As the evening wore on, a sense of frustration pervaded the gathering, until finally Jordan exclaimed, “Why are you guys just writing a book? Can’t we do something about this? The country is in serious trouble here!” And then came the leap. The three decided on the spot that they would create a third party to represent the center in the 2008 presidential election. To guarantee that it would, they decided that the ticket itself would be bipartisan: one Democrat and one Republican. And if independents with bipartisan tendencies were interested, they’d be welcome, too. They called their new party “Unity08” and resolved that it would operate on the Internet. That way everyone could join the party online and participate as a delegate, helping to build the party’s platform collectively rather than ceding that task to interest groups, as both major parties tend to do. Ultimately, they hoped, these delegates would select a presidential and vice-presidential candidate in an online convention to be held in 2008, just after the major-party primaries determined the Republican and Democratic nominees. This will be a period of maximal importance to Unity08’s founders, who believe that many voters will be dissatisfied with the available choices, and that ambitious candidates—Republicans and Democrats who didn’t quite make it, as well as independents—will seriously consider a third-party alternative.

Bailey had been experimenting for years with the Internet applications of politics, in a series of civic-minded youth projects he’d embarked on after retiring from politics. All of the founders recognized that this new technology was poised to transform politics, just as greatly as television had in their own era. They had seen television’s effect on the political process grow more and more pernicious as the years went by, poisoning the dialogue while forcing candidates to raise ever-greater sums of money to pay for it. They recognized that the Internet, in its political infancy, was a force that could still be shaped for good.

The three parted ways that evening scarcely believing what they’d decided to do. But in the months ahead, as they studied the feasibility of their plan, they became convinced it could work. Being political consultants, they commissioned a national poll to examine the mood of the electorate and gauge its willingness to accept an independent party. The nation appeared willing indeed: 82 percent of respondents agreed that the country was too polarized to make progress solving problems, and three-quarters wanted more choices than just the Democratic and Republican candidates. The three persuaded Roger Craver, a pioneer in the field of cause-oriented fund-raising, to join them with the object of financing the effort through online donations, and they recruited an executive committee to raise a $1 million bridge fund. They also hired the prominent Washington law firm of Steptoe and Johnson to advise them on ballot access in all fifty states. To establish the appearance of sober competence, they enlisted the actor Sam Waterston, a friend of Rafshoon’s best known for his role as a principled district attorney on the television show Law & Order, to appear in Internet promotions. “I’m one of those people who have been watching politics from the outside with a typical mix of horror and fascination,” Waterston told me recently. “The idea is so simple, yet if it works, it’s one of those things that will change the direction of the river.”