Unity08

Political organization

Unity08 was an American political reform movement that sought to offer all voters an opportunity to directly engage in politics by ranking the most crucial issues facing the country, discussing them with the candidates and engaging in an online, secure vote to nominate a bipartisan alternative to the Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential tickets for the 2008 U. S. presidential election. Founded in 2006, the group gained attention from various media outlets, with Newsweek's Jonathan Alter dubbing the group's efforts a kind of open source politics. In January 2008, Unity08 organizers announced that the group had suspended operations due to funding problems. Americans Elect 2012 is an organization that was formed by many of the individuals that were responsible for Unity 08, and had substantially identical goals for the 2012 presidential election cycle. Americans Elect also failed to nominate a candidate.

The political reform movement was founded as a non profit organization by several political figures: Democrats Hamilton Jordan, Gerald Rafshoon, and Republican consultants Doug Bailey and Jim Jonas and the former two term independent Maine Governor Angus King. The group's status as a non profit organization came into question when they asked the Federal Election Commission whether the group could defer registering as a political action committee until after its candidates for the 2008 presidential election are named. A draft released by the commission in July 2006 concluded that "Unity08 must register as a policy committee and therefore is subject to the reporting requirements and limitations and prohibitions." In October 2006, the commission voted on the matter and declared that the group must register as a political action committee. However, the decision was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On March 2, 2010, the appeals court reversed the lower court and allowed Unity08 (or any entity like it) to operate without having to register with the FEC. Unity08’s spokesperson was actor Sam Waterston. Waterston discussed the organization on programs such as The O'Reilly Factor and Hardball with Chris Matthews. On June 28, 2007, Doug Bailey, the co founder of Unity08, appeared on Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report and spoke about the organization. Shortly after announcing a poll to the "Colbert Nation" about whether Colbert should run for president, the web site servers crashed due to the overwhelming traffic.

In January 2008, Bailey and Rafshoon announced that they were leaving the organization and were planning to launch a national effort to draft New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for president. Shortly thereafter, representatives for Unity08 announced that the organization was scaling back operations and suspending activities, citing lack of adequate funding and disputes with the Federal Election Commission. Unity08 was unable to resume operations prior to the 2008 presidential election.

Prior to the organization's suspension of activities, Unity08's web site was a community for members to communicate and participate via blogs, forums, and polls. The movement also had a presence on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Unity08 had leveraged the online event tools of Meetup. com and Eventful for members to organize local gatherings. However, Unity08 was also characterized, by critics, as an example of astroturfing.

Campaign watchdog groups such as The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 criticized the group's initial classification as a non profit organization, "because Unity08 makes clear that its principal purpose is to influence the 2008 presidential election". Liberal bloggers also expressed frustration with Unity08 because they contend that the group promoted "establishment" centrist or center right politicians in the molds of Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg while at the same time doing little to promote the progressive values it would seemingly represent. Chris Bowers of the political blog MyDD called the group's supporters "rich, center right, 'non partisan' donors who trash progressives and never criticize conservatives in power," and claimed that the movement has no grassroots support. Other bloggers also criticized the heavy representation of lobbyists among the organization's officers.