[Grovenet] Another Choice

Thu Feb 1 10:58:23 PST 2007

I would never assume that Sam Waterson was a "neutral face"? How can one
endorse any political agenda and be a neutral face?

Katie wrote, "...he is also a shill for those who have strong ties to the
corrupting influence of rampant corporatism." 

What are you referring to, his TV commercials? He's a paid spokesperson for
some companies. "Rampant" corporatism is bad, just as bad as "rampant"
liberalism. Rampant is just another word for "extremist" and I agree, it has
a corrosive, even corrupting influence. 

I would be skeptical of the Unity '08 approach as well if I considered it
necessary to put their candidate in the White House in order to be
successful. I don't. I think I can understand genesis of their goal of
nominating people from both major parties. We've seen independents fall flat
on their face, even when they had the cash to run a competitive campaign.
Remember Ross Perot? I think one of the biggest problems is that Americans
want professional politicians in office. Look at poor Senator Obama ("He
can't be a Presidential candidate! He's only been elected to the Senate
once!!"). So this group seems to be trying to draw established and
disaffected candidates from both parties who feel they can't be heard inside
the narrow confines of the "Red" and "Blue" designations. 

I applaud that. From that standpoint I think they've already "won" and won
big, but winning is much more than that.

To me, getting your candidate elected doesn't mean the party won. Indeed,
getting their candidate elected gives that party the power to lose, and lose
big! Look at the Republican party over the past two Presidential terms! Lots
of losing going on because the guy they got elected wasn't able to do the
job. No, I'm not talking about winning a war in Iraq, I'm talking about
motivating people and following through with that motivation that puts the
American people in a stronger, more positive position than before. 

It's easy to drum up an angry mob when people are frightened. That's exactly
what happened after 9/11. It took no "leadership" to cause people to lust
after revenge (we like to call it "justice")to the point of supporting a
war, especially when the President put his reputation on the line saying
we'd find that Saddam had hidden WMD ready for use against Americans. 

Whether the President realized it or not, angry mobs have a short attention
span, and America's attention to the war has faded with whatever became of
those supposed WMD. And who got us into this mess? This President and the
people who supported him. 

President Bush may have secured the White House for two terms, but I doubt
if he, or the Republican leadership, feels like they "won" anything. Indeed,
I think they lost as big as anyone has ever lost who aspired to the
Presidency. They lost so big because, by securing the White House, they
exposed their failures to the entire nation, and made the entire nation
suffer in those failures along with them. 

The Republican party is struggling mightily just to retain a decent position
in the Congress. They know they are far, far behind in the race to select
the next President. That's the position a loser finds himself in; it is not
the position of a "winner".

In their goal statements Unity 08 defines winning as, "...to effect major
change and reform in the 2008 national elections by influencing the major
parties to adopt the core features of our national agenda. With a group of
voters who comprise at least 20% of the national electorate, we feel
confident that our voters will decide the 2008 election." 

I think they have a good chance to do that. There are two groups of voters
on election day: those who have ignored the campaign and the issues because
they vote a party line regardless, and those who have thought about their
vote, considered the campaign and who chose the candidate to vote for based
on their impressions and feelings about the campaign. Attempting to do
something about the first group whose minds are made up is pointless in the
campaign. That group is affected by their experiences over time. President
Bush has seriously reduced the number of people in that group who would have
voted Republican in the next election. That's why he has produced what I
call a huge loss for the Republican party during his presidency. But those
diehard voters don't listen to campaigns. The second group was swelled in
size by the President Bush's mistakes. There is a "bumper crop" of people
willing to listen to a campaign. 

If the Democrats are smart, they'll focus on those people. Unity '08 is
doing that too, saying, "Look! There's another choice". 

I applaud that! It makes them a winner just being there. 

Ron D'Eau Claire  

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of allnutt
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 8:58 AM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Another Choice

Interesting concept. And one that holds a lot of promise in the concept.
Though I have to question whether Sam Waterson is truly a neutral face to 
get the message across.  While his character on TV is very straight arrow 
and usually sides with 'the right' choice in TV land (perhaps 'the correct' 
choice would be a better way to phrase it) he is also  a shill for those who

have strong ties to the corrupting influence of rampant corporatism. I
sympathize with the movement because if they wanted a truly neutral spokes 
person they would have to pick somebody that was an unknown.  And by doing 
so they would not have the advantage of a recognizable spokesperson that 
would get people to stop and listen long enough to hear the message. Overall
I think it is a good goal to have politics move more toward the 
middle but it is too simplistic to think that the way to do that is to have 
one R and one D on the ticket to accomplish it.  I also think it is too 
simplistic to think that it will happen in a year, even if they use the 
power of the internet to attempt it. When it happens on that short of a time

frame it is more of a fad than a movement.
But I'm not trying to poo poo the idea of change itself.  I'm just a little 
skeptical that this is the answer.

Katie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <rondec at easystreet.com>
To: "'Forest Grove local interests list'" <grovenet at rdrop.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 3:40 PM
Subject: [Grovenet] Another Choice

> And so it happens again, a movement for more choice than the same old 
> Red and Blue 'polarizers' is building for the '08 elections:
>
> http://www.unity08.com/believe
>
> They're collecting some well known faces to back them. One is Sam
> Waterson:
>
> http://www.unity08.com/buzzworthy/sam_team
>
> Ron D'Eau Claire
>
> _______________________________________________
> GroveNet mailing list
> GroveNet at rdrop.com http://www.rdrop.com/mailman/listinfo/grovenet
> 

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