Not to rain on the parade, but has anyone considered that it's possible that no major politician will want anything to do with us until we demonstrate that we are worthy of them?
Most politicians won't even commit to running for their own known party for President until the political calculus runs in their favor. They'll lose face if they get involved in a loser movement or even if they run for an office they can't possibly win without a "getting out my message" excuse.
Why would a politician seriously support a movement that has less on-the-ground organization, infrastructure, and name recognition than most third parties? If they're the sort of shrewd political thinker we'll need in order to eventually win they won't touch us with a ten foot pole until it's clear that we are valuable to their political careeer.
I suggest that our criteria for inclusion initially should have no requirement that they even like us, let alone that they're willing to sign pledges, offer their platform for our agenda, or whatever. We should be debating who we want... we should be growing like gangbusters for the next 20 months... we should be raising money and setting up procedures to select and then elect someone great...
...but don't expect any serious politicos to join us till we've got all the major elements in place and can offer them more than their own party can.
The real question, from my perspective, is what the minimum level of support from volunteers who like the idea of Unity and who like person X should be.
Just to throw out a crazy idea: Suppose we let people sign up for the convention and list three candidates they would want to see in the convention. If people already in the unity movement want to get a candidate "on the first ballot" they start an awareness drive and get new people to join the Unity Movement while listing their candidate. Any candidate with at least 2024 joiners who mention them is in the first round. It ties candidate suggestions to the process that makes us worth being courted by politicians: a growing pile of deliverable votes.
A crazier but similar idea: let people who sign up give "credit" by listing the email of the person who got them to join. Then run it like a pyramid scheme: you get 5 points for getting someone to join, 3 points for the people they get to join, 2 for their joiners, and 1 for their joiners. Every 4000 points you get to nominate a candidate to the first round. I like the way this idea will get the crazy self promoters working for us, but I don't like the reputation it would give us... pyramid schemes generally are evil.
I'm not wedded to any of these ideas. I'm just saying we shouldn't only be "listing demands". We should be figuring out what *we* bring to the table. Princesses can be picky because whoever marries them gets the kingdom. We're not a princess yet.
-Jennifer
I have been thinking about this as well. Anyone who thinks they have a shot at getting the nomination for one of the major parties is not going to consider Unity08 until they feel their chance with their party is past. Even then they may be more likely to seek a VP position within their party than try to get the nod from Unity 08. We need to have more to offer than an idea. We need to show that we have ballot access and a strong following before we will be attractive to any viable candidate.
i don't mean to suggest that a viable candidate will always seek the nomination of a major party, but most people who would be interested in the job of President of the US are probably already aligned with an existing party.