I must admit when I found out that Law & Order star and stud Sam Waterston was going on Your World with Neil Cavuto on Faux News, I kind of giggled that this reaffirmed my thoughts that the show is merely Entertainment Tonight with a business segment. I was wrong in this particular case. Waterston went on the show to use his celebrity to promote an organization that aims to help the country. This organization is Unity08.
It is a group of normal folk like you and me who want politicians in our country to actually focus on us and not special interests or corporate America. In fact, they want to nominate a bipartisan ticket in the 2008 Presidential Election. That's right. A presidential candidate that is of a different party from his running mate. Well, I guess that this is more than just bipartisan since Unity08 will eagerly accept a third party candidate who would join a Republican or Democrat in the race.
It is nice to know that I am not the only one fed up with both the Democrats and Republicans. In my view, both parties seem overly concerned about their own prospects that they seem to forget that they were elected to fret about issues that are facing the country.
Members of both parties also seem so focused on placating their own constituents at the expense of the rest of the country. Would I like one of my senators or representative to draft or modify a bill so that the federal government either allocates a heap of money to my area or spends it in a way that economic benefits my area, but with congressional earmarks as they currently are, things have gone awry. Who needs a bridge to nowhere in Alaska?
Politicians also infuriate me as the only time that they actually halt pandering to their ideological base is when they must adopt politically viable stances. If Hillary Clinton has to moderate herself while John McCain has to make nice with conservative Christians, what indicates that they won't revert to their partisan selves once they gain power?
Either way, while I doubt that the "Unity Ticket" has a great chance of succeeding in 2008, I feel it is still important to support it since supporting the contemporary party system worsens our plight. How's that for optimism?
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Comments: 7
"finger in the wind" and "'folks like you and me,' you can be assured there is an agenda..."
And I thought that I was cynical...
I agree with you when you say, "how little difference there really is between the two parties compared to the political choices that exist in other countries." I'll admit that there are differences between the Republicans and Democrats, but our winner-takes-all electoral system forces the two movements to come together. I think that the immigration issue shows a significant schism among Republicans while the growing power of Blue Dog Democrats in Congress show that both parties have vying factions.
Conflict is a given, where freedom reigns. Such misguided notions as "unity" miss the point, and are ultimately doomed to fail.