Unity08, while not completely folding up, is scaling way way down. For all intents and purposes, they’ve finished. Sometimes, a great idea just isn’t enough:
The past year has taught us that it’s tough to rally millions for a process without a candidate or an issue. In the past, third party movements that have broken through the monopoly of the established parties have always been based on a person (Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 or Ross Perot in the last decade) or a burning issue (slavery in the case of the insurgent Republican party in 1860). Motivating people to fix a broken system that drives candidates to the extremes by creating something more inclusive and sensible has proven to be a lot harder than we expected.
My emphasis. Unfortunately, for those of us who strive for civil discussion, who believe the “warring” factions have more in common than not, this isn’t exactly news.
But all isn’t hopeless, either. I stopped participating in Unity08 last spring, not long after Barack Obama announced. There was no way the Unity08 movement was going to gain traction against somebody who, as Unity’s letter states, “has made the theme of unity and the necessity of bridging the partisan divide an absolutely central theme of his campaign.” And on the GOP side, I think that John McCain has also demonstrated, time and again, his willingness to work with, instead of against.
And while civility isn’t nearly enough, it’s more than there was a year ago.
Guess it’s time to pull down my Unity08 banner from the sidebar, eh?