Unity 08

There's an interesting movement afoot amongst a few moderate- and independent-minded politicos (most of whom haven't been all that influential for many, many years). The movement is called Unity 08, and their goals are pretty interesting. Basically, they are individuals who feel that the two major parties have moved away from chasing after voters in the middle, and instead are pandering far too much to their respective bases. As a result, they want to jolt the parties into being more responsive to the majority of the electorate. Their main purpose is to field a joint Dem-Rep (or vice-versa) ticket for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency in 2008, and to have that ticket receive at least 20% of the vote.

I'm very interested in this movement, and for a wide variety of reasons. If you've read the original posts to this blog, from back in 2004, you know that I am not a fan of the electoral college, and desperately want a tie so that the election goes to the House of Representatives, since I believe that such a result would provide the impetus necessary for the electoral college to be removed through a constitutional amendment. However, a tie is not the only way to achieve this result. If a strong third party were able to attract enough electoral votes to prevent any candidate from receiving a majority of the electoral votes, the top two finishers would meet in the House election. This is my main reason for supporting the Unity movement; I would love to see a third candidate win electoral votes and cause some chaos in the system.

Of course, this isn't an easy thing to do. Ross Perot won 19% of the popular vote in 1992, and won nary an electoral vote. The reason was quite simple; he had pretty much constant support throughout the United States. Without even a surge of regional appeal, he couldn't get a majority in any state, and so failed to make a dent in the electoral college. For the Unity movement to bring about the effects I want, they would have to win at least a few states.

But exactly how many states would they have to win to cause some chaos? The magic number in electoral college math is 270. In 2004, George Bush received 286 electoral votes. Removing 17 votes from his tally would bring about the result desired. Possible? Certainly. First off, if a large state like Ohio or Florida were to go for the third candidate, it would send the election to the House. But a more interesting question is what would happen if a moderate candidate with significant appeal were to run? Or, better yet, what if a particular such moderate were to run? Of course I'm talking about John McCain. And things could get very, very interesting if he were to headline the Unity ticket.

To begin, you can probably chock up Arizona in his column from the start, and that already gets you 10 of the 17 necessary votes. The easiest way to take 7 more away from Bush would be to get Nevada and New Mexico as well, and of course those states barely went for Bush in '04, and are in the geographic sway of Arizona. Is this far-fetched? Maybe, maybe not.

Regardless of whether McCain ends up as the Unity candidate, I'm fascinated by what could come from this movement and will be following it's activities over the next 3 years with a great deal of fascination.