The ill-fated Unity ’08 third party “movement” finally realized what I (and many others) have been trying to tell them for a long time — it’s not going to work:

At the current moment, we don’t have enough members or enough money to take the next necessary step – achieving ballot access in 50 states – to reach the goal of establishing our on-line convention and nominating a Unity ticket for president and vice president this coming fall.

The past year has taught us that it’s tough to rally millions to a process as opposed to a candidate or an issue. In the past, third party movements that have broken through the monopoly of the established parties have always been based on a person (Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 or Ross Perot in the last decade) or a burning issue (slavery in the case of the insurgent Republican party in 1860). Stirring people and moving them to action about a process change – replacing the quirky primary system that tends to drive candidates to the extremes with something more inclusive and sensible – has proven to be a lot harder than we expected.

How much harder? Back in December 2006, co-founder Jerry Rafshoon predicted that the group would have 5-20 million people participating in their online convention and that the party’s nominee would be ahead in the polls afterward. Oops. (Final numbers: 124,000 members and $1.5 million raised.)

As a result, Rafshoon and another founder have jumped ship to try to draft the latest object of third party hype, Michael Bloomberg, into the race. As I’ve written, I don’t think he can win, but he does have the advantage of being able to finance the organization that Unity ’08 failed to create.