Earlier this week, before the Iowa Caucuses, Unity08 bozos, former-now-irrelevant Senators David Boren and Sam Nunn made noises threatening to launch a third-party run, “if we don’t see a refocusing of the [Republican and Democratic] campaigns on a bipartisan approach.”

First, let me say this, FUCK YOU!!

Second, let me say this, FUCK YOU AGAIN!!

I’ve written about Unity08 before:

Personally, I think Unity08 is a crock. Electing an “independent” President without a supporting party is folly at its best, a disingenuous play to steer the election toward the Republicans at its worst.

And:

I always suspected Unity08 was a Rovian mind trick to split the centrist/independents off from voting against the Republicans next year, this pretty much confirms it.

Jolly Roger followed up with this post.

Unity ‘08. The “People’s” Movement

And if you buy that one, you probably also believe that the DPRK is really “Democratic” and the “People’s.”

Following up on the excellent ascap_scab post, we now learn much more about the organization from the Irregular Times. They have excellent linking to back up what they are asserting here, and their research has been real good.

Unity08 Watch has a good write-up on just who these elitist bozos, who are whining, stomping their feet, and threatening to hold their breath until America elects their President, are. Getting back to this week’s noise…

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans, who will join him in challenging the major-party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a “government of national unity” to end the gridlock in Washington.

[Former Oklahoma Senator David] Boren, who will host the meeting at the university, where he is president, said: “It is not a gathering to urge any one person to run for president or to say there necessarily ought to be an independent option. But if we don’t see a refocusing of the campaign on a bipartisan approach, I would feel I would want to encourage an independent candidacy.”

Bloomberg, a former Democrat who was elected mayor of New York as a Republican, left the GOP this past summer to become an independent. While disclaiming any plan to run for president in 2008, he has continued to fuel speculation by traveling widely and speaking out on both domestic and international issues. The mayor, a billionaire many times over, presumably could self-finance even a late-starting candidacy.

“As mayor, he has seen far too often how hyperpartisanship in Washington has gotten in the way of making progress on a host of issues,” said Bloomberg’s press secretary, Stu Loeser. “He looks forward to sitting down and discussing this with other leaders.”

Until plans for this meeting were disclosed, the most concrete public move toward any kind of independent candidacy was by Unity08, a group planning an online nominating convention to pick either an independent candidate or a ticket combining a Republican and a Democrat.

Boren said the meeting is being announced in advance of Thursday’s Iowa caucuses “because we don’t want anyone to think this was a response to any particular candidate or candidates.” He said the nation needs a “government of national unity” to overcome its partisan divisions in a time of national challenge he likened to that faced by Great Britain during World War II.

“Electing a president based solely on the platform or promises of one party is not adequate for this time,” Boren said. “Until you end the polarization and have bipartisanship, nothing else matters, because one party simply will block the other from acting.”

[Former Missouri Senator John] Danforth said he remains a Republican but finds little cause for optimism among the current GOP candidates. Danforth has also written critically about the impact of religious conservatives on the Republican Party.

and…

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg may simply be promoting bipartisanship or he may be plotting his own independent presidential campaign.

Either way, he is drawing media attention amid the hotly contested party nominating battles for Iowa and New Hampshire by becoming the star attraction at a January 7 meeting of Unity08, a bipartisan group that believes the Republican and Democratic parties are out of touch and unduly influenced by special interests.

The longtime Democrat became a billionaire through the successful financial information and media company he founded, Bloomberg LP.

He then turned to politics, switching to the Republican Party to run for mayor in 2001. He won twice, spending more than $150 million of his own money, then turned independent in June.

If he runs, political analysts say Bloomberg could mount the strongest independent presidential campaign since Texas businessman Ross Perot in 1992.

But one leading political analyst doubted Bloomberg will run because he in all likelihood cannot win, noting there is no precedent for a successful independent campaign and suggesting Bloomberg might simply siphon enough votes from the Democrats to hand the election to the Republican nominee.

So let’s get to the debunking. It should be clear by now why “Unity08″ is doing this. They can’t stand the current crop of posers and bible-thumpers (genuine bible-thumpers like Huckabee as opposed to the fake ones like Dubya) that have taken over their beloved Gee-Oh-Pee. And they can’t trust the economic class populism represented by Edwards, and mimicked by Obama and Clinton, that might end their corporate greed gravy train. David Sirota touches on the Edwards message in this post.

Putting aside my nausea, let me just say that no matter who wins, it is absolutely great that economic populism has taken center stage so far in the presidential contest. Thanks to candidates like John Edwards and Mike Huckabee ignoring the Punditburo’s attacks and trumpeting the populist line, Wall Street-backed candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had to resort to posing as populists as well – and that’s a good thing. The more candidates channeling the public’s righteous anger at corporate greed and economic inequality, the better.

Huckabee and Edwards are the only two major candidates staking their campaigns on an indictment of economic inequality, corporate power and corruption. As the latest Democracy Corps poll shows, these are the very societal ills angering a middle class whose real-life struggles with stagnant wages, layoffs, debt, foreclosures and health care costs chafe against a pop culture and political system that glorify fabulous affluence. The country, in short, seems ready to embrace Huey Long’s “Share Our Wealth” ethos, and these two southerners are resurrecting the best of the famed Louisiana governor’s legacy.

That explains the Unity08 group of corporatists, but why would Bloomberg get in bed with these losers?? Glenn Greenwald seems to think it is ego, I’m not so sure. After a lengthy series of Bloomberg actions and positions demonstrating that he is, in truth, a Bush clone, Greenwald writes:

Bloomberg is basically just Rudy Giuliani with a billion or two dollars to spend to alter the election. When it comes to foreign policy, war-making and government power, he offers absolutely nothing that isn’t found in destructive abundance among the most extremist precincts in the Republican Party, while his moderate to liberal stance on social issues would prevent him from actually winning the support of his natural GOP base.

In fact — despite his steadfast neoconservatism — it’s hard to see how the candidacy of a divorced, unmarried, stridently pro-gun-control, pro-choice, socially liberal New York City billionaire would accomplish anything other than offering the Republicans their best hope of winning in 2008. All of this seems to be intended as punishment meted out by the Establishment to the Democrats — using Bloomberg’s billions as the weapon — for not repudiating their loudmouth, restless liberal base strongly enough. That, more than anything, seems to be the oh-so-noble and trans-partisan purpose of David Broder, David Boren and Sam Nunn: to find a way to stifle the populist anger at our political establishment after 8 years of unrestrained Bush-Cheney devastation, increasingly represented (on the Democratic side) by the Scary, Angry, Intemperate John Edwards campaign.

A Bloomberg candidacy would have no purpose other than satisfy his bottomless personal lust for attention and bestow the wise old men threatening the country with his candidacy with some fleeting sense of rejuvenated relevance and wisdom. His political views are conventional in every way and he’s little more than an establishment-enabling figurehead. The whole attraction to his candidacy has nothing to do with any issues or substance and everything to do with an empty addiction to vapid notions of Establishment harmony and a desire to exert control, whereby our Seriousness guardians devote themselves to a candidate for reasons largely unrelated to his policies or political views, thus proving themselves, as usual, to be the exact antithesis of actual seriousness.

Now here is the thing, unlike Giuliani, Bloomberg is a very smart guy and I really don’t think his ego is at the heart of his flirting with a presidential run. Instead, I think, Bloomberg is looking at this as a ‘business opportunity’. You’re saying, Huh?? Look, blowing $150 million to buy the “Mayor of New York” title may have been stroking his ego. For Bloomberg, that’s chump change. But when it comes to bankrolling up to a $BILLION on a “Presidential” campaign, the businessman takes over. He must see something of value at the end of the line to cast such a huge roll of the dice on, at best, a long-shot. I’ll have more on that later.

The truth is this. Unlike the populism of Ross Perot (Perot was a leader in trying to get POWs released from Vietnam when the American government wanted to sweep them under the rug and forget about them, and Perot had sent mercenaries to successfully free his employee/hostages held in Iran when the State department said they could do nothing), there is no groundswell of grassroot support for a Bloomberg/third-party candidate this year. Bloomberg would have to support the entire campaign out of his own pocket.

But what makes this gamble more interesting is that Bloomberg said on National TV that he is not interested in running for President. That’s okay, neither is Fred Thompson.

Seacrest, who more often finds himself in a tete-a-tete with Simon Cowell rather than the leader of Gotham, began the inquiry by commenting to Bloomberg’s daughters, “I want your dad to answer this honestly. Will you run for president?”

Without hesitation, Bloomberg responded, “No, I will not run for president, but I will speak out to try to get people to really focus on the issues and to get rid of partisanship and special interests.”

While many were quick to say Bloomberg’s denial meant nothing, I’m not that sure. So then, would Bloomberg finance a Chuck Hagel campaign?? Maybe. But Hagel would have to win and would have to do it for $200 to $300 million. Simply throwing the election to Huckabee might not be good enough for the corporatists as he can’t be trusted to “do the wrong thing”. A Hagel run with Bloomberg money would be a sure thing against Huckabee, who is hated by the GOP cleptocracy. And if Hillary is the Dem, the gamble might pay off, but against Obama or against Edwards, the gamble is far from a sure thing.

So let’s get back to the pay-off. What would Bloomberg win by bankrolling such a gamble?? Information. That is Bloomberg’s business. Bloomberg would see that the warrantless wiretapping, established under BushCo, would continue under contract to Bloomberg L.P. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to consider the power that could yield. The ultimate payoff could be worth over a $Trillion!! Is that worth a $300 million gamble?? Perhaps. The Unity08 corporatists would happily hand over that power so long as they can continue looting the country and the world for another few years!!

This election really is no longer about Republican vs. Democrat, no longer about left vs. right, it is about people vs. corporations. That is why this Unity08 charade is so cynical.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 3:48 am and is filed under Election '08, Spineless Enablers of the Monkey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.