On Point: A squishy Unity08

Thursday, June 1, 2006

As a third-party candidate, Ross Perot (1992) energized voters with his homespun homilies on the federal deficit; George Wallace (1968) flogged the issues of law and order and states' rights; Strom Thurmond (1948) campaigned as the voice of Southern segregation; and "Fighting Bob" LaFollette (1924) hurled his thunderbolts against "the power of the private monopolistic system" over Americans.

You get the idea: Most significant third-party candidacies in U.S. history, going back to the earliest days, have been animated by a Big Idea, or perhaps two.

So what animates Unity08, a newly hatched movement based in Denver and backed by the likes of national political operatives Hamilton Jordan, Gerald Rafshoon and Doug Bailey, and former Maine Gov. Angus King? Well, Unity08 wants to "take our country back from polarizing politics," free Washington from "partisan bickering" and put the "rational middle" in charge.

As Walter Mondale might quip, Where's the beef?

To be sure, it's hard to argue with Unity08's belief that politics today is as bitter and angry as any we've seen in our lifetimes and that centrists have been pushed into an ever smaller corner of each party's base. But you can't campaign on something as gooey as "centrism." You need appealing candidates taking positions on real issues before voters will stampede on board - in part because there's no obvious centrist position on any of the issues Unity08 identifies as "crucial."

What's the centrist position on the "national debt," "nuclear proliferation," "global climate change," "the health care of all" and "the disappearance of the American dream for so many of our people" - to mention fully half of the "Crucial Issues" identified so far by the group? Its Web site is silent. (And by the way, where did that bit about the lost American dream come from? The John Edwards campaign?)

For that matter, why didn't immigration, Social Security reform and taxes make the list?

Unity08 hopes to nominate its presidential ticket, one Republican and one Democrat, through a groundswell of Internet balloting. Maybe they'll even pull it off. Maybe the "rational middle" is ready to supply the shock troops to spearhead the next great political realignment.

First, though, they're going to have to agree on what they stand for. Disdain for political name-calling is not nearly enough.

The truth about New Orleans

What's being called the first major investment in the new New Orleans was announced this week - and not surprisingly, it involved a jazz park and concert hall. Tourist-related attractions, in short.

No one seems to doubt that New Orleans can restore its former appeal as a unique regional center of food, music and fun, teeming with conventioneers. The more difficult question is whether the city will ever again be much more than that, despite the insistence of political leaders that it will.

For an assessment based on hard economics, consider the view of Witold Rybczynski, professor of urbanism and real estate at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In an interview in The American Spectator magazine, Rybczynski predicted New Orleans in the future will "be a very different city. It'll be much smaller. . . . New Orleans is actually much more like a Rust Belt city than a Sun Belt city. It's a bit like Camden, N.J. If Camden burned down, would it be rebuilt? Maybe, but it wouldn't be the old Camden. While cities grow very quickly, they decline slowly. The big reason is real estate; people with all their savings in real estate are stuck there, so you sort of tough it out. But if something comes along that cuts the cord, a decline can leap to the next stage. What should've taken decades suddenly happens in a week.

"And that's, I think, what really happened in New Orleans. This very gradual decline has been cruelly accelerated. Half the low-income people in New Orleans were tenants - a very high number. The landlords can't afford to rebuild houses for those tenants. If they rebuild, it's going to have to be for somebody with a lot more money, because rebuilding a house costs more than it's worth right now. That's a quandary I don't see any solution to."

A sobering outlook, maybe, but resonating with the sound of truth.

Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes On Point several times a week. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.