What’s the most interesting (maybe) development in Campaign08? It might be the development of an Internet-based political party founded by three former inside-the-beltway activists taking a last run at running a campaign they can be proud of. They call themselves “Unity08,” and they identify as a third, “centrist” party, aiming to recapture the middle and give the increasingly extreme-base-oriented major parties a one-time kick in the pants toward governing the country for the greater good of all, rather than just major payoffs and other perks for their allies.

They’ve been in the blogosphere since their launch last month and in newspapers and magazines, most notably
The Atlantic Monthly‘s January-February issue , in an article by Joshua Green, a senior editor of The Atlantic. They plan to have their primary online: no smoke-filled back rooms, no picking off candidates after Iowa and NH because of money – or lack thereof.

“They” are Doug Bailey, a former operative for the late Gerald Ford; Jerry Rafshoon, who worked on electing Jimmy Carter, the Peanut President (and nuclear Navy veteran) and best ex-president we’ve probably ever had; and Hamilton Jordan, the other half of Carter’s 1976 election brain trust.

More after the jump.

Here’s the scenario:

To guarantee that it would [represent the center] , they decided that the ticket itself would be bipartisan: one Democrat and one Republican. And if independents with bipartisan tendencies were interested, they’d be welcome, too.

It would take advantage of the “new” transformative or disruptive (depending on your perspective) campaign medium of the Internet by operating primarily online.

That way everyone could join the party online and participate as a delegate, helping to build the party’s platform collectively rather than ceding that task to interest groups, as both major parties tend to do. [emphasis added]

Does this sound familiar to anyone (way to go, Odum! Vermont leads again!)?

In addition, they plan to hold an online convention just after the major party conventions, banking on two facts: the majority of voters will be dissatisfied with the party’s brokered choices; and disappointed candidates might consider a third-party run. But here’s the catch:

Once the balloting has winnowed the field to four, each of the remaining candidates will have to choose a running mate from the opposite party: Democrats must choose Republicans they can work with, and vice versa. Independents can choose someone from either party, but in the spirit of unity, they must also name a senior Cabinet officer from the remaining major party-for instance, a Democratic running mate and a Republican secretary of state.

Unity08 hopes to be qualified on ballots in 25 states by June this year. Another couple of points of interest:

Any registered voter can be a delegate, and can join without having to give up a prior political affiliation. At the same time, the new party’s leaders will begin the process of qualifying Unity08 on all fifty ballots for the 2008 presidential election.

And:

… an important intention of the new party will be to wrest control of the agenda from the candidates and turn it over to the delegates, who will collectively hash out an “American Agenda”-a party platform that Bailey says will be a list not of answers but of questions. … the media will seize on these same questions and put them to all candidates-thereby injecting the American Agenda into the national debate.

Will it work? Who knows? But it’s an interesting proposition.

There’s one choker about the Atlantic’s article, though, and it comes midway through the next-to-last paragraph:

Centrists in both parties, from Joe Lieberman to Chuck Hagel, are known to harbor presidential ambitions that have little chance of being fulfilled along current paths.

Lieberman a “centrist?!” As Jumpin Joe himself might say, “Oy vey!”

NanuqFC

Rep. Peter Welch: It’s easy to see the minefield Welch is in, simply by looking at the latest Danziger cartoon in yesterday’s Times Argus/Rutland Herald (check the “Rainville ’08” alongside the signature). Welch made the Iraq War the centerpiece of his campaign. After his campaign at Democratic gatherings, he forcefully and passionately continued the theme. Now that proposals for ending the war are coming almost daily, the term “non-binding resolution” has already become farcical, not simply among the activist left, but within the US Congress itself. Welch currently looks like he’s standing still, signing onto non-binding bills that seemed like yesterday’s news before the ink was dry. While his ideas on Global Warming are important, it is clear that – due to his own campaign strategy – his stance on the War will be the issue that defines his first term, both among his supporters and his Republican opponents. It may seem unfair to Team Welch that things are moving so quickly, but them’s the breaks – and again, Welch brought them on himself. Add to that the fact that Senator Leahy – someone with far more authority to speak on what is and isn’t proper and possible in Washington – is now on the leading edge of the issue through the Feingold-Boxer-Leahy bill, I suspect Welch has until the end of the month to join him on that edge and match his own campaign rhetoric. Any longer than that and – even if he does come around to the Leahy position – he will be tagged as having done it grudgingly and only under public duress (in other words, the “phony” label) Done.

The Governor: Letting himself pop at reporters last week was a big mistake. As I’ve argued, I don’t think it wasn’t truly uncharacteristic in quality (he’s always gotten nasty), but unexpected in quantity (insofar as he doesn’t lose it to such a degree). The dude needs to watch himself. This is not the same Vermont press corps anymore. The rapid turnovers are changing the nature of reporting and whatever institutional buddiness exists between the fourth estate and the administration. Gone are Chris Graff and Darren Allen, for example – and the Governor is likely to find himself held to far higher scrutiny before the likes of Porter and Hallenbeck.

His tirade of last week was akin to a bucket of cold water splashed onto the whole crowd – even those that are the relative veterans at this point, such as Ross Sneyd. Continuing into the session, and then on into the electoral cycle, he may find himself less able to take the positive press and spin he is so used to for granted anymore.

Vermont’s Legislative Democrats: There’s a disturbing narrative squeezing out around the edges of the burgeoning property tax debate. It smells ever so sightly like Dems, already seeming frustrated about the topic (due to the fact that they’ve all but left it to the Republicans ever since “Revolt & Repeal” started many months back) are starting to suggest that it isn’t a significant issue (I’m thinking of a recent newspaper report that highlighted Sen. MacDonald of Orange County’s presenting of a comparitive list of household expense increases in recent years, showing the property tax has increased far more slowly that other items such as gas prices…. but I cant find a link anywhere…any ideas?). Certainly I’m sympathetic to the feeling that the character and extent of the problem is getting politically defined – but again, that’s because when Vermont Dems don’t have a clean answer to a policy problem, they often cover their eyes in the hopes it will go away until forced to address it. Taking control of the rhetoric after ceding it will take a sustained, coordinated message strategy, starting as they are in the hole.

Unfortunately, there are signs that many don’t want to wait that long. We’re starting to hear a “What Crisis?” rhetoric from legislators, that is coming from Paul Cillo’s Public Assets Institute. Cillo correctly notes that education taxation, as a percentage of income in Vermont, has actaully been dropping. This is technically true, although the way we pay our taxes (getting a big income-sensitive check from the state) doesn’t make it feel that way.

But the fact is that there is an affordability issue in the nation (the rhetoric of which, the Dems have also ceded to the Republicans). The recent yearly increases in local school budgets don’t reflect a gradual, incremental creep that may go unnoticed, but rather a high-profile, annual bitter pill that intentionally draw intensive public scrutiny. The public doesn’t feel much power over gas prices, but they certainly expect to have power over school boards – and when they exert that power, they bring all the frustrations of their dwindling solvency with them. This is the nature of the beast, and Democrats and Republicans alike will always have to deal with it thoughtfully and proactively.

Against that backdrop, it would be hard to imagine a more disastrous, inappropriate and uncompassionate response to this debate (and aren’t the Dems supposed to be the compassionate ones?) than essentially saying “shut up and stop your whining, property taxes are no big deal, what’s your problem?”

It also makes those saying it seem hopelessly out of touch. When thousands of Vermonters are saying there’s a problem (especially those in my own tax bracket – and yes, I’ll attest there is a problem), and you think that telling them “no, you’re just not smart enough to see there’s no problem at all” is going to win friends and influence people, you might want to ask yourself if electoral politics is really your gig. This is a very dangerous minefield for Democrats right now, and Leadership would be well advised to pay very close attention to how their caucuses are responding to the very real frustration in play.

This could be the biggest lurking landmine of all, and the Republicans know all too well how to press Democrats’ buttons in these sort of arguments that they want so desperately to avoid. Navigating it will take time, and a process of public education combined with public empowerment that is methodical, and cautiously avoids ever sounding like a lecture.

This is why, in the end, Douglas will not adhere to the agreement that the Legislature and Douglas avoid criticizing each others’ ideas on the matter – because the fact is, it’s the Democrats who are most at risk. He’ll just wait until the worst possible moment…

Some of the older lefties who read this may also have their musical roots in the big folk music scare of the 1960’s. If you’re like me, you were probably sad to hear about the death of Rick von Schmidt.

I’ve never been a prosecutor, and it’s a job I wouldn’t want to do, but I’ve been interested over the years in what prosecutors do when faced with political protests. More than twenty years ago activists took over Senator Stafford’s office in Winooski for a weekend to protest U.S. policy in Central America. When they were finally arrested they were charged with unlawful trespass. The case dragged on for over a year, the protesters went to trial before Judge Mahady, and the trial of the Winooski 44 became a show piece for the activists to demonstrate the crimes of the Reagan Administration in Central America.

In other cases where protesters block traffic or cause public inconvenience, police use their arrest powers to clear the area and remove the protesters, then, instead of prosecuting them and giving them an outlet for their beliefs, the chartes are quietly dropped. I think this is really the smartest way for a prosecutor to handle most of these cases.

That’s what’s happening now in Bennington. Rose Marie Jackowski was prosecuted, convicted, and got her conviction reversed in the Supreme Court and remanded to the Bennington District Court. The prosecutor was faced with having to retry a woman who has become a hero to antiwar activists all over the state. In this case, though, there is a new prosecutor who isn’t married to the case, and she made the smart decision to drop the charges.A grandmother whose conviction for standing in the road to protest the war in Iraq was overturned by the Vermont Supreme Court last year won’t be tried again, newly-sworn-in Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage has decided.

Go, Rose Marie!