About

America's Common Ground Opportunity

Disagreements about American policy dominate the headlines, but there’s actually widespread agreement across the political spectrum about the economic challenges we’re facing and the stakes involved. From free enterprise to fair trade to the American Dream – the vast majority of U.S. citizens right, left and center know we need to up our game if we’re going to thrive in a competitive world. If we can shift our focus from what divides us to what we have in common there’s nothing this great nation can’t accomplish!

What’s Blocking Progress?

If there are so many areas of agreement why aren’t we seeing real progress? It’s because right now the deck is stacked against getting big things done in Washington. Our current political system is driven by two groups – special interests and each party’s hyper-partisan base. The special interests focus on achieving narrow goals rather than what’s critical to the nation as a whole. While partisans focus largely on the culture wars and rigid ideological agendas. Any process dominated by narrow interests on one side and moral crusaders on the other is going to look exactly like what we’re suffering today – gridlock on the big stuff and lots of back room deals.

The Way Forward

So how can we change this dynamic? Frankly, it’s time to stop complaining about special interests and the partisan extremes and learn from them. In a democratic system – the people who pay attention, express what they want and keep score drive how decisions are made. If mainstream citizens want their priorities to be addressed they need to do the same. Special interests and partisans have made getting what they want into an art form – and Big Tent Nation is committed to leveling the playing field by putting these techniques at your fingertips. We’re leveraging cutting edge technology and civic engagement best practices to make it easy, compelling and even fun for mainstream citizens to become “influence peddlers” both in Washington and closer to home.