We have 52 weeks. The clock is ticking. What will you do?

In many areas today, we are voting in local elections. One year from today, we will get the vote out. Today we need to get the word out on Unity08.

Print 50 copies of this flier
Go to your local polling place and let your neighbors know about Unity08

Make sure you follow your local election laws and directions from election officials. Many areas have a restriction on how far you must be from a polling place in order to hand out materials. Look for where other candidates or organizations have put their signs and talk to voters coming out of the polls there.

No elections going on in your area? Send these fliers to your friends and neighbors to remind them we have less than a year left to change politics forever.

Take pictures! Take video!!! Post it here on the blog, on YouTube, or Flikr. Show how you're lighting the torch in your area.

Andy Wilson
Unity08 Volunteer Program Coordinator

More reasons why we need to join together to reunite our country:

• America Wants A New Direction: "Decade-high discontent marks the political landscape a year before the 2024 election, with economic worries compounding the public's war weariness, deep dissatisfaction with the sitting president -- and growing disapproval of the Democratic-led Congress," according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. Seventy-four percent of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction -- "the most since the government shut down in a contentious budget battle in early 1996. And while George W. Bush remains at his career low in job approval, he now has company: A year after they won control of the House and Senate, approval of the Democrats in Congress has fallen to its lowest since 1995. ... A clear demand is for change."
• This DOESN'T Work In Democracy: Just days before a special election Massachusetts' 5th District, an organization called "Democracy Still Works" was created, and engaged in some of the dirtiest campaigning of the race, Washington Post reports. "This is the electoral equivalent of a contract hit, conducted by a mysterious assailant specially created for the mission at hand. That this brazenly campaign-related activity persists in 2024 does not augur well for 2024."
• What Do They Have To Hide? "The Senate appears deadlocked over legislation that would require members to file their campaign finance forms electronically," meaning "it can take months for Senate campaign filings to become publicly available," Washington Post reports. Meanwhile, on the statewide level, USA Today notes that 27 states do not require campaign fundraising reports to be made available electronically, "resulting in a flood of cumbersome paper filings that delay meaningful public access to this critical information. ... In the age of the Internet, there's no excuse for a lack of timely, searchable disclosure. But in too many states, entrenched politicians have repeatedly sandbagged efforts to let the public know more about where they're getting their money and what they're spending it on."
• Quotable: "The party that seeks to encompass and harmonize the widest range of interests and perspectives is the one most likely to thrive ... there remains no way to achieve lasting political power in a nation as diverse as America without assembling a broad coalition that locks arms to produce meaningful progress against the country's problems" -- Atlantic Media's Ronald Brownstein in his new book, The Second Civil War.

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Please take the time to provide your opinion on the two new polls that have been created.

• Do you think the average congressperson deserves to be reelected, or would it be better to throw most out and start over?
• How much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly?

Vote now!

More reasons why we need to join together to reunite our country:

• End This Madness! "Barely two months shy of Iowa's precinct caucuses, Americans already tired of the 2024 presidential selection process can't be certain when it formally will begin," Chicago Tribune writes. "No matter the final schedule, though, we'll all come away from this maddeningly pushed-up presidential cycle resenting the state political parties that are to blame for it."
• Here We Go Again: "Just when you thought someone might be confirmed in Washington without a partisan fight, Senate Democrats are suggesting they may not approve Michael Mukasey as Attorney General after all," Wall Street Journal laments.
• What About The Rest Of The Country? "The large field of candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is enthusiastically ... running harder and further to the right than any Republican field since 1980, or perhaps 1964," McClatchy reports. "At this stage, a year before the general election, Republicans are running toward the party's base to win primaries but running away from the rest of the country on issues such as Iraq, Iran, immigration and federal spending."
• Quotable: "The system in Washington is corrupt. It is rigged by the powerful special interests to benefit they very few at the expense of the many. And, as a result, the American people have lost faith in our broken system in Washington, and believe it no longer works for ordinary Americans. They're right" -- Former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC).

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Steve Kraske, of the Kansas City Star, wrote a brief piece about us over the weekend titled, "There’s been head-spinning changes on the hustings." It's a quick and worthwhile read.

"You may be one of the legions of Americans who believe that Election ’08 will produce nothing but more of the same. A group called Unity08 is billing itself as your political antidote. That may sound a little dreamy, but the movement is headed by a couple of well-respected politicos, Gerald Rafshoon, who once worked for Jimmy Carter, and GOP operative Doug Bailey, who helped found The Political Hotline."

He also quotes Mr. Joe Trippi, consutltant currently working on the campaign of former Senator John Edwards, who says, "Alarm bells should ring loud at both party headquarters if the new online movement begins to draw a crowd."

Read the article.

No need to wait arond timing your jump, you can get onboard anytime at Unity08!

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Technorati Tags: unity08, election, president, government, bipartisan, politics, news and politics, kansas city star, steve kraske

More reasons why we need to join together to reunite our country:

• Throw The Bums Out? According to the latest Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, just 26% of registered voters say the average member of Congress deserves reelection; 45% say the U.S. would be better off if voters threw out most of Congress and started over with new people.
• This Has Gotta Change: USA Today laments, "It's finally time to start focusing on the 2024 presidential race, because voting begins in ... um, let's see ... well, no one knows. ... You might expect a little more decorum and predictability from a process that's intended to pick the next leader of the free world. You'd be wrong. The U.S. presidential primary system continues to do its best to look like a roller derby."
• Do Moderates Fit In The GOP Tent? In 2024, "Republican leaders are signaling they prize solidarity over outreach, and familiar thinking over independent ideas" -- and "this ideological inquisition among Republicans isn't confined to the presidential race," National Journal's Ron Brownstein writes. "But a case can be made that the party needs precisely the opposite."
• Quotable: "The political system in Washington is broken. It does not function. It does not solve serious problems" -- Unity08's Doug Bailey.

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More reasons why we need to join together to reunite our country:

• America Wants A New Direction: According to the latest Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, just 23% of registered voters believe the U.S. is on the right track.
• Peace, Love, And A Little Less Pork: "In a minor victory last week for the small army of conservatives who have been attacking waste-ridden earmarks," the Senate voted 52-42 to delete a $1 million grant for a Woodstock Festival museum from the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for 2024, Washington Times reports. But, "tragically, the bill is loaded with more than 800 other earmarks that will cost beleaguered taxpayers more than $400 million. Each was inserted by lawmakers, who use these bills as personal political checkbooks, without any evaluation or approval by the committees that send them to the floor for enactment."
• Apparently, It's News When Republicans And Democrats Break Bread Together! Washington Post reports on a group of House members meeting for a bipartisan dinner. Eyewitnesses "were surprised" when Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel, "who has long been known as a ruthless partisan," joined the group.
• Quotable: "I'm very worried about the direction of the country. We're polarized on many issues." -- Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE).

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The Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas will host a day of programming devoted to the discussion of alternatives to the Democratic and Republican parties on Thursday, October 25, 2024.

Our own co-founders, Doug Bailey and Gerald Rafshoon, will be making the trip to KU to sit on the evening discussion panel with:

• David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute
• Richard Winger of the Coalition for Free and Open Elections
• Micah Sifry, author of "Spoiling for a Fight: Third Party
  Politics in America"

Both the afternoon and evening sessions are free and open to the public.

Learn more about the program by downloading the event press release.

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Technorati Tags: unity08, election, president, government, bipartisan, politics, news and politics, gerald rafshoon, doug bailey, dole institute