We need to take practical steps to identify candidates:
1. from the center rather than candidates from the extreme ends of the political spectrum.
2. with a proven track record of the skills necessary for successful political campaigns.
4. that can advance the concept of third-party politics (especially centrists’ efforts like Unity08).
5. that won't self destruct (Ross Perot comes to mind).
While we might pine for a pure candidate, an outsider unsullied by the political system, we will probably do better if we convert disaffected insiders to the cause. McCain, Lieberman and Jeffers come to mind as posibilities.
Another post in this forum put forth a post promoting a poll to vote for candidates of our choice. This poll featured an instant run-off feature - something we should work for in all elections as the lack of this feature acts as a virtual lock-out of third party candidates.
However, voting forspecific candidates at this stage will only highlight the residual partisan differences that we unconsciously bring to the table.
I would suggest instead that we consider a candidate pool as broad as "every candidate that was ever elected to a federal or statewide office within the last 10 years." From this pool of candidates that meet condition #2 above, we should construct a poll (or rather 51 polls - one federal and one per state) that allows us to rate the candidates as "no opinion," "good choice," "too far left," "too far right," "too unstable," "a loser, "too inflexible," "too opportunistic," "not trustworthy," "too partisan," etc.
The best candidates for our purposes will be the ones that get numerous "good choice" ratings with a balance of "too far left" and "too far right" and not too many of the other negative ratings.
Note that predominantly "no opinion" candidates are not good choices as they may not satisfy conditions #1, #3, #4 and #5 above.
After a suitable polling interval, we can skim the top 10% of the field and invite them to read our platform and attend our virtual convention.
Of course, as we approach members of established parties, we need to do it on the QT. Publicizing their possible consideration of Unity08 before they decide it is in their best interest will only antagonize their political base and drive good candidates away.
This kind of polling seems like far more work than it is. The candidate names can be pulled out of almanacs or off the web. The “who is this” information can probably be found on Wikipedia although it might be more useful to just tell people to not rate people they don’t know. Name recognition, or lack thereof, is important information.
The bulk of the work is in establishing the ratings themselves and in the back-end database queries to analyze the results.
I'd also like to point out Project Vote Smart (http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm) as a way of checking out a candidate's viability. They have a tremendous amount of information about alot of politicians, including their voting record, interest group ratings, campaign finances and, if they answered the survey, their views on most issues. I think it's a good resource to use to judge anyone we consider for the Unity ticket.
We want our representatives accountable to the people and not the money interest. Can two people, president and vice president from either party do this? If McCain-Feingold can't solve this problem, what makes you think this method can? Unfortunately, public financing of elections is not popular with politicians or constituents. Finding two candidates strong enough to change the course of the slush fund that exist is unfortunately very unlikely. Money and voter apathy rule the day. Hopefully we're not headed for a fiscal trainwreak and constitutional crisis.Sorry.
As I mentioned somewhere else, I don't necessarily think it would be a good idea to exclude candidates who are on the extremes of one political side.
Since the current plan is for a bi-partisan ticket, it may make tactic sense to have a hard-left or hard-right candidate on the ticket (probably as VP) if one of the party's bases feels disenfranchised by their parties candidate.
http://journals.aol.com/kweinschen/Veritas/
We need to discuss issues before we mention possible canidates. The canidates who support the issues favored by the majority should be supported. Lets talk issues which are critical to the future of our Nation. Immigration-no nation can survive with out control of its borders. We have an invasion of over 10 million illegal aliens,this must be stopped and controlled. Border politicians are profiting from drug money and want the borders open. This must stop. The present government is allowing corporations to profit from cheap labor at the expense of the middle class and do not want the border closed. Excessive CEO salaries, at the expense of the share holders, must end. This is a small start.
I agree with wdwright about the need to define who we are as a party before we worry about who will be our candidate. Furthermore, at this point, we need to set in stone the rules by which the party will act. In terms of priority I suggest we define the rules first (and relatively soon) and then begin the debate over platform. Thank you.
You've all raised good points - we need to decide what we stand for and match that to who we want.
I hear that we all want to secure our borders - am I correct?
That's one possible "plank".
US Marine vet Vietnam 4/68 - 8/69