a Nation worse off than when we got it.
Our poll questions will respect the intelligence of the American people unlike the polls we see today on the controlled media. Our poll questions must be specific and defined in regard to action rather than confusing the policy or providing absolutely no solution whatsoever. For example: (Option 1): Leave Iraq and allow the natives to fight it out violently, establishing tribal rule whatever it may be on their own. Only interfering in concert with international policy and with air strikes as requested by international oversight, not any entity within Iraq. (Option 2): Leave Iraq on the ground but provide logistics and air support to the central government that we support in every way except with the blood of our sons and daughters. (Option 3): Not give up the ground we have paid for in blood and require a modern democracy with absolutely no tribal or religious based laws. Force the implementation of positive identification, drivers license and complete justice for the women in Iraq. Ending tribal concepts in Iraq in every way. Using exodus of women and children and military force as required to arrest or eliminate those that refuse law and order.
-
For the people can establish policy when given the opportunity. - Earn Snyder
Modern Progressive Independent
For more polices visit www.appyp.com/fix_main.html
The Central Issue is Ending Corruption.
All other issues can be reasonably resolved when Corruption is Ended:
How can health care be resolve when the Health Care lobbies donate Millions of $ to our representatives.
Repeat this issue for Oil, Defense Spending, Education for our children, The Environment, etc. ad infinitum.
How do we End Corruption?
Elect those where Ending Corruption is their central focus.
Those who argue for some other issue will distract us from Ending Corruption.
Ending Corruption often gets set aside because of arguments about free speech (restrictions on donating money is in violation of free speech).
Those who say there is a barrier to Ending Corruption must be asked to address what they recommend to End Corruption. If they have no answer about how we End Corruption then they are not a part of the solution.
I have voted as an independent for at least 25 years This election had twice as many voters (as a per cent of elgible voters) which leads me to believe there is a new core of those who will vote as independents to End Corruption.
Let us find candidates who will focus on Ending Corruption.