You been to Draft Bloomberg yet? It’s a very slick site with the sole purpose of getting you to embed a widget that gathers signatures to urge Bloomberg to run. Right now they have just a little over 2,000. What’s more, former Unity08 co-founders, Gerald Rashfoon and Doug Bailey are behind it. Now, it’s no secret that those two have talked to Bloomberg, and frankly, the whole thing smells fishy.

So yeah, call me crazy, but I’m saying that Unity08 was simply a DraftBloomberg movement all along. Maybe it wasn’t stated explicitly within the organization, but if we put some pieces together it makes sense.

1. According to Unity08, they’re having trouble with the FEC and can’t raise anymore money than $5,000 per person. This even though they state that the Supreme Court has sided with them that they could raise $25,000 per person. So how could they fund a 50 state ballot access drive otherwise. Hmmm…
2. Why would two of the most high profile guys behind Unity08 just up and leave the organization? Had control been wrestled away from them? Highly, highly doubtful in a grassroots organization like that. It strikes me as very convenient timing that they would leave at this specific time which such a mature widget technology and mailing list already in place. You see, I got an email announcing the widget. I bet pretty much every centrist blogger did too.
3. Why would the ENTIRE Unity08 site shut down right before the Draft Bloomberg site launches? There isn’t even a link on the front page of Unity08 into any of the older content. This strikes me as curious because it doesn’t take that much to just keep a site up. And as far as their claim that they have to answer hundreds of emails, all they would have to do is put a form letter in place and be done with it. Why would they shut down what has essentially become a social network?
4. In the letter on their site, Unity08 also says that anything could happen in the next couple weeks. I think that’s a hint that something will happen. That or they’re really desperate.

I could be wrong about this, but the note that the remaining Unity08 folks put out a couple weeks ago says they’ll basically accomplish NONE of their stated goals. That’s an out and out failure. Would they really settle for that or would they reshape their site and go forward with under the guise of a new site?

Sure, they can claim they helped inject the “unity” message into the campaign, but that’s nonsense. Barack was pushing this theme far before Unity came along, they simply grabbed hold of it. What’s more, many moderate blogs have been around long before Unity. You don’t see any of us saying that we’re somehow responsible for anything but feeling this political zeitgeist and writing about it from our hearts.

In any event, just a few thoughts on a lazy Thursday. It’s all speculation obviously, but something tells me that we’ll be hearing something along these lines come early March…

UPDATE:
Hmmm, as our own “mw” points out, Bob Roth has joined the Draft Bloomberg movement, so this story keeps getting fishier and fishier…

Donklephant could become part of the story, because it was at Donklephant, in a comment on the linked post, that Bob Roth, a VP at Unity08 indicated he was also joining DraftBloomberg, while denying that there is any connection There is at least one addition senior member of the Unity08 management that moved to DraftBloomberg.

And again, mw has more…

I think you need to correct your title then, to “Unity08 was DraftBloomberg in disguise”. This will probably blow over since the whole thing has not gotten a lot of attention outside of a few blogs (including Donklephant). Still, it really sticks in my craw. Unity08 was a corporation. They raised over a million dollars from small contributors representing that they were “A”. But if they were really “B” all along, that money was raised under false pretenses. That is minimally slimy, and potentially illegal. Fraud and election fraud come to mind.

Sure, but does anybody really care enough to go after them? I barely even posted this because Unity08 is such a non issue anymore, and it’s laughable that they’re claiming even some credit for the unity message.

As if…