Where does he advocate cross-party unity? He criticizes blind partisanship, and there are plenty of better alternatives to that besides just melding the two major parties into one.
Paradoxically, the current situation of extreme partisanship is close to a single unified party. The parties choose small wedge issues to fight over, and the rest is generally untouched. I won't go so far as to say "both parties are the same", but the differences aren't huge. Health care reform is a big wedge issue right now, and the two sides basically boil down to tweaking the dial on just how much private sector involvement there should be. Foreign policy is portrayed as a big divide, but the two parties seem to just switch sides on that depending on which one has the Presidency. There's no place in a major party for someone who wants to vote on the basis of getting out of the Global War on Terror, or for drug legalization, or single-payer health care, or many other such things.
Right now, the parties don't have to actually compete very much. Most people have chosen a side and stick with it no matter what. If we can get away from the idea that the other side is evil, that would increase the competition between them, not decrease it.
Paradoxically, the current situation of extreme partisanship is close to a single unified party. The parties choose small wedge issues to fight over, and the rest is generally untouched. I won't go so far as to say "both parties are the same", but the differences aren't huge. Health care reform is a big wedge issue right now, and the two sides basically boil down to tweaking the dial on just how much private sector involvement there should be. Foreign policy is portrayed as a big divide, but the two parties seem to just switch sides on that depending on which one has the Presidency. There's no place in a major party for someone who wants to vote on the basis of getting out of the Global War on Terror, or for drug legalization, or single-payer health care, or many other such things.
Right now, the parties don't have to actually compete very much. Most people have chosen a side and stick with it no matter what. If we can get away from the idea that the other side is evil, that would increase the competition between them, not decrease it.