“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” –Lao-Tzu, Chinese Philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)
Politics as usual is dead, but our patriotic spirit is alive. A recent cover story in Time magazine notes that despite people being fed up with the system, they are volunteering in record numbers. Volunteers are everywhere—teaching at risk kids in our schools, digging wells in a village in Africa, hitting the pavement to educate people about our democracy. It is this spirit that drives us at Unity08—we can tap into this spirit of service and activism that most of you feel to transform our nation’s politics.
It is we the people who will lead Unity08 to success in the presidential election of 2024. Success means electing a unity ticket chosen by the people to the White House, but before we can reach that larger goal, we need to accomplish several smaller ones. President Kennedy challenged us to get to the moon within a decade. We began a space program, the Apollo mission, but before Apollo, we needed a Mercury and a Gemini mission.
Our Gemini mission is getting on the ballot in every state and in the District of Columbia. We will need to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures nationwide to accomplish this, and we need the help of thousands of volunteers. As a people’s movement, we can begin organizing now, just by simply talking to everyone you know, hosting a potluck event in your neighborhood or a meeting on your local college campus. Since this is our movement, I want to hear your ideas and success stories about how we’re spreading the word about Unity08.
I am constantly amazed by the level of enthusiasm I hear from all of you about Unity08 and electing our next President. The most common question I hear is, “What can I do to help?” Here are a few concrete steps you can take right now:
Step One: We need a few dozen more people in Delaware and Mississippi to help us get on the ballot there. If you have any friends or family who live there, please email them today, have them sign up on the website and email shilpi@Unity08.com that they would like to support our ballot access drive in either of those states.
Step Two: We’re getting ready to hit the ground in Colorado and Maryland. Again, if you have friends or family there, email them, have them sign up at www.Unity08.com. We need help collecting signatures and anyone with experience in election law or field work, please email me at awilson@Unity08.com. We’re going to need between 10,000 and 15,000 registered voters to sign our petition, so we need all the help we can get!!!
Step Three: Heads up, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Utah, Hawaii, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina—we’re coming to you next! You know the drill: let your friends and family know about Unity08 and have anyone who wants to help email me.
Live in one of the other 40 states? We need your help in organizing on the ground. We’ll be adding an interactive map to the website in the next few weeks that will include specific information on what is required to get on the ballot in your state. We’ll update it frequently so you can see the progress we’re all making together. If you want to volunteer to help collect signatures or just want to be kept up to date on ballot access issues, email me and I’ll keep you in the loop.
I want to spotlight the efforts of some of our amazing volunteers in Texas. They have already put in so much work and initiative that it would make Sam Houston himself proud. Bill Henderson and Richard Alsenz (right) and the rest of their team have started a Yahoo Group to help get the word out. If you live in Texas and want to get active—please email Bill. Their group already has regular meetings in a Houston library, but they need your help to start similar groups in Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, San Antonio, El Paso, and the other 260,000 square miles that Texas covers. Their hard work and ingenuity are things we can all emulate and start building our own local organizations of Unity08.
We can meet in the real world, and we can meet online. Post an entry on a local blog, send out a bulletin to your friends on your favorite social networking website, make a podcast or YouTube video, call in to your favorite radio show, or write a letter to the editor. Let me hear about it, so we can spotlight the work being done in all 50 states so everyone can see what everyone else is doing.
In the days after the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787, people nationwide gathered together in their homes, churches, town squares, pubs, and social circles to discuss this radical new idea. Average citizens, like us, carried the torch of democracy from person to person as the word spread. They used the technology available to them at the time: newspapers, letters, and the spoken word. We will use these that are still available to us today, and we can also use our blogs, email, and social networking websites to do the same thing. With your help, we will reignite the torch of freedom in every community and every state.
Andy Wilson
Unity08 Volunteer Program Coordinator
awilson@Unity08.com
