Is "No Labels" a legitimate third party, a vanity project, or a snake in the grass?
No Labels is the name of a group that purports to offer a non-partisan, third way in American politics. However, a piece in Politico headlined, No Labels’ signature-gathering firm has ties to Ron DeSantis, will add to the liberal belief that the anodyne-named, aspiring third party is really a conservative-funded weapon aimed at hobbling Joe Biden’s attempt to win a second term. ‘No Labels’ denies this — which proves nothing. If they are nefarious wannabe election influencers, they would hardly admit it.
This obfuscation means we must try to tease out their true intentions. The organization was co-founded by Nancy Jacobsen, who has a long history as a Democratic operative, starting in 1984 when she worked for Gary Hart. However, Joe Liberman is the group’s philosophical wellspring. And despite being Al Gore’s running mate in 2000, he has long been conservatives’ favorite Democrat. And why not? He avidly supported George W Bush’s adventurism and endorsed McCain over Obama in 2008 — which caused Bernie Sanders to observe "because while millions of people worked hard for Obama, Lieberman actively worked for four more years of President Bush's policies."
In 2020, Libermann announced that Larry Hogan, Maryland’s old-style Republican Governor, had joined him in running the enterprise, which should have solidified its status as a genuine centrist concern. However, its known funding comes mainly from Republican sources, including the infamous Harlan Crow, Clarence Thomas’s vacation whisperer. The complete picture of its finances remains obscured as it will not, and is not legally bound to, list its individual donors.
No Labels seeks to influence the 2024 election in a “have your cake and eat it” campaign. On its website, it claims:
“No, No Labels is not and never will be running or funding a presidential campaign. We are only obtaining ballot access in states across the country to lay the necessary groundwork, which is necessary because the major political parties have put up such high barriers to competition. In short, No Labels is working to build the launching pad of an independent Unity presidential ticket.
It is disingenuity on speed. These peckinsniffs claim they are not running or funding a presidential campaign. They are just enabling someone else to launch a presidential campaign. Who would this someone be? You can bet it is a candidate who has their endorsement. It is a sophistic promotion of a distinction without a difference.
No Labels has recently been more honest in proclaiming its true intentions. Two weeks ago, Ben Chavis, a co-chair of the organization, told NBC News:
“If we find that the polls are changed and Joe Biden is way, way out ahead, and the person who the Republicans may choose — and if they continue to choose Donald Trump, even though he’s been indicted — then No Labels will stand down.”
The subtext is, “If it gets to a point where we cannot fix the election, we will keep our powder dry until we can.” It also fails the checkability standard. How ahead is “way, way out ahead?” And it is cynical. Chavis knows, as does every rational thinker, that no candidate will be way out ahead in 2024.
This duplicity raises the question, if No Labels gets serious, which party’s chances will it hurt more? To answer that, follow the money. Harlan Crow and his fellow conservatives are not financing the group because they are disinterested in the outcome of the 2024 election. Clarence Thomas, 75, is not getting any younger. And these partisans can not risk a Democratic President nominating a successor, should Thomas emulate his fellow reactionary Antonin Scalia and keel over without warning.
Third-party Presidential campaigns in America are vanity projects. Third-party candidates cannot win — their only role is to throw elections from Democrats to Republicans and vice versa. Perhaps the most infamous of the lot was Ralph Nader in 2000, who almost certainly inflicted Bush on the country. In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party run enabled Woodrow Wilson to beat Taft. And in 1992, Ross Perot’s Independent Party may have cost George HW Bush the election.
Since 1900, the closest a third-party candidate has come to winning the presidency was Roosevelt’s second-place finish in 1912, when he won 27% of the popular vote but garnered only 17% of the Electoral College vote. And therein lies the rub. The system allows third-party candidates to be nothing more than quixotic spoilers.
Third-party voters will often claim there is no difference between the two major parties. Bullshit. Just ask pregnant women in red states. What they mean is that both parties are beholden to corporate interests. Maybe they are. But which party gets elected makes a huge difference. Do the 2000 Naderites think they won with a Bush victory?
Third-party presidential runs are vanity projects. If No Labels or any other group has a beef, they should build a genuine third party — from the grassroots. They should run candidates in local elections and for State Houses and Congress. Do not just swan up every four years with a “look at me, ain’t I grand” attitude of smug entitlement. Get some dirt under your fingernails.
If you want to do the heavy lifting of building a lasting and viable alternative party, your first goal must be to change how America runs elections. Lobby for proportional representation and ranked-choice, instant run-off voting. These more representative voting procedures will allow you to get your foot in the door and be an agent for real change. Otherwise, you will remain like a fart in an elevator, temporarily obnoxious but effecting no change.
About 20% of Democrats currently say they will not vote for Biden if he is the Democratic candidate in 2024. That is nuts. I do not say that because I believe Biden is necessarily the best Democrats could do. I call it insane because any vote not for Biden is, in effect, a vote for the GOP candidate. And how any Leftist, from centrist to progressive, can think that a Republican President — because that is the only other choice — is better than Biden is beyond me.