A Unity ticket, by definition, is going to have to clearly represent a fairly broad spectrum of opinion in order to gather sufficient support. I'd like to suggest that you shouldn't settle for just identifying candidates for President and Vice-President; rather, you should look for potential Cabinet members as well, and run the whole group together as a team.
I think this would make the campaign be more about the issues, and less about the personal foibles of the two standard-bearers. The Cabinet candidates would concentrate on the issues where they each had expertise, thereby relieving the Presidential candidate from having to expound knowledgably on the full range of issues all ny himself or herself. (And anyway, the strength of a Unity Presidential candidate wouldn't be so much his or her grasp of the issues per se, as it would be his or her ability to lead/facilitate/manage the work of the Unity Government, and get all these different people to work together.)
I disagree with this approach because I think it would confuse voters. I do not mean it disrespectfully, just calling it like I see it. Voters are use to the two candidates representing a party, even third ones. To deviate from that I believe would lessen Unity 08's impact. Just my opinion.
I see MFV's point while I like the idea of the cabinet. How about some kind of way that we could have suggestions or let the candidates preselect the cabinet so we will have an idea who they will select or some other system to address the goal and the problems.
After the election of course.
While I am not opposed to the idea of positing to our prospective candidates a roster of preferred cabinet members, nor do I argue that candidates might not strengthen their electibility by suggesting same, we shouldn't be so brazen as to demand a certain cabinet nor to undertake to toss out 230 years of precedent. The voters elect the executive and the executive appoints the cabinet that he/she believes is best suited to help him/her accomplish the goals upon which the voters based their choices.
The Founding Fathers wisely elected to bypass the option of a full and direct democracy. The intervening 230 years hasn't diminished the wisdom of this choice.
Mark Greene
Texas Democrat in the Middle
Sounds like a idea that is worth pursuing further.
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