Unity08 And The Celebrity Pitch

If you’re an upstart political movement hoping to draw attention to a fusion ticket and have trouble getting big name politicos to jump on board, what do you do? You can do what Unity08 has done and get celebrities to make the pitch.

Sam Waterston, the star of NBC’s Law and Order, has drafted a little note encouraging interest in the effort to elect a moderate ticket made of one Democrat and one Republican.

In the interest of full disclosure, I serve on the Rules Committee for Unity08. I offered to do so because I find this to be an interesting political experiment. Honestly, I’m not sure how relevant this is going to be now that we have a split government. I think moderation can be achieved in one of two ways. Unity08 was one of those, but the other is the tried and truth method of divided government.

Now that the Democrats have reclaimed the control of Congress, our government can go one of two directions – compromise and cooperation or total, chaotic gridlock. I hope for the former, but I suspect we’ll probably get the latter. Either may render the Unity effort mute moot (thanks to Divided We Stand United We Fall for cathing that one…).

If they’re able to get more celeb endorsements and encourage more people outside the political realm – but in the public sphere – to speak up, they may be able to get a lot of attention if Congress starts drifting toward inaction.

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