Unity08.com has put up a "We quit" message announcing that the group has given up its ballot access campaign, its convention plans, its agenda for bipartisan presidential ticket, and the interactive (and largely inactive) portions of its website.
They tried to put on a party and nobody came, including the guest of honor.
There were a couple of related diaries earlier this week (here and here) that, in my view, overstated the connection between David Boren's Bipartisan Forum and Unity08.
I'll replay a comment I added in one of those diaries below the fold.
I wrote this:
The Bipartisan Group and Unity08 are not the same
Yes, there's the Bloomberg overlap, but I've been following the Bipartisan Group kind of closely, and it's important to be clear about the distinction.
First, lots of people want to take Bloomberg's money. If the MSM can stroke his ego enough to talk him into running, they'll reap a windfall in advertising revenue.
Unity08 looks like an astroturf group put together for the purpose of greasing those skids. I've noticed that Bloomberg seems to get extra spurts of media attention when Unity08 upgrades its site or launches a new campaign. I'd wager there's some kind of coordination there. Unity08's founder Doug Bailey was also the founder of the Washington politcal mag, "Hotline," whose reporters strike me as particularly avid Bloomberg boosters.
My quarter says Bloomberg loves the attention but won't take the bait.
Unity08's site has been rather moribund these days, with only a brief and very elliptical mention of the Bipartisan Group thus far.
Also the pdf transcripts from the Boren meeting in Oklahoma don't seem to echo much of Unity08's rhetoric, other than the critiques of base-baiting and calls for bipartisan unity.
Boren did a little grandstanding about "taking a break" from the two party system, but there was a lot more talk about getting the next President to "reach across the aisle." Folks like Jim Leach and John Danforth and Bog Graham deserve more attention, so it's OK with me if they get it by standing near the edge of Bloomberg's splotlight.
Bottom line: Unity08 is predicated on the idea of running its own candidates. The Bipartisan Group is a bunch of politicians playing on Bloomberg's fame in order to draw attention to their public lamentations about how bad things have gotten in Washington.
The Unity08 folks still think "Bloomberg seems poised to run on his own," but I seriously doubt it. Now I'd be willing to bet two quarters that Bloomberg won't run. Any takers?