Dialogues, not diatribes

Adam Gomolin was in Spain in the fall of 2004, during his semester abroad from Wesleyan University, when he saw Jon Stewart's infamous appearance on CNN's ``Crossfire." The ``Daily Show" host assailed the ``Crossfire" talking heads for ``hurting America" with their partisan bickering.

``You have a responsibility to public discourse," Stewart told host Tucker Carlson. ``And you fail miserably."

The media smelled blood. Gomolin smelled an idea.

``I was wondering, why is Jon Stewart the only one in America with his head on straight?" Gomolin says. ``What's wrong with us?"

If Stewart, a comedian, could take down one of CNN's most popular talk shows -- ``Crossfire" was canceled soon afterward by Jonathan Klein , president of CNN/U.S., who said he agreed with Stewart -- maybe Gomolin and his Wesleyan buddies could change the culture of partisanship they believed was poisoning American politics.

BeyondPartisan.org -- the ``editorial page for every American" -- was born.

Gomolin, from Brookline, and friends Nate Byer of Carlisle, Dave Tutor of Newton, Rob Weinstock of Westford, and Bill Ferrell of Mill Valley, Calif., all Wesleyan seniors at the time, launched their website last Sept. 11 to commemorate that day's spirit of bipartisan patriotism. In October the five students walked into the office of Wesleyan president Douglas J. Bennet to ask for funding. The group didn't know what response they'd get from Bennet, a former CEO of National Public Radio and an assistant secretary of state under President Clinton, but Bennet put their fears to rest when he started quoting lines from their mission statement.

``I love it," Bennet told them. ``I'm behind you 100 percent."

Bennet helped the group raise $10,000 to build their website, and put them in touch with Wesleyan's well-connected alumni network. The university's in-house design team printed up advertising fliers pro bono. Bennet even mentioned the group in his commencement speech in May.

Gomolin and his friends emerged from that first meeting with Bennet convinced they'd struck political gold.

``It was total euphoria," Weinstock remembers. ``Smiles and giggles."

Gomolin, who had planned to join the CIA, decided instead to attend graduate school while running the website. Tutor ended up deferring his full scholarship to the Columbia University School of Law . If they receive enough grant money, Gomolin and Weinstock will also defer their admissions, to the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia Law , respectively.

``We just decided that nothing was more important than this website," Gomolin says.

Unlike popular political websites such as DailyKos.com and HuffingtonPost.com, BeyondPartisan is more interested in fostering dialogue than disseminating opinion. One of the editors posts a short policy briefing on, say, stem cell research, to provoke a discussion with the site's 1,000-plus registered users. The editors hope that as the website grows their role will diminish.

``The idea of the website is to create a living room sofa where people feel comfortable discussing politics," Weinstock says. ``Each user has a personalized home page with their previous comments, so they can jump right back into a conversation they started the week before."

BeyondPartisan takes its atmosphere of spirited but civil debate from its founders' experiences in Wesleyan's College of Social Studies , a prestigious multidisciplinary program that accepts only about 30 students each year from the university's freshman class. The students hone their debating skills in small, writing-intensive seminars.

``The site came from our recognition that some of our most valuable experiences in college were when people came to class prepared and debated the issues from different perspectives," Tutor says.

The group declined to reveal their individual political affiliations, except to say that they include at least one Democrat, Libertarian, and independent, and a former Republican. In 2004, Gomolin worked for John Kerry's presidential campaign as an unpaid intern, cold-calling Texas voters, and as a group the friends are to the left of center. But Gomolin says the website doesn't promote a political agenda.

``At [some websites] you join groups filled with people like yourself," Gomolin says. ``If we had a slogan it would be, `Find people who aren't like yourself.' "

With around 10,000 hits and 5,000 unique visitors each day, BeyondPartisan is small but growing. The site's professional design and advanced features, such as personalized home pages, disguise its humble origins. And thanks to the bilingual Gomolin, most articles are available in Spanish (although the site politely requests that discussions be conducted in English).

A major test of the website's strength came in May, when the founders of BeyondPartisan graduated from Wesleyan, cutting the umbilical cord that provided them with money and publicity. Despite some growing pains, the website is thriving. After the Hartford Courant ran a story this week, the group received requests from several Massachusetts politicians to post articles on the site. BeyondPartisan turned them down. The reason? The articles were too partisan.

``This site came from our youthful idealism, as well as our discontent with the way politics operated," Weinstock says. ``And one thing we learned early on is that we weren't the only 21-year-old kids complaining about politicians. We just thought up the clever domain name first."

Jon Stewart would approve.

Michael Hardy can be reached at mhardy@globe.com.