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Doug Bailey

Doug Bailey is a co-founder of Unity08, a nonprofit 527 organization that’s trying to create an alternate 2008 presidential ticket “headed by a woman and/or man from each major party, or by an independent who presents a Unity Team from both parties.” Bailey is the founder of The Hotline, a political newsletter operated by National Journal, and a former Republican media consultant whose clients included President Gerald Ford, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. Operating as Bailey, Deardourff and Associates, he and the late John Deardourff were among the first national political consultants.

James Doyle interviewed Bailey on March 16, 2007.

We have your résumé here.

Uh-oh, I’m in trouble now.

What do you expect to be doing in 2008 or, really, are doing already for 2008?

Well, what’s interesting is that Jerry Rafshoon did the media in the Carter campaign back in 1976 when John Deardourff and I were doing the media in the Ford campaign. And just as the two presidents got to become close friends, Jerry Rafshoon and I have gotten, through the years, to become close friends. And after the 2004 race, we started to write a book about the history of television and politics, realizing that we were really moving on now, in full-blown form, to the newer technologies. And that maybe there was a point where writing the history of television politics from the early days of the ’60s, even a little bit back to the ’50s and Eisenhower, seemed to us to make some sense.

Well, we got into that enough to do a lot of research and realized that politics had changed so dramatically, and that the nature of the politics that we were used to when we were doing campaigns is so different from the politics of this day and age, not just in terms of the campaigns, but the way political business is conducted in Washington. And many of those changes had been so detrimental to both the political process and the decision-making process that we had decided that we wanted to ask ourselves the question that very few people, maybe only Brian Lamb [of C-SPAN], really asked about the television technology. Is there a way that this technology can be used to help our democracy? Everybody in politics asks the question, “How can we use television to win?” Or others would ask, “How can we use it to make money?” or “How can we use it to sell issues and so forth?” But very few people, virtually no one asked, “How can we use the technology to improve our democracy?”

And it occurred to Jerry Rafshoon and me that, at a time of real trouble for the country, maybe we ought to be asking the question, “How can the new technology be used to help our democracy?” We know that there are going to be some downsides to the new technology. Are there upsides to the new technology? And out of that, and a serious concern about the fact that our politics have become so partisan that the train has sort of left the tracks here, came a decision to start a movement that would enable the people to pick a third candidate, or a third ticket, called a unity ticket: one Republican, one Democrat, in whatever order, for president and vice president in 2008. Have the people choose that ticket via an online convention — the first virtual convention, if you will, in American politics, with every registered voter in America qualified to sign up to be a delegate at that online convention. Hold that convention in June of 2008, attract the best candidates to run, encourage the people to draft others to run for that nomination. Put the ticket on the ballot in all 50 states and elect that ticket to the White House in November of 2008.

Are those audacious goals? Well, of course. Of course they are. Are they bold? Yes. But is this a normal year? No, it’s not. It’s probably as important an election, in not just in our lifetime, but in our children’s lifetime, [as we’ve ever had]. This is a moment of truth for the country. And we have felt that there needed to be an opportunity — this is probably more dramatic than it needs to be said — but there needs to be an opportunity for the people to take their country back. Back from the handlers. Back from the bundlers. Back from the swindlers. Back from the lobbyists. Back from the politicians. Back from the parties. Because none of those folks, in recent years, have, I think, served the country very well. And there needs to be a course correction, and Unity08 is intended to be it.

At the funeral of your late partner, John Deardourff, [in 2004,] you gave a eulogy to him that summed up your feelings about what had happened to the process from the time Bailey, Deardourff started to now. And it was really an incredible talk. And I can’t ask you to repeat it, but I can ask you to give us two or three more minutes than you have about exactly how things have degenerated.

Well, it’s hard to relive the last 40 years or so, which is the period since Bailey, Deardourff started. I mean, it’s easy for us to come to the conclusion that 35 years ago things were great, and now things are lousy, and that we knew what we were doing, and these people don’t. I mean, I don’t want to invite thoughts. And I feel somewhat guilty for seeming to imply that. But the fact of the matter is that our politics was really very different 20, 30, 40 years ago in the sense that most of the people in the political profession, in my judgment, whether they were candidates or even consultants, were there partly because it was of a sense of public service. I don’t mean that they didn’t make a good living. I don’t mean that we weren’t paid well and so forth. But part of the satisfaction was that we were electing people that we felt good about. Now that didn’t mean that there weren’t other consultants who felt equally good about people on the other side that were running. But that was the notion here, to elect people who deserved to be in public office. And after they got there, maybe to find some ways of helping them to utilize some of the public-relations skills and so forth in order to take advantage of the mandate that they had won in the election to achieve some good.

Now, fast-forward now to current politics. What has happened is that neither consulting, nor lobbying, nor, sad to say, political candidacy itself seems to attract idealists. It attracts people for a variety of reasons. But those reasons include money. Those reasons include sort of personal gain of one form or another or some ego trip of one kind or another. In the consulting business, I can tell you that the motivation of money is enormous, because there is enormous money that is spent. So it’s a good business to be in. You can make a lot of money in the consulting business. And there are a lot of people that are doing primarily that.

And what used to be true, 30 years ago in this city, was that when important things got done, they got done because people on both sides of the aisle sat down, shut the door, maybe put their feet up on the table, and had a drink or two. But [they] talked about “How do we solve this problem? How do we get together? How do we get enough votes on both sides to get legislation passed?” Now the two sides don’t even talk to each other. The only form of bipartisanship in an organized way that happens in Washington, D.C., is when lobbyists representing the Democratic view and lobbyists representing the Republican view join together in a bipartisan lobbying firm that is able to appeal to both sides. And that’s the only true, organized bipartisanship in the city. And that’s pathetic.

The coming 2008 race is, I guess, going to be the first billion-dollar presidential campaign. Is that your sense of it, too?

Only if you exclude 2004, which already was. Jerry Rafshoon and I did a little mathematics. And back in 1976, when Ford and Carter were running against each other, and Jerry and I were working against each other, each campaign received about $30 million. Put about $20 million [of that] into TV. But translating that into today’s dollars, I think it’s somewhere less than $100 million was spent in that campaign in its entirety. There was no party support. There was no independent-expenditures support. There were no separate committees raising money to spend money for us or against the other side. In 2004, as compared to that $100 million if you are using today’s dollars as spent in 1976, the total of the two campaigns, Republican and Democrat for president, including the party support to those two candidates and the 527 independent-expenditure support, the total was about $2.2 billion.

Now that’s just obscene. Now some people say: “Well, we don’t even spend that much in this country. I mean, we spend more than that on popcorn. So what’s the big deal?” Well, maybe so. And it doesn’t seem to me that it is necessarily too much money until you look at where the money is spent and where it goes. And it goes into the hands of the consultants. I am not against consultants. But the consultants are recommending that it be spent, and then spend it, and then pocket much of what’s spent. So that is a process that seems, to me, to be fairly nonproductive.

Do you think that this coming election will be a time when no federal money is expended for the candidates?

Yeah. I think that the major campaigns, any campaign that can raise enough money so that it doesn’t have to take any matching funds, for example in the primaries, will not take any matching funds, because if you don’t take matching funds, you have no limits on what you can spend. I mean, the deal of the federal campaign-finance law is that you take the federal money, and in exchange for taking the federal money you live with the spending limits that come with it. Now that’s happened before in terms of the major candidates with the primaries. What will happen this year for the first time — and it’s absolutely predictable — [is that] the candidates on both sides of the aisle are already raising money for the general election on the assumption that they will not accept the federal funding, because they don’t want to live with the spending limits that it imposes. So the irony is — I mean no disrespect — but you have the keeper of the Lincoln Bedroom for eight years on one side and the author of campaign-finance reform on the other raising money in order to bypass the federal funds in the general elections, so that there are no limits as to what they would spend if they were the nominees of the party. It’s just absurd.

What is the effect on the candidates of having to raise the money? And what does it do to the quality of their campaign?

Well, it is both true at the presidential level — it’s even more true, frankly, at the congressional level — how much time officeholders or candidates must spend in raising the funds rather than campaigning for votes or rather than doing the job which they are elected to do in terms of members of Congress. It is very unusual, for a member of Congress, not for there to be a campaign fundraising event almost every night of the week. Which they either go to, or it’s part of their fundraising in Washington from Washington lobbyists rather than raising money back home.

Now when it comes to the presidential campaigns, a lot of people, certainly me included, think that it is absurd here to have started the 2008 presidential election, essentially, before the 2006 election was ever over. But the goal of the major campaigns has been — I don’t know what it is in each instance — to set a goal of raising $50 million or $75 million in 2007 in order to have the funds necessary to compete in the early primaries. And put that together with the reality that you have, what, 23 states now planning to move their primary up to February 5 so that everything is compacted within a three-week time period. And not only do you have to raise the money in 2007, you have to raise an enormous amount of money to be able to be on the air in those states. And so do they need to raise the money to be competitive in all of those big states? Maybe so. But what is the price they pay for raising the money that way? What do bundlers get these days? What do the bundlers get for the money they raise?

Well, what is for sale? What do bundlers get? Somebody answering this question — this is a K Street-type firm with both Democrats and Republicans, and it’s been around almost as long as you and at least me, [and] he has made a very good living at this — said: “You know what? My experience is not that people want access to the president. But they want the president to speak at their kids’ junior-high-school commencement.” What is for sale here? I mean, ambassadorships, access, what?

Well, I think it is a mistake to assume that most people who give money, or even most people who raise money, are doing it for some nefarious motive. But it stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if I am a bundler for a candidate who becomes president — and that means I have raised a million dollars or more — that when I really want something, somebody is going to pay attention to me. And it may not be the president. But it may be somebody that the president says, “Pay attention to him.” Now what is it that I might want? Well, I might want an appointment. And I might be qualified for it. And if I am as qualified as you are, but I have raised a million dollars, I am going to get the appointment. So that’s one thing.

Another thing is successful bundlers have a way of being effectively heard on Capitol Hill, because if the White House wants you to be heard on Capitol Hill by members of the president’s party, you will be heard. If there are appointments that you want — I don’t mean to be appointed to the job, but if you want to see somebody in some department someplace because there is a contract that’s relevant to your business or to a client’s business — you’ll get the appointment. I mean, it is also true, I am sure, that harmless things like pictures, and appearances at your children’s graduation, and things like that — I have no doubt about that. And nothing that I have described is illegal. And nothing is necessarily wrong, because the bundler may be the most qualified person that there is for the contract, for the appointment, for the access, for everything. But why are we taking the risks of doing that?

And unfortunately, the one thing that big-time presidential campaigns likely to succeed feel that they cannot do without is money. They may be right about that. But if that is an absolute requirement to participate, then the willingness to either promise or imply, and subsequently to give, to respond to requests from those who have given the money is almost inevitable.

In 1973 and 1974, because of the Nixon White House tapes, we got kind of a bald picture of money and politics — the illegal contributions by corporations, more so the sale of ambassadors, et cetera. Is there any indication that, while it’s not recorded on tape, that the system has gotten any better since then? And what about the Watergate reforms? Do they have any effect now?

Well, the principal Watergate reform, at least as far as the presidential race is concerned, was the federal campaign spending law that we just talked about, which is sort of gone. I mean it’s there, but does it have any impact? I don’t think so.

Because Unity08 has its differences of opinion with the Federal Election Commission, I don’t want to say anything bad about them. And I am sure they are nice and well-intentioned people. But the fact is that the Federal Election Commission is not particularly effective in cracking down on anything. In my view, it has become a sort of a placeholder for the parties — that is, to keep in place the current system without rocking the boat very much. I know that they don’t think of themselves that way. And I know that they don’t intend to act that way. But as a practical matter, the way the system works, that’s what it does. By the way, its reaction to the existence of Unity08 is a good example of that. I mean, Unity08 is a sort of challenge to the two parties. And the FEC’s decision is a challenge to us as to whether we can operate under very restrictive circumstances.

With those restrictions, suppose there is a third-party ticket that has a lot of hope — that is, as much as you might have hoped for. What will it take financially for that ticket to move forward and compete?

Well, here is one of the really interesting [things]. It was not our intention to design this. It, frankly, has just sort of evolved this way. And the capacity for the following to happen is, I think, highly beneficial. But it wasn’t initially anticipated. We expect that in June 2008 there will be an online convention of somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million delegates who will choose, maybe through multi-ballots, a ticket of one Republican and one Democrat for president and vice president, in whatever order. And then that ticket will be able to ask the delegates to contribute $100 to the ticket. And let’s assume for a moment that, of those 10 million delegates, 20 percent did that. Suddenly you’d have a ticket from June 20 or so on that has a campaign fund of $200 million raised all in contributions of $100 or less.

Now, is that plenty of money? Absolutely, it’s plenty of money. It’s not plenty of money for two crazy people to run. They have to be substantial candidates or they won’t be able to get that kind of money. And if they weren’t substantial candidates, no amount of money would help them. But serious candidates with $200 million and a position, which we anticipate they will have, as competitive in the polls. After that highly visible convention happens in June of 2008, [they will have] well in excess of 15 percent of the polls, which means they get into the presidential debates in the fall. I think all of those are enough ingredients, with competent and effective candidates, to win the presidency. And especially in a year when the people are ready to put the train back on the tracks.

What’s your guess, if we have a de facto national primary in early February, when do the dynamics of Unity08 have to sort of kick in? If we know by March, it looks like this Democrat and this Republican, when do you have to have interest shown by the kind of caliber people that you want?

Well, there are two or three answers to that. The first is, I think for us to be successful we need to have achieved something close to a million-delegate participation by the fall or at least the end of 2007. I expect that we will be there. I expect that we will be well beyond that. But I think we have to reach that level. But where this really kicks into gear in terms of major participation, both by delegates and by candidates, is when the parties make their two choices. At that point you know what the field is. And people in the world of politics, potential candidates from the world of politics, or business, or anywhere else, will be able to say, “OK, those are the two nominees that I am going to have to face.” And they can make a decision whether they feel comfortable in running in that atmosphere. It is also at that point when there are going to be millions and millions and millions of Americans in both parties and in the middle who are disappointed by the choices that they have. And because the race started so early, frankly there is sort of disappointment, I think, already in the process. So I would expect that the growth of the convention from that point on will be significant.

Now there is another set of answers. When do serious candidates look at this? I think there are serious candidates looking at it right now. We have no secret candidates. I don’t mean to suggest that. But we have conscientiously set about to brief every potential candidate, or anybody who expresses an interest, or their staff, or people that we hope will take a look at this and their staff. So that they understand the process and they understand that as they watch us, they can see that we meet certain benchmarks along the way, both in terms of delegate participation and in terms of ballot access. So I think that will happen. Therefore, when they are ready to make a decision as to whether to jump in, they will be able to measure us, measure our progress in terms of delegates and in terms of ballot access, and be able to measure the potential field that they are running in, in terms of both the Republican and Democratic nominees.

Let me mention one more aspect of it. I would expect that during 2007 there will be various draft efforts that are begun in relation to either people who might become potential candidates later down the road. Frankly, I like this idea. If the Internet and an Internet convention are empowering the people to pick a president, then what is better than a draft movement by the people who say, “We want this person to be the president of the United States.” Now we are not going to put a name on the ballot, when the actual convention balloting begins, of a person who hasn’t agreed to serve if they were nominated. But I think there is a lot of likelihood, in my judgment, of draft efforts to convince people to do this who might otherwise be reluctant. After all, particularly people in politics on the Republican or Democratic side, if they are going to do this they are going to take some heat from their party when they do it. So they need encouragement. And I think a draft movement will cause that.

Can Unity08 inoculate itself from the money that now gets involved? I’m thinking of, well, I won’t name anyone, but people who spend a lot of money for an issue or a person. The two parties aren’t going to take this sitting down or lying down. So they are going to say: “Well, look at who is behind this. You have got this guy who made his money in diamonds. And he’s trying to buy the presidency, et cetera.” How do you inoculate yourself from some big contributors?

Well, I think it is important for us to be transparent. That’s one way to do it. Secondly, I think it’s important for us to be convincing when we say, truthfully, that we have no candidates, and be able to be convincing at that. Now it doesn’t mean that there won’t be people who charge one thing or another. That’s the inevitable.

One of the things which we have done voluntarily is apply a $5,000 contribution limit to ourselves. We don’t think, looking at the law, that we need to do that. But we think we ought to for the very reason that you are suggesting. We don’t want people to be looking at us and saying big money is controlling it. It may be true that certain objectives, in a timely way, can be met only by borrowing some money to make it happen, and with some loans. And we probably will do that, but with the intention and expectation of being able to pay those loans back prior to the convention. Because, once again, if you have multimillion delegates participating, that means multimillion potential contributors in small-dollar amounts that allow us to pay back.

So our sense is transparency and remembering that we have no candidates. It is the people who are picking the candidates. Now if the candidates have financial problems when they are running, because of funds or ties that they have, that is another problem. We can’t control that. But we would hope that people seeking the nomination of Unity08 would recognize that it’s unnecessary to raise that kind of money because of what I have said before in terms of small-dollar contributions from the delegates after the convention has made its pick. I think people who are likely to run for this nomination realize this must be a transforming election and can’t do things the way they have been done in the past.

Talk a little bit about the media. You have had decades of observation of how the media cover elections. And I am wondering if the media have been doing a reasonable job. Can they do a reasonable job given the way the media are now? Can they be fair? Can they be effective?

I think they can be fair. I think they can be effective. I think they can be balanced. I am not sure that they are any of those things all of the time. They are certainly not all of those things all of the time. I think what’s happened to the media — and this is not meant as criticism, it’s just a fact of life — is that television, particularly multichannel television, discovered that confrontation is good business. It’s good entertainment. It’s why you have professional wrestling in the first place. It’s why you’ve got poker, now. It’s why any sport that people are knocking themselves around is confrontation. Back when you had three stations and an independent in each market — this goes back to days that you and I can remember and [younger people] can’t — back in those days, all programming was meant for the entire audience, because if you were going to be successful, you were going to compete for a large share of that audience And therefore almost all programming was designed to appeal to everybody. Now, the more channels you’ve got, the greater the importance of each of the smaller channels, particularly the cable channels, to be able to carve out a niche and reach that small audience effectively and hold it.

Let me add one more thing, which will be really important. It’s not just a move from three channels to 150 channels. I think one of the most impactful changes that happened was the creation of the remote control for the television set. The absence of a remote control made the job of us old-time advertising people a whole lot easier. Because for somebody to actually change the channel, they had to get all the way out of their couch and walk all the way across the room and switch the channels. So we always felt that at least for 30 seconds or 60 seconds, we would have a captive audience. Well, you don’t have that anymore. And that’s one of the reasons why advertising has got to get you or you are going to go somewhere else. It’s got to get you quickly. And one of the ways to do that is confrontation.

Well, the same is true of all programming. The same is true of all news. So why is Anna Nicole Smith and all of that stupid stuff central to every cable news channel’s news coverage? Because it sells, it draws an audience, and because they can sell advertising to that audience. Now when it comes to politics, the only thing they are interested in — I mean, I watch Hardball, and I think Chris Matthews is very competent at what he does, but it’s just ram, ram. It’s called Hardball because that’s what it is. And it’s entertaining. And it’s effective. And it’s a good moneymaker for their station because it is hardball.

Now you can’t get on that program — as an example, but that’s only one example of many — unless you have something reasonably outrageous to say. You don’t have to be Ann Coulter, but you do have to be outrageous. You have to go to the edges of what you might think. And you have to say it in very short frame. That’s too bad, because that helps polarize the news coverage just as our politics and polarizes the public, which is a definition of the problem that we have today.

Does the political advertising have to be in hardball mode? Susan Estrich said after the Dukakis campaign, “He who doesn’t throw mud ends up with mud all over them.” We saw the Swift Boat situation in the last campaign. Is advertising kind of compelled to do the hardball thing?

Well, I think there has become a rule that is accepted by all consultants. And if I were still in the consulting business, I am not quite sure what advice I would give a candidate now on this score, because I think it probably is true that if you get attacked, you’d better answer. And more often than not, that answer is an attack on the other side as opposed to an answer as to what of the charges against you. And secondly, there is a kind of rule that I think has set in that probably there is some truth to: If you don’t run some negative advertising, you are not tough enough for public service. And that is sort of a sad commentary on our society. But I think to some degree that’s true.

And let me also say — and this is, I think, a fact of life — that negative advertising does work. It particularly works in a two-person race. What’s one of the interesting things about Unity08, if it creates a genuine three-way race, is the history of three-way races, politically, is that if I attack you, I can probably hurt you, but by attacking you, I have probably hurt myself. And if there is a third person who is not part of that catfight between the two of us, that third person is going to benefit from it. So in a three-way race, the candidates are a little less quick to throw dirt at one another. But I must say, the world of television is so confrontational that much of the Bailey, Deardourff advertising that I remember that was nice and pleasant, and I hope convincing and effective about our candidates. I am not sure how it would play today. I must admit that.

You mentioned that by presidential debate time, you hoped and expected to have a viable participant. The New York Times said, back during the early days, that the presidential debate commission had become a tool of the two dominant parties rather than a guardian of the public interest. What’s your reaction to that? And what about the other minor-party candidates who are going to say, “If you let them in, let us in.”

Well, I think in the abstract, in the ideal world, if you had a wand and could create your own perfect world situation, I think the presidential debates would be different than they are. But I happen to believe two things. One, regardless of whatever weaknesses they have, they are the single most important, most educational, and most beneficial events that happen in the presidential campaign, without any question. So let’s not be too quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. The second thing that I believe is that in the real world of really hardball, tough, political infighting, the people who organize and run the presidential debates do a fantastic job to make happen what happens. Can it be much better? Sure. But I would be very reluctant to come along and simply set aside the presidential debate commission and hope that something is going to come along that can do a better job. It’s a very tough thing to get the campaigns to participate in something where all voters are going to see them. And they are live. And they can make mistakes. The risks are so high, that from a campaign standpoint, they are reluctant to do debates at all. There will always be at least one candidate, even in a just a two-person field, who doesn’t want to do debates. So the fact that they happen at all is a plus. And I, frankly, think that the commission and its professional staff have been spectacular in what they have accomplished. Can it be better? Sure. Is it really, really good and the best thing we’ve got going? Yes.

Let me ask you this. Suppose in this election, as it moves along, the dynamics of the system do change and transform to a degree; regardless of how successful you are, there is some success there. And the next administration calls you up and says: “Doug, could you write a one-page memo telling us the things about the system that most need changing. Put a number one, but then after that, tell us other things in a page, because we are looking at it. We know it’s got to change. And you have been an important agent for change.”

Well, let me throw out a few that I think would change things a lot and are important to do. Some of them are changes in the law. Most of them, however, are changes in behavior that, for the most part, only a president can do.

By far the single most important, and this is the genesis of the whole Unity08 idea, is that I don’t know of anything truly significant in terms of legislation or foreign policy in this country that hasn’t happened, in part, because there has been some unity between the parties. I don’t mean that both parties agreed, but that there is some effort at reaching across the aisle and getting enough support on both sides to get a form of consensus in the middle. That starts with a president and a president’s attitude. It starts with the Cabinet. And I think it is really instructive to think that Franklin Roosevelt, in the deepest depression that the country ever faced, was elected with overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress and with an overwhelming Democratic vote against Hoover. When he got to office, he appointed four Republicans to his Cabinet, because the country needed that unity. That’s an important thing to understand. And what we have somehow drifted into in Washington is so much partisan, sort of knee-jerk partisanship, that we have lost the capacity to talk with one another. And if you accept as true a reading of history that we don’t do great things in this country unless we find some common ground in the middle, then that’s perhaps the most important thing.

But there are a whole variety of other ways of doing that. In addition to the Cabinet, it is a matter of how you conduct your meetings with the congressional leadership. Are you really serious, or is bipartisanship just a word? And there were times, you and I can remember them, when the leaders in the two parties in the House or the Senate used to ride in the same car — Can you imagine that?— up to the White House to have meetings with the president. A combined congressional leadership meeting. They don’t happen anymore. They don’t talk to one another anymore. I mean, it’s just insane. You have to change that.

Let me suggest a law, which probably the courts would strike down, that would change a whole lot in this city. And I’ll give credit on this, as I do for many things I say, to [former Senator] Howard Baker [of Tennessee]. Howard Baker once asked me, “Why should it be true that if I don’t live in somebody’s district or some senator’s state that I can contribute to his campaign?” I thought that was a pretty interesting question. Why wouldn’t it be true that if you are running for Congress in the Seventh [Congressional] District of Illinois, whatever that is, that the contributions that you receive have to come from people who live in the Seventh District of Illinois? Now that doesn’t mean that if somebody in Washington wants to get money to your campaign, they can’t go out to the Seventh District of Illinois and organize and try to raise some funds, and hold some fundraisers to get people in the Seventh District of Illinois to give it to you or to the candidate.

I think that would be a dramatically effective law in this city because it would stop in its tracks the lobby fundraising and all of the fundraisers in Washington. There wouldn’t be any fundraisers in Washington. There would not be a fundraiser held in the city of Washington for a member of Congress. Think about that. That would change things in a hurry.

What have I neglected to ask you? There has got to be something you think about driving to work, or home, or as you are working on this, that you thought, “Gee, I hope he asks me about that or he doesn’t ask me about that.”

Well, I think you have asked the right questions. The one point that I think really is just terribly important [is] that the two-party system — let me say this: Unity08 is not called the Unity Party. It’s called Unity08. It is not a permanent effort to create a permanent third party. It is a one-time effort to fix the situation. In fact, we wanted to call it Fix It ’08. And the irony of creating a third party, even for a one-time run at it, is that all of us believe that the two-party system has been a source of great strength and stability for this country. Compared to other democracies, parliamentary systems and multiparty systems, the two-party system has been very good to this country as long as it worked the way it used to work, which was that the candidates for each of the two parties had a theory of winning that said: “I have got to bring my party to the polls. And I have got to reach into the middle for the influenceable vote, or the swing vote, or the split-ticket vote, or whatever they call it, to win enough of those independents, those people in the middle, to get to my 50 percent.” And when both parties did that, and both candidates did that, they have ended up fighting, vying, whatever the right term is, competing for the vote in the middle, the undecided vote, the independents. And because they met in the middle and were on common ground, even though they were competing with one another, when all of the winners got to Washington, they all had sort of the same experience. They had all been talking about the same issues. They had all been meeting at a common ground. And they found it easy to talk with one another. There was a meeting place in the middle.

Then along came somebody who, over the last 10 to 15 years, invented a different way to win elections. You get your 50 percent by going to the edges, identifying your base, micro-target to expand that base in any way you can, talk to that base in terms of the issues that turn them on so that you can turn them out. And the issues that turn them on turned the base on the other side off. And so both parties talked to their base, turned out and sought their 50 percent only by turning out their base. The 2004 presidential election [was a] remarkable election. The increase in the vote from 2000 [to] 2004 was 22 percent. Why? Because both parties committed themselves to enormous turnout efforts, turnout of their base. That was what that campaign was all about. And they both did a fantastic job of turning out the base. And how can you argue with more voters, right? I mean, that’s a good outcome.

Except that the campaigns never talked to the middle. And if you don’t talk to the middle, what you do is you miss the crucial issues that the people in the middle think about. I mean, if you ask any reasonably large cross section of voters, “Are the schools of America a crucial issue for the future, the safety and well-being of the United States?,” they would say yes. “Terrorism?” Yes. “Energy independence?” Yes. “Fixing corruption in Washington?” Yes. “Deficits?” Yes. “Abortion?” No. No. It might be important. It might be worthy of debate. Crucial for the future of the country? No. “Gay marriage?” No. “Flag burning?” No. “Gun control?” No, although there may be more who think that’s crucial. Immigration, by the way, comes right in at 50 percent as people who see it as crucial. And lots of people just view that issue in different ways. But the point is, those issues that we talk about are not the issues. Those issues that the people perceive as crucial are not the issues over which the election is voted. Now that is an important thing to understand. And that’s why, to me, no action on the crucial issues has put the country at great risk. And we are at one of those moments of truth. So, the model that we are looking at in terms of Unity08 is not the third-party efforts of [Ross] Perot, or [Ralph] Nader, or somebody like that in the recent past, where the country might have had issues but the third parties were either at the edges. Or, in Perot’s case, were focused on an issue.  He was really even leading in the polls, wasn’t he?  Until the Martians invaded his daughter’s wedding or whatever.

But those aren’t the models for us. The models for us that I think are most fitting are the moments of truth in American history. In 1860, it’s a piece of history. It’s undeniably true. The country faced perhaps its biggest crisis ever as to whether we could remain the United States. And it elected a third-party candidate as president of the United States. He wasn’t an independent; he was a Republican. And the Whig Party went out of existence as a result. And by the way, in the middle of the Civil War, four years later, Lincoln reached across the aisle to pick a candidate from the Democratic Party to run as a unity ticket.

You talked about Roosevelt and the Depression, and the bipartisan Cabinet. I think of 1952, also, as a moment of truth, where we were caught in a war we couldn’t get out of, if that sounds familiar. And both parties wanted to draft Eisenhower, and only when he discovered that he was a Republican, the Republicans managed to draft him. And the people, again, went to the center to unite the country and also make some progress in ending that war.

So I think we are at that kind of moment of truth for the country. I don’t think we can withstand four more years of the intense and mindless partisanship that we have experienced over the last 10 years. That’s why we are doing what we are doing. And why I think the people are ready to take the country back, or put the train back on the track, or whatever the right metaphor is.