So, I speculate that Bloomberg told the Unity08 people that he didn’t want to compete against any other Unity08 candidates but rather just run his own campaign for his own advantage. Bailey & Rafshoon read the tea leaves and figured that supporting a Bloomberg candidacy was more likely to be successful than to try and run a Unity08 campaign with a lesser known candidate and also splitting the centrist/independent vote with Bloomberg. Fair enough. I suppose this is a reasonable call.

The big problem that I have is that Unity08 should not have been about an individual but rather about the principle of bipartisanship which will outlive any individual’s political career? Will the concept of a bipartisan movement die at the expense of the fickle opinions that voters will have about Bloomberg? (Reform died with the fortunes of Perrot) Hopefully not but all hopes of bipartisanship at this critical time will probably sink or swim depending upon the fortunes of Mr. Bloomberg.

Here is what’s needed. A Unity08-like coalition of centrist voters that run a unity Pres/VP campaign so that attention will be drawn to the organization and it’s principles. BUT that this coalition would run NO candidates below this level. RATHER it would make voting recommendations to it’s coalition members so that extremist candidates (based on voting records or NPAT surveys) would not get votes from the centrists. A small number of organized centrists would be very powerful because they are the swing voters.

The two big parties would have to move to the center if they had any hope of winning elections. A bipartisan executive working with a legislature who was more willing to be bipartisan would result in results. And that’s what we need right now…results instead of gridlock.

I don’t think that Irwinn Schiff ever filed (though I could be wrong), and I seriously doubt that Badnarik filed, at least before receiving the LP nomination.

Are there any repercussions for a candidate that refuses to file?

FWIW, I refuse to file with the Ohio Elections Commission for my races in ‘99 & 2000. I went before the entire board in 2001, gave my reasons and gave them three SCOTUS opinions (Alabama v NAACP, Socialist Workers arty of Ohio v Brown, and McIntire v Ohio Elections Commission). One curmudgeony board member disallowed my objections and snarled “I don’t see Mr. Rehnquist anywhere in this room”!

Since that time, I rarely ever hear from the OEC, other than to get an annual statement requesting my campaign pay $100/day fine (last time I checked it was in range of $350,000). But this never appears on any credit report.

I realize this topic has been up a few days, and nobody has yet responded, but I am really curious as to what others think.

PEACE
Steve