"Unity doesn't exist. It's not a real town with a real population; it's just sort of a geographical center served by three different post offices. It was a ridiculous place to have this."
-- Rick Holmes, who biked to Unity, N.H. from Newport, quoted in Newsday
Or maybe the unreal town of Unity is the picture perfect place to hold a Unity Pony Show. Speaking of disunity, the latest AP-Yahoo News poll finds that just 53 percent of Hillary supporters back Barack Obama. Of the remaining 47 percent: "Twenty-three percent of Clinton's backers picked Republican John McCain over Obama. Of the rest, 16 percent were undecided, 5 percent were for independent candidate Ralph Nader and 3 percent said someone else."
TIME's David Von Drehle has some interesting thoughts on the 'appearance of unity':
The perfect political photo op — and this was a pretty darn good one —isn't aimed at the rational faculties of an informed electorate. It seeks whatever section of the brain it is that triggers a tummy rumble at the sight of a moist doughnut. It's about instinct, not reason.
But there's more here than meets the eye, so we'll keep going. Start with the simple fact that a truly unified political party doesn't need a unity rally. It's a long, slow bus ride down a winding two-lane road, over hills, through pines and pastures, to reach this remote New England village. The fuel that drives the bus is worry, and the worry stems from division.
Clinton's speech was effective in part because she didn't pretend otherwise. The photos said lovefest — his tie matched her suit and his arm was around her like Donnie and Marie — but her words subtly signaled that she was entering the tent of a once (and possibly future) rival solely to concentrate fire outward. She reminded a crowd long on anti-war voters that only three times in her 40 years of political life has a Democrat won a presidential election. "We cannot let this moment slip away," she said emphatically. . . .
The wounds from a fight like this one don't vanish overnight. Former President Jimmy Carter still bristles at the mention of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who challenged Carter in 1980, fought to the end and — at least in Carter's version of events — cost him a second term. That's 28 years. This one hasn't been over for 28 days.
Related: Confluence: PUMAS at Unity
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