Unity08

Unity08 was an American political reform movement that sought to offer all voters an opportunity to directly engage in politics by ranking the most crucial issues facing the country, discussing them with the candidates and engaging in an online, secure vote to nominate a bipartisan alternative to the Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential tickets for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Founded in 2006¹, the group gained attention from various media outlets, with Newsweek ' s Jonathan Alter dubbing the group's efforts a kind of open source politics. In January 2008, Unity08 organizers announced that the group had suspended operations due to funding problems. Americans Elect 2012¹ is an organization that was formed by many of the individuals that were responsible for Unity 08, and had substantially identical goals for the 2012 presidential election cycle. Americans Elect also failed to nominate a candidate.

Unity08 was an American political reform movement that sought to offer all voters an opportunity to directly engage in politics by ranking the most crucial issues facing the country, discussing them with the candidates and engaging in an online, secure vote to nominate a bipartisan alternative to the Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential tickets for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Founded in 2006, the group gained attention from various media outlets, with Newsweek ' s Jonathan Alter dubbing the group's efforts a kind of open source politics. In January 2008, Unity08 organizers announced that the group had suspended operations due to funding problems. Americans Elect 2012 is an organization that was formed by many of the individuals that were responsible for Unity 08, and had substantially identical goals for the 2012 presidential election cycle. Americans Elect also failed to nominate a candidate. ===Suspension of activities=== In January 2008, Bailey and Rafshoon announced that they were leaving the organization and were planning to launch a national effort to draft New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for president. Shortly thereafter, representatives for Unity08 announced that the organization was scaling back operations and suspending activities, citing lack of adequate funding and disputes with the Federal Election Commission. Unity08 was unable to resume operations prior to the 2008 presidential election. ==Grassroots presence== Prior to the organization's suspension of activities, Unity08's web site was a community for members to communicate and participate via blogs, forums, and polls. The movement also had a presence on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Unity08 had leveraged the online event tools of Meetup.com and Eventful for members to organize local gatherings. However, Unity08 was also characterized, by critics, as an example of astroturfing.

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