<![CDATA[News from the Radical Center]]>

D. Articulate them with sufficient specificity to attract an audience, but not so precise as to foreclose debate or generate a negative reaction

Make sense? So, let's see how far I can get.

A) Audience

So, the nominal audience for our Platform is anyone paying attention
to Unity '08, which includes students, participants in the forum, the
Decision Makers and Funders behind Unity '08, and ultimate the
candidates who will compete for the vote.

The total audience is enormously diverse, and it is impossible to
articulate anything that everyone would agree with; if we try to
please everyone we'll alienate everybody. On the other hand, we
can't be so radical that we please nobody. The 'radical middle', if
you will, would be to articulate a minimal platform that a solid core
of people could fully back, that most others would at least
grudgingly support, and that alienated only the fringes.

This requires having some understanding of what draws people to Unity
'08, in order to help us decide whom to target. Let me posit a few
attributes that the bulk of Unity '08 participants share:

f. They feel there is a fundamental crisis with our two-party system

Obviously not everybody involved feels this way, but I think anything
that targets this hypothetical voter would probably go a long way.

B) Message

Given the noise levels (and our small size), I believe that we need
One Big Idea as the core of our platform. The reason is that we
have no leverage -- by default, we have to rely on word of mouth,
which means we need something so concise that people can intrigue
their friends with a single sentence. We can (and should) address a
wide range of topics, but they all need to logically support each other.

The other reason for such internal coherency is that we need a united
movement. Ideally, we want something so well-constructed that if you
accept the core principle, you'll immediately be comfortable with the
whole enchilada; otherwise, we'd waste all our time infighting
_within_ our core base.

C) Principles

Given that goal, there's several possible concepts that might provide
such a foundation;

• Radical Centrism (humility, justice, and love)

and there may be others. The challenge is to find something simple
enough to easily convey, yet fertile enough to support a broad platform.

D) Articulation

As I said before, I think our Core Agenda has to have 10 or so
points; otherwise nobody can remember enough of it to decide whether
they like it or not. In addition, we need to keep our high-level
statements vague enough (but no vaguer :-) that people focus on the
broad principles instead of quibbling about details.

Ideally, I'd like there to be three over-arching themes which
encapsulate 9-12 major initiatives. Not only does is that easier to
memorize, it would also enable us to provide a useful graphical summary.

Remember, the key is to make people feel *empowered*. That is, we
want them to feel comfortable that they grok the essence of our
platform, so that they feel safe supporting and endorsing us.

Does that sound like a plan?

To be sure, we could take the easy way out and wait until Unity '08
comes up with their list of questions, and merely respond to those.
But what would be the fun in that? :-)

Sincerely,
Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D.