so i know i've been a pretty poor blogger over the last month. and, to be completely honest, i haven't really written anything of substance in the last six months. could it be that my creative drive is waning? or am i preoccupied with school, work, and a host of other responsibilities that i am becoming one of those bloggers i berate for not being faithful to their readership? alas, it is the latter. but i am setting out to redeem myself. and this, being the first day of FEBRUARY, and not january, means that the resolution might just stick.

so i always do a recap of the state of the union; my likes, dislikes and opinions on what i think will and will not work with this administration or with the voting public. so, as usual, i was scanning newspapers and magazine articles last week for some key blogging fodder when i came across this article in The Atlantic titled Surprise Party. I had assumed much was lost until this article renewed my hope in the state of affairs come 2008.

Three political strategists who were involved in the presidencies of Ford and Carter have proposed the idea of creating a third political party. The origin of creating a third party was based upon the fact that both republicans and democrats alike seem to have polarized their agenda to those issues on the far right or far left, respectively. The advent of a new party would be to bring the issues back to the middle and there would be one mandatory contingent: the ticket itself would have to be bipartisan--one democrat and one republican.

In the last four years, the internet has revolutionized the political sphere. In just the last two years YouTube has afforded anyone the ability to view anything at any time, anywhere. So this political party is operating on the Internet. The purpose of this is so the members can set the party's platform as opposed to interest groups, who usually handle that task for the two major parties.

What has propelled the principles of the Unity08 party is the vision of the greater good. Maybe we can get politicians to address the issues that need addressing such as global poverty, the cost of healthcare, and our involvement in Iraq. The thing is, if you sign up and become a delegate of the party, you will be setting the agenda. You will be able to post questions that will be reviewed by an internet rules committee, and those questions will be addressed by the candidates on Unity08's website. The candidates will then post a video answer.

Can't you see the possibility? If this takes off, then the media will be all over Americans setting the agenda, and those very same questions will be posed to the candidates of the two major parties! It's brilliant!

The creators of Unity08 feel that it's a one shot deal. Most likely this party will jolt members of both the republican and democrat parties to realize that they need to return to the "forgotten middle" where the majority of America lies. Even if this party doesn't win, the mere creation of it could propel polticians to realize just how far out they've gone. A recent study showed that 82% of Americans agree that the country is too polarized to make any progress solving problems and three-quarters wanted more choice than just Democratic or Republican.

So... do you want to be involved in changing the conversation?

You can sign up here.

posted by Kelly @ 1:21:00 PM