Doug Bailey, founder of the Political Hotline, and long active in consulting for Republican candidates, is one of the founders of Unity08. He spoke in Sacramento on January 17 at a panel organized by the Commonwealth Club. The panel discussed the growing number of voters who register as independents and as members of minor parties.
After the formal part of the meeting, Bailey continued talking about Unity08. He made it plain that Unity08 will qualify as a political party in most states, even though the founders of Unity08 are not trying to start a new permanent party. However, in states in which it is relatively easy to qualify an independent presidential candidate, and in which the deadline for doing so is quite late in the year (for example, Minnesota, which requires only 2,000 signatures due in mid-September of the election year), Unity08 will not qualify itself as a “qualified” party.
For California, which requires 158,372 signatures for an independent (more than twice as many as any other state), Unity08 will instead use the new party route.
If the California legislature becomes aware of this development, it may be possible to persuade the California legislature that the number of signatures for independent presidential candidates should be reduced. California Democratic and Republican Party officials and legislators would probably prefer that Unity08 used the independent procedure, because otherwise an on-going new political party will arise in California; invariably people will run in its primary for legislative office.