Unity08 - Can it make a difference?

Great Debates
1

Unity08 is a movement to elect one Democrat and one Republican (both) to the President/Vice-President of the United States. They contend that the current parties are pandering to their extremes and addressing only side-issues while important issues and things the majority of Americans agree upon are being ignored. They don’t take any hard stances on the issues but have classified several areas as crucial (terrorism, competition from inda & china, national healthcare, energy independence, education) and others as ancillary (gun control, gay marriage, abortion).

The questions I would like to see discussed are: Can this have an impact? Can it gain momentum in our current political/voting climate? Why/Why not? What would it take for something like this to succeed in changing they way things currently opperate?

2

Great, a one party system now…

3

If this group presents its case well enough that both the Pub and Dem front-runners feel obliged to make a pre-convention pledge to choose a running mate from the other party, it will work. Otherwise, not a chance. In sum, not a chance.

4

This idea is bad comedy.

5

Just the opposite of where we should be going. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269169

6

What’s the point? You’ve got one party that exists in the real world, but is afraid of its own shadow, and another that will never give an inch on anything, but exists in an alternate universe.

“Let’s take one of each” doesn’t solve anything. Either the GOP needs to be dragged into reality, or the Dems need a backbone infusion. You’re free to decide which is the less Herculean labor, but there’s no ‘unity’ to be had until at least one of those labors is accomplished.

7

I thought that they used to elect the winner as President and the 2nd place candidate as VP (which may have similar results) until they realized that two people who ran against each other wouldn’t work together very well. I think the Constitution was altered to get the system we now use.

I dislike this idea since it will effectively eliminate third parties completely. I doubt it would be put into use since a lot of people are so entrenched in the belief that they are right and “they” are wrong that they wouldn’t want any type of power sharing.

8

Unity? What good does it do to hold the Vice Presidency? Sure, in modern times the Vice President has some power. But this is all delegated power from the President. Constitutionally, the Vice President has only two powers, to break a tie in the Senate, and to assume the office of President when the President dies.

The Vice Presidency isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit.

If you want “unity” it might make more sense for one party to control the congress, another to control the presidency. Luckily, it looks like we’re heading that way in 2006.

9

On the one hand, I agree with the basic point brought up by this organization. The shouters seem to control both political parties, and they seem to be focused a lot on basically meaningless issues.

On the other hand, however, I regard their solution as being impractical. A fusion candidacy strikes me as having a chance equal to that of a snowball in hell. If either of the major parties is going to move to the center, it must come from the efforts of those within the parties to have any possible chance of working. Moreover, this group’s focus is on the Presidency, which strikes me as being impractical, rather than on the Congress and the various Governorships, where there is a better chance (especially involving the Governorships) of a move to the center.

Finally, it should be noted that their leadership is far from impressive.

10

It was changed because Jefferson (for President) and Burr (for Vice-President) recieved 73 votes each in the Electoral College in 1800. The lame-duck Federalists in the House of Representatives attempted to elect Burr as President. Burr, not surprisingly, did not disavow this attempt. After about 23 ballots, some of the more reasonable Federalists gave in, and Jefferson was elected.

Fascinating story, really, and a defining moment in U.S. history.

11

12th Amendment, 1804. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

12

Mmmm…what’s that I smell?

Is it…the slowly approaching popular support for a third party that will be fought tooth and nail by both parties?

13

Amen! I didn’t like it when the Dems controled both, and I’m liking it even less when the Republcans do.

14

I doubt it. Because there’s no third party movement on the horizon that would have anything like broad enough support to get its foot in. The Libertarians and the Greens have been around a while, and how many officials have they got elected? Remember the Reform Party? Where are they now?

15

I know. I doubt it too, but I hold onto hope that a third party could get forged as some sort of check on the main two.

Sorry. I’m too young to remember the Reform Party.

I did vote for Nader once, though.

16

The reason that elections are decided on fringe issues while the central ones get ignored, is actually rather interesting. I believe I read it in A Mathematicial Reads the Newspaper.

The thing is that there exist a great deal of very important centrist issues. However, people do not feel very strongly about them, and they will not base their choice of president on any particular one.

There also exist fringe issues about which most people might feel passionate about, but about which some may feel so passionately about that they become one-issue voters.

Lastly, you combine the above two with the fact that people do not ponder deeply enough their choice of president. Thus, what you would expect that the non-passionate issues would still in the end add up and compete on their true value doesn’t actually happen. If it did, then everything would make sense. Some things a few people care a lot about, others a lot of people care somewhat about. However, people do not think carefully enough to tally up those subtle issues properly.

What ends up happening is that it makes much more strategic sense to focus on the few fringe issues that matter a lot for some people, than to focus on the many centrist issues that matter for a large number.
Sigh, that’s why our democracy is messed up. At least, we have to give people a few days off, sit them into rooms, and force them to study things carefully before they vote. Of course this brings up many questions about who determines the reading material and how do you monitor whether people read it (ie who decides the quiz questions). One strategy is to have voting on that too, and to have voting on whether that previous round of voting was objective, and to have voting on the round of voting just mentioned, ad nauseum. It sounds impractical, but actually technology has just matured to take it into the realm of possibility. (And anyone, particularly with Flash experience, who wants to join me in the task of putting such a scheme together, is powerfully besseched to do so.)
But anyway, competition (though it sorely lacks now) is the most important thing in regard to nearly anything. Unity will only kill competition, create one-party rule, etc.

Second, who exactly determines which party gets the presidency and which gets the VP? Unity should really think about some other scheme, such as a multi-person panel, which will share the presidency itself. If it can figure this out well, it’ll actually have a lot of mass-appeal going for it. Of course, it is mass appeal that has brough America its McDonald’ses and other lowest-common-denominator monstrocities.

17

Er, I do not think I made my point clearly enough. The numerous non-extreme issues are underrepresented because people cannot properly weigh them all in their heads. The issues that are easy to think about, or rather the issues that are easy for some minority groups to use to decide who they’ll vote for predominate.

Er, maybe that’s not clear either. If 80% of the people will vote based on the issues of education, the economy, national security, and etc, but never actually take the time to analyze them well and, most importantly, to do a weighted average of the candidates relative each issue. While 20% will vote based on gay marriage or gun control or something and do not have to do this profoundly difficult juggling and weighing. Then only the 20% can actually be affected by campaign speeches or promises. The 80% will be too confused to be swayed by information.

I mean things are not black-and-white, but you can see how advocating a holistic multi-fronted plan for national reform is like spitting in the wind when the other guy has a clear message of “elect me and you’ll get this.” Even if only a minority of people would in principle say they actually care more about the “this” than all the things covered by the multi-faceted plan.

18

With the way the system is set up, I wouldn’t count on that happening in this lifetime.

19

Yet another very good point.

Here’s a thought: instead of just trying to draft some Republican and some Democrat, why couldn’t these Unity people come up with a platform first? This is the same problem that came up with the Kerry-McCain idea two years ago. Many people thought it sounded great because ‘it’ll cut across party lines and bring people together,’ yet the proposal completely ignored the fact that they differed strongly on a lot of issues. How would they have been expected to govern? How would this ‘Unity’ ticket govern? And with no organization at all, how do they think they’re just going to leap into a Presidential election and make a significant impact?

20

This idea would tremendously increase the chance of an assassination.