It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | Three Dates for Unity08 |
Three dates of relevance to Unity08:
Today: Unity08 has pledged to presidential candidate Kelcey Wilson to make petition forms available by today so that any citizen can begin collecting signatures to run as a presidential candidate through Unity08. At 4:40 pm EST, two forms are available: the petition for prospective candidacy and the prospective candidacy application.
But this is not sufficient. Gathering 100 signatures to become a “prospective candidate” is a relatively trivial task. The real work of any Unity08 presidential campaign is moving from “prospective candidate” status to the status of a “qualified candidate.” The qualification process for someone to become a full candidate for president through Unity08 is described in the Draft Rules:
While on the list of Prospective Candidates, Prospective Candidates and/or their Principal Supporters will be allowed to solicit support from Unity08 Delegates in order to qualify as Candidates for the Unity08 Presidential Nomination.
Prospective Candidates may qualify as Candidates for the Unity08 Presidential Nomination by having, in each of ten different states, 2,500 registered voters in each of those states (a total of 25,000 registered voters) electronically sign up on the Unity08 website to support the Prospective Candidate AND by having, in each of five different states, 500 registered voters in each of those states (a total of 2,500 registered voters) sign a “hard copy†petition to support the Prospective Candidate.
There is no form available through which the hard work of collecting 2,500 signatures in ten states can be completed, and there is no current location on the Unity08 website at which a “prospective candidate” can have 2,500 registered voters sign an indication of support. There is no indication by Unity08 of a time at which these will become available. Nine months and two weeks are left before the supposed Unity08 convention for a citizen to first gain prospective candidate status, and then to complete the candidate qualification process — and Unity08 has not made it possible for this process to be completed.
Kelcey Wilson despaired on August 19, 2007:
I have been trying for three months to get Unity08 to approve a petition form for candidates, which they have suspiciously neglected to do so far. Since I have sent them two sample forms to approve, it shouldn’t be difficult. They claim to want to clean up politics, but by dragging their feet on this, they pretty much seem to be telling us that they want to give the Unity08 nomination to an establishment politician who already has large enough organization to go out and collect huge numbers of signatures quickly, or one who is simply rich enough to hire enough signature collectors. If they don’t get on the ball with that with in the next couple of weeks, they are sure to start to get some increasingly negative press. This organization seems to be preparing to shoot itself in the foot. What’s going on with Unity08? What’s going on behind their closed doors?
Kelcey Wilson still has some reason for despair. Why won’t Unity08 make a full petition form for candidate qualification available now? When will the form be posted?
One Week From Today: California makes available its most recent data, which will show how many registered voters in the state belong officially to Unity08. According to Ballot Access News, by December 31 2007 California must show 88,991 officially registered members of Unity08 as a political party in order for Unity08 to gain ballot access for the 2008 presidential election. If Unity08 doesn’t qualify for the California ballot, the chances of any Unity08 presidential candidate winning the nation will become that much slimmer.
Any Day Now: Judge Richard W. Roberts of DC District Court received the last filing in Unity08’s lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission (for the right to receive loans and contributions of unlimited size) on May 25, 2007. That was nearly four months ago. When are we going to get a ruling from Judge Roberts? Only he knows, but it hasn’t happened yet.
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I love these Unity08 posts! Poor, poor Unity08. They had no idea there would be actual scrutiny of their work.
Comment by Bob S-K — 9/17/2007 @ 6:31 pm
“Kelcey Wilson still has some reason for despair. Why won’t Unity08 make a full petition form for candidate qualification available now? When will the form be posted?”
Hmm, the only thing I can think of is that maybe they don’t want to be pegged as a loony party if they don’t have any candidates that they believe most people will see as “credible” running this early on. But then again, there’s no such bar AFAIK to running for the DNC or RNC nomination, so it doesn’t really make sense. I’d figure the sooner they get the forms up the better, so people can make serious efforts at drafting candidates. They have to give the people the power to get stuff done!
Comment by Joseph — 9/18/2007 @ 4:24 pm
Update:
I just got off the horn with the California Secretary of State’s Office. According to them, they’ve received voter registration statistics, but they have yet to compile them and will not be posting those statistics until October 23, 2007. We’ll look for those stats then.
Comment by Jim — 9/26/2007 @ 2:20 pm