‘No Labels,’ a Centrist Group of Democrats and Republicans, Is Threatening a 3rd Party

America could certainly use one, to provide some much needed coalition politics, but No Labels is way off track to put up a presidential candidate. I have written on this subject a number of times. Nice name, by the way, I congratulate them on that.

But please, by all means do not run a third party candidate for president

I understand that, if you can believe the polls, the country is not thrilled by a re-run of a Biden-Trump presidential election. Who can blame them? An independent candidate in either party warms the hearts of the opposition, but it’s bad politics and we’ve been there before with Ralph Nader and Ross Perot.

No Labels is getting ready to do just that in 2024

According to a Friday editorial in the Washington Times, “No Labels, a centrist group of Democrats and Republicans, is organizing to get on the ballot in 2024 if it’s left to a Biden-Trump race. They’re courting Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who is scheduled to headline a July 17 town hall for the group in New Hampshire. Mr. Manchin told CNN last week he hasn’t ruled out anything, including a third-party run. No Labels says it’s spending $70 million to launch an independent unity ticket.”

Well, there’s a bunch of things wrong with that. First of all, “if it’s left to a Biden-Trump race” is way too late. By the time they find that out, the game is over. Second, and far more important, is that Joe Manchin is despised by Democrats and valued by Republicans only as a spoiler they very much need. Third, if you even need a third by now, $70 million is chump-change, about enough to buy a high-end Senate campaign.

Can someone explain to me how any of that, particularly the Manchin bit, engages the 40+% of voters who think of themselves as independent and aren’t happy either with present day Democrats or Republicans? Go figure.

But figure creatively and, in this case, creative means changes that actually change and will ride out the test of time. That means going after two-party blockage from the bottom up instead of the top down (not that Manchin was ever anywhere near the top).

The 40% have an agenda and it’s a long-term agenda

Among, but not limited to these, are that they want money out of Washington,

• abortion as a personal decision,

• gun control,

• health-care that’s affordable and transferable with no preconditions

• laws that support unions,

• a fair and equitable graduated tax to its former top of 92%,

• closing all tax loopholes and offshore tax havens,

• the return of American industry,

• wages that allow a single wage-earner to support a family,

• safe water, safe air and protection from forever chemicals,

• renewable energy and the end of oil,

• college educations that don’t break the family budget,

• criminal charges and jail terms for CEO’s whose companies lie and cheat,

• a living wage that approaches the reality of $70,000 annually and

• term limits for politicians and judges.

They want prison reform, an end to homelessness and so many other things that the richest nation in the world could easily accomplish.

Senator Joe Manchin doesn’t represent any of those goals and, worse than that, he’s a political hack of the most self-serving kind. We don’t need another presidential candidate, we need a totally re-energized Congress.

We need a movement like ‘No Labels’ to support non-presidential candidates in state and national elections

You read that correctly—non presidential candidates. All of these issues are wedge-issues and not something you run a presidential campaign on. If you have a losing sports team, you don’t fix anything by hiring an expensive quarterback. You go after weaknesses on the offense and defense and build from there.

First, No Labels needs to hold a national convention and develop a platform that reflects the independent 40-44% who align as neither Republican nor Democrat. Then they’ve gotta work their ass off to put up as many candidates as possible who will sign on to that platform—and run on it-- for House and Senate races. After a few election cycles, expand that agenda to include both state and city elections—not for mayor or governor, but for legislative races, including school boards and judgeships.

That will bring in the missing 40%. Then watch coalition politics at work

Wrap your head around what could be accomplished with Congress pried open, 40% Republican, 40% Democrat and 20% No Label. Democrats and Republican alike would have to secure the No Label swing vote to accomplish anything. Bi-partisan politics—the only politics that works—would once again be possible with the 40% who abandoned politics brought back into the game. Water-cooler political discussions would thrive, friends would talk to each other again and DC would remember how-to instead of who-hates.

But none of that will ever happen with a third presidential candidate.

Surprisingly, that very partial list of ‘wants’ I named are widely supported by both Democrat and Republican voters. But their representatives in Washington, submitting to their bottom-feeding bases and scared shitless (as well they should be) of their own re-election, are following scorched-earth partisan policies, deathly afraid to allow a victory to the ‘enemy.’

We are not the enemy

We are honest, hard-working, value oriented Americans and we want Washington to lay down its arms-race and begin to get back to work to change what needs to be changed in the richest nation in the world. We shouldn’t rank last overall compared with six other industrialized countries in health care, 14th among 37 OECD and G20 countries in education and have five times greater gun death rates than those countries rated second and third. Those numbers do not reflect who we are as a nation, but are a very accurate ranking of who we have become.

Watching our republican form of democratic government lose its way is not a spectator sport

We’re damned tired of locked-in, locked-out, lock-em-up screaming partisanship and disconnected, old, white men in Congress dictating our laws as if we were children. We’re particularly discouraged by “the best government money can buy” at the top of the political heap. We’re going to get that roadmap back or it will lead to chaos, pitchforks and barricades in the streets.

My dad was a wire-rimmed-spectacle Republican small businessman, who thought FDR was the devil incarnate. But no one ever came to our kitchen window for a sandwich and left unfed. Our little middle-class neighborhood on the west side of Evanston was left-leaning and right-leaning, but most of our leaning was across a backyard fence and a healthy political disagreement never led to closed windows.

Love thy neighbor wasn’t just a saying in times of depression and war

Our response was Social Security and Victory Gardens, men who went off to fight and women who went to the factories to build ships ands planes. Before TV drove us inside, we did our loving outside, from house to house and street to street, kids running wild but in before dark or there was hell to pay.

In a very different era, a slimly elected president best defined the issue

Few presidents were as controversial as Harry Truman when he first won election on his own. The death of Franklin Roosevelt elevated him to office, but Harry won his own election in 1948.

Truman accomplished a great deal, including the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from a repeat of the 1918 Treaty of Versailles that brought another World War within twenty years. Typically, Truman wouldn’t allow his name to be attached, but named the Plan for Secretary of State George Marshall.

Asked about his many wins against a staunchly critical Republican Party, Harry smiled and said, “It’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit.” Truman had a great grin and a connection to the common man because he was common among them. He has since been honored by both parties as one of America’s most effective and beloved presidents.

Those words are as true today as they were over seventy years ago.