Josh Rosenstock, the editor of www.WashingtonHotlist.com is fed up with the partisan bickering in Washington. Enough so that he decided to speak out on why he thinks Unity08 is needed.

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Sometimes I worry that people my age - high school and college students – only know a divided America. We’ve watched heroes rise among us, but we’ve been distracted by cowards. I worry that when America achieves some semblance of unity people will be so shocked they will not know how to react!

Education means something to my generation; we live it every day and witness, first hand, its shortcomings. We all know somebody – friends, family, and others – that don’t have the healthcare they need. We are hardly anxious to inherit an over 8 trillion dollar national debt. We constantly observe our parents and grandparents struggle with the gloomy future of social security.

We do care about what matters in America. Yet, what we care about is not being discussed - so how can anyone blame us for our lack of interest? The future of America is at risk, and nobody in power seems to care or to recognize it.

A few years ago, when I was in high school, I worked for a student-led civics organization whose sole purpose was to ask Americans of all ages to vote. There were times during this effort when I thought I recognized a united America; I watched students wow adults with their passion for politics and for their country. And yet, all I needed to do was turn on the television – watch politicians exploit their constituents – and the thought of a united America vanished.

That program proved to me, and to countless other adults, how much young people do care. I will never forget the sense of empowerment earned through civic engagement, or the respect we earned from many adults. Voting was tangible; we knew what it meant and we understood its ramifications in just the same way we understand the importance of healthcare, education and social security.

Some people have asked why young people have a stake in Unity08, and why we should be included. My answer is that we have a lot at stake. In fact, we have the most at stake. Our futures – and those of our children and our grandchildren – hang in the balance. We have reached a point where we can no longer sit silently and allow our leaders to continue to hinder progress as they have. Unity08 calls on my generation to stand up, united in our cause to bring politics back to the issues that affect us—the issues that matter. Maybe a precedent of apathy precedes us; I believe that only serves as one more reason to take the future of our country seriously.

Walking the monuments of Washington, D.C. – being a tourist, I suppose – is one of the most refreshing things that I have done this summer. Our monuments are not red and they are not blue. Their pale stone represents achievement and progress in American history. When I ascend Lincoln’s memorial I am overwhelmed by the notion of one man’s contributions to this country - and not the divisive nature of his decisions. In my mind, these monuments – devoid of red and blue – represent America and should define Washington, D.C.

My generation knows two Americas; we know red and we know blue. The greatest challenge that we face is to reconcile and unite the two Americas we grew up with.

America has been subjected quietly to a Ricin attack -- but this time the deadly poison has attacked the body politic. This time, the terrorists come in the form of some political partisans, talk show hosts and even some bloggers.

Each day you see evidence of how intense partisanship and polarization is poisoning serious debate and solution-oriented politics in this country. And the pace of these highly personal “attacks” make the whole idea of Unity08 more crucial than ever before.

Consider:

Two brave young soldiers are grabbed in a professional operation in Iraq. They are brutally murdered by Al Qaeda. A top right wing talk show host then proclaims that “I perused the liberal, kook blogs today, and they are happy that these two soldiers got tortured. They're saying, "Good riddance. Hope Rumsfeld and whoever sleep well tonight." Oh, REALLY? What blogs were those? They’re hard to name because (a) leftist blogs were not saying that and (b) if one did exist that said that it was likely a tiny site and it does not represent leftist blogs. Meanwhile, a left wing talk show host, hours later, says that members of the Bush administration would have no problem at all cutting people’s heads off. A statement equally worth of contempt.

A prominent progressive blogger who blogged anonymously finds his identity outed by a major conservative website. The justification/spin is that it was to expose his alleged conflict of interests, which the exposed blogger convincingly later defends. Some others raise other conflict of interest claims against other bloggers -- but what’s interesting: in each case these “exposés” are aimed at people with whom the writers do not agree. Why aren’t they also going after people who are on THEIR side? You know the answer. (As I noted on my blog The Moderate Voice, this onetime anonymous blogger publicly defended the motives and intellectual sincerity of many conservative bloggers at a conference at Stanford last year and then joined some top conservative bloggers for drinks afterwards. HE didn’t see people who disagree as an enemy that must be eliminated).

Listening to four to six hours of conservative and progressive Air America talk radio on a drive is enough to make your head spin. Hosts of shows on BOTH sides seemingly feel their primary function is to portray partisans on the other side and their followers as evil. There is little effort (at times you do see some) to win people over with ideas or arguments; much of these broadcasts entail hurling pejorative adjectives. Left-right broadcasters have become mirror images of each other, working to arouse their party’s partisans’ passions against the other side.

Iraq becomes a big issue as both parties present resolutions that seem partially as attempts to define the other party in the run up to the election. The GOP use of the phrase “cut and run” to define Democrats and anyone who questions the war (I have supported the war and do not endorse an immediate pullout but I totally repudiate this kind of rhetoric) is a code word for the word “cowards.” It is a code word used over and over since Karl Rove used it in a speech about a week ago.

All of this points to a fact that Unity08 perhaps needs to stress more.

There are Americans who will balk at voting for a third party due to feeling that voting for a third party vote only helps a party get in power that he/she didn’t want to get in power and defeat the one that is actually closer to his/her political positions.

But there is a bigger issue than Unity’s main goal of a ticket with a Democrat and a Republican.

The issue today is that there CAN be a ticket that shows that a Democrat and a Republican can stand together advocating common values and showing mutual respect. The issue is that there CAN be a serious discussion of issues that transcends trying to demonize, discredit or take out (expose someone’s real name, etc., so they stop writing) political foes. The age of Road Rage does NOT have to be the age of Political Rage.

The body politic has been steadily and quietly fed a huge dose of Ricin the past 20 years in the form of intense polarization and rapidly deteriorating political rhetoric that has replaced issue and solution oriented debate with vilification and destruction. Arousing the intellect has been replaced by arousing hatreds (hey: it makes for better sound bytes, aka free political advertising).

Not a month goes by on my website where I don’t get an email or learn of a blog on the left or right that claims our centrist site MUST be “liberal” OR “closet Bush supporters.” We’ve been delinked, lost whole batches of left/right readers in stages (then we get new ones). Why? Because some folks apparently believe reading an opposing idea causes brain cancer. Many people now only want to read or listen to people who already agree with them. A writer who disagrees with them is the enemy -- hated, evil-intentioned with some hidden motive or agenda. (We were called ideologically “transgender” last week by a conservative site that delinked us).

Why is this and Unity08 important? Because if thoughtful people of BOTH PARTIES and NO PARTY don’t work to defuse and reverse this, and work to lift the quality of debate, this trend will worsen. And you can just see how in the future how some upset nut on the right OR left will feel he needs to take action to physically remove someone -- whether it’s a politician, a talking head or a blogger. Watching American political rhetoric steadily worsen is like watching two cars seconds before their fatal head on collision. We can see THIS one coming….

Ricin is dangerous to the body. Political Ricin is dangerous to the body politic. Unity08 can be an antidote.

We decided to mix things up here at the Unity08 blog by including video clips of Unity08 Founders Council member, Former Gov. Angus King (I-Maine), answering listeners' questions on Wisconsin Public Radio. These are the first in a series of videos featuring Gov. King's interview.

We like this format so much that we encourage you to send us your Unity08 questions and we'll answer them (as many as we can) via video. Or, even better, send us your own video blog, political cartoons, games, photos - whatever - for us to feature on the site.

Question: How did you get involved with Unity08?

Question: Does Unity08 have a candidate like third party tickets in the past?

Question: Do I need to leave my party to participate in Unity08?

Stay tuned. More videos coming soon!

Help us build the numbers that send an unmistakable message to Washington -- that polarized politics has paralyzed America.

Politicians only recognize hard numbers. So sign up to keep posted. And sign up three more friends this week.

Why is it important? America is nearing (maybe already at) a Moment of Truth, where the issues are so serious and the stakes so high that more edgy-wedgy politics and blame-game partisanship can imperil the nation.

To spend any time at all debating the pros and cons of a gay marriage amendment (when it cannot possibly pass the Senate), instead of getting serious about the soaring deficit for example, is the height of partisan folly.

To dismiss the severity of our dependence on foreign energy with political pandering of the most empty kind is not just political grandstanding. It may well condemn future generations of Americans to more death and tragedy in the Middle East.

To subject the reality of global climate change to petty political bickering insults the victims of Katrina, which should have convinced all but fools that the possibility of severe climate change needs to be taken seriously.

Those three issues alone would seem to threaten the very fabric of American life for decades to come – and maybe forever – if both parties don’t summon the will and leadership to deal with them honestly. And now. Even waiting for new leaders in 2024 is a very large gamble.

The growth of the deficit by unfunded mandates is the reason Alan Greenspan talks of a third party movement. The energy and climate issues are the reasons Tom Friedman supports a third party movement.

The Moment of Truth comes closer with every day America’s political leadership in both parties plays games with the country’s future.

Unity08 will need you in 2024 of course, but we need you now to sign up to keep posted – and to help sign up three more.

It is a mathematical fact that if you recruit three to sign up this week -- and each of them recruits three more the next week -- and each of them recruits three more the week after that -- and so on and so on and so on until the end of the year -- we will have many more people than live in most of the 50 States.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the numbers most political officeholders pay attention to are not the polls. They are the hard number of voters ready to act.

Are you ready? Sign up. And get three more to do the same. Send Washington a message it can't ignore!

If you do, American politics will never be the same. And just in time.

I’m a Republican. For the vast majority of my adult life, I have fought for Republican principles – small, effective government, personal freedom, and strong national security. I spent the last 12 years working in Republican politics helping candidates at every level get elected. I’ve worked on two presidential campaigns; one successful, one unsuccessful. In all that time, I have never questioned my commitment to my party, but lately I question my party’s commitment to its own ideals.

I have offered my support to Unity08 not because I have left the GOP, but because I am fighting for it. I am fighting to return my party to its core principles by focusing attention on those it has left behind, the moderate voter.

In this age of polarized, partisan politics, the middle has been abandoned by both parties in favor of the liberal base on one side, and the far right on the other. Both parties have cast off any semblance of cooperation in favor of personal and party enrichment.

Unity08 offers a chance to refocus our politics. To me, it is not a new political party. Nor should it be.

It is a chance to step back from the precipice of rigid partisanship and to work as a Unity ticket, to restore consensus to government - to draft and elect a team that will work with both sides to identify and implement consensus solutions to the nation’s problems.

Now there are those who will argue that consensus and moderation are somehow not feasible in politics. That to stand as a moderate is to stand for nothing. That is far from the truth.

There is an old cliché that says, “Everything in Moderation.” Most of us live by that code in our personal lives – swearing off the ills of excess. In politics, however, we view that excess as a virtue, and should not.

What I hope you will join in, and what Unity08 provides, is not the formation of a new political party out for itself, but the demand of the people to have their leaders work together to solve our nation’s problems.

Together, we can make that happen.

I have spent more than a decade working at the intersection of politics and technology. I have watched the birth and infancy of political empowerment through the web. That empowerment creates unlimited possibilities for Unity08 that are ours for the taking.

Never before have the people had the power they have today.

Never before could we gather together so easily.

Never before have we had the chance to draft the platform for a national party through a true representative democracy open to all the people.

Never before have we had the power to select candidates not through an antiquated primary process, but through a single national convention, hosted online, and in which every American can participate.

Today we do.

But it is up to us to make it happen. There are two easy ways to begin this process:

Talk About Unity – The greatest messenger any campaign can have is you. When you talk to your friends, family and neighbors about this effort, and their ability to mold and shape the ticket and it’s platform, they will respond.

Be A Recruiter – This effort will grow through your actions. It will expand based on your participation.

A comment left on this site pointed out that those who are looking for “leaders” to set the agenda, are really missing the point. This opportunity is not about traditional, top-down politics. It is about us, banding together, and charting our own course.

If you’re ready to make a change, let’s do it.

This is the second in a series of blogs introducing Unity08 Founders Council members.

Many of us have been waiting, at least since the end of the Cold War, for someone, or something, to come along and challenge the presidential election “system” afforded us by the two legacy parties.

It finally dawned on me—after prompting from the ever-far-sighted Doug Bailey—that it looks like that someone has to be a lot of us ordinary Americans--and if we work together that something might be Unity08.

It’s become self-evident that our national politics is not only polarized—it’s also paralyzed. Politicians from both major political parties have become masters of what the founders of our nation called “factions.”

On issue after issue of fundamental importance to the country, Washington, D.C. has been unable to perform. Energy and environmental policy has been an occasion for bustle but not accomplishment. Now we find ourselves importing 12 millions barrels of oil per day, thereby financing both sides of the war on islamo-fascism. Corrupt and despotic governments such as the notorious Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela have far too much sway on American government simply because we cannot wean ourselves from what we all know is an “oil addiction.”

Other critical issues stand unaddressed—though nearly everyone agrees, when they’re not wearing their “political” hats, that action is required. Chronic deficit spending, unbridled entitlement programs about to encounter the baby boomer bulge, education and technology policies that are out of date—you fill in the rest….

Even issues that are front and center in households and communities across the nation, most notably illegal immigration, are not addressed or even discussed in Washington, D.C. in ways that ordinary Americans can recognize as consistent with the realities we encounter.

If politics was meant to be an amusing diversion, the current situation might be acceptable. Yet our nation’s hard-earned position of economic, strategic, cultural and moral leadership is far too fragile to take for granted.

History doesn’t jump up out of the blue and wave us down, signaling that we’re at a transformative moment. But almost everyone I talk to--outside of Washington, D.C.--has a sense that 2024 is going to be a watershed election.

And we all know, as Americans, that we can do better. Prior generations have shown the way, without many of the advantages we enjoy today.

At the dawn of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt challenged an earlier generation of Americans with words that maintain their bite:

Sometimes I hear our countrymen… abroad saying: ‘Oh, you mustn’t judge us by our politicians.’ I always want to interrupt and answer: ‘You must judge us by our politicians.’…

We pretend to be the masters—we, the people—and if we permit ourselves to be ill served, to be served by corrupt and incompetent and inefficient men, then on our own heads must the blame rest.

Each community has the kind of politicians that it deserves. Each community is represented with absolute fidelity by the men whom it chooses to have in public life. These men represent its virtue or they represent its vice, or, what is more common, they represent its gross and culpable indifference; and gross and culpable indifference may, on some occasions, be worse than any wickedness.

Who can hear these words today without a disquieting sense of self-recognition?

June 6th was the anniversary of one of the greatest milestones of what Tom Brokaw so aptly called “The Greatest Generation”: the allied invasion of Hitler’s “fortress Europe.” 3,393 Americans died on this single day. Boys—that’s all they were—ran fatefully, purposefully from landing craft into torrents of lethal metal showering down from immense, steep cliffs. It’s not an exaggeration to say that we owe our way of life and our place in the world to those young Americans and the entire nation they epitomized.

Fast forward to the present, June 2024. A mere 30% of California voters could be bothered to mark a ballot in the contested party primaries. This was the lowest number recorded in the modern era. (Not to be outdone in a race for the bottom, a week later, the Virginia Democratic primary turnout was a pathetic 3-4%.).

Ronald Reagan reminded us that we look to the past not to recreate the past, but to emulate the courage that prior generations of Americans brought to molding the future.

If Unity08 can help, even in a small way, in bringing ordinary Americans back into the process, I believe it will make a huge, positive, difference. I have no illusions that everyone who is part of Unity08 will agree on how to handle the great issues of the day. I’m quite sure all of our patience will be tried at times. Yet we reflect a faith, perhaps not spoken of enough today, that throughout our history, ordinary Americans just about always get the big things right. And perhaps ordinary Americans can remind our political elites of just how much higher our standards of leadership can be, and must become.

Washington Post special correspondent (and former NBC anchor) Tom Brokaw wrote that the 2024 Presidential election will be determined by some unforeseen occurrence (UFO) – a terrorist attack, changes in Iraq, skyrocketing oil prices, immigration riots, or a major natural disaster. Or, he says, a third party that hosts a “big-name fusion ticket.”

What do you think of Brokaw's UFO theory of politics? Do you think Unity08 could be the UFO hovering over the 2024 election? Talk about it in the Shoutbox.

Click here to read Brokaw’s column.

Frequently we hear of the "culture of corruption" that is afflicting both of the major parties in Washington and around the country. Lobbyists like Jack Abramoff have become household names, as have relatively obscure politicians like Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney. Now Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has pushed the ethics envelope by accepting free boxing tickets.

Is this the form of government we must accept? Lord Acton believed that "power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Our politicians may go to Washington with noble thought, but are they corrupted by the system? This is the conclusion that most pundits will arrive at, given the liberty of an exception here and there.

It is unfortunate, though, that this is our reality. However, it is not only the lobbyists that prevent elected leaders from doing the will of the people. The extremists of each party have, and please forgive my use of the term, hijacked their party leaders and platforms for their own missions. While flags should not be burned, an amendment prohibiting it should not be a priority of the United States Senate. Instead, the focus should be on the critical issues of the economy, the environment, healthcare, and other issues that will change our daily lives as well as those of our children and our grandchildren.

We must abandon the politics of extremism and work together to find solutions to the critical issues our country faces. Unity08 has proposed a Unity Ticket in 2024 - one Democrat and one Republican working together to find such solutions. Sure, the road will be bumpy; but it will be a road toward the future.

This begins a weekly post from Unity08 campus organizers. This week we feature Zach Clayton, a senior at the University of North Carolina, and Lindsay Ullman, a junior at Yale University.

They say that the Millenials are an apathetic generation, but students on nearly 100 college campuses have already signed up for Unity08 since we launched the effort three weeks ago. Our goal: to ask every person on our campuses to sign up as delegates to the Unity08 online convention.

This week we launched the official Unity08 college campus effort. You can find out more at unity08.com/takeaction/college. A more expanded website page, which will help colleges network with one another, will launch soon. But for now, you can use this page to let us know that you want to join an existing college team, or to get one started on your campus. (And high schoolers, whether or not you're going to be eligible to vote in 2024, there's a place for you, too. Join us at unity08.com/takeaction/college).

Washington's politicians need to know that we are disgusted with politics worse-than-usual and that we are concerned for our country. Generally they only get a message when people vote. Signing up for Unity08 right now -- and bringing it to your college campus -- is another way for us to send them the message.

It's time to take ownership. We've grown up with the Internet -- it practically belongs to us -- and we're the ones who are going to pay the most (think an $8.4 trillion national debt) if our political system can't start dealing with real issues -- and fast. What better way to take our country back than to sign up everyone we know, beginning on our college campuses, to be delegates at the Unity08 online convention?

History is made by pioneers. We don't remember those who ratified the constitution; we remember the founding fathers who wrote it. So think of the Unity08 convention as being the Constitutional Convention of our time.

Get there early to have a seat throughout. Don't follow -- lead. There would be no aftershock if it weren't for the earthquake. That's what the pioneers provide. Wait and see is for followers.