No Labels . . . No Candidate

No Labels, the political non-movement aimed at running a presidential ticket to appeal to centrist voters (because nominating Hillary Clinton to appeal to centrists worked out so well for the Democrats), gave up the ghost and announced it would not field a ticket for 2024.  

No Labels had made a sincere effort at finding a presidential candidate who could win enough states to reach the minimum majority of 270 electoral votes and offer a more palatable platform than what the Democrats and the Republicans have espoused, but it was not only sincere, it was stupid.  Those of us who would have rather stuck our fingers in an automatic garbage disposal than vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016 and looked toward building a new party to replace one of the existing major parties could have told the No Labels nobodies that long ago.  Third-party movements meant to create a new major party to replace one of the existing ones are doomed to fail because the major parties rig the system to prevent it from happening.  And when there is a window for a minor party to displace a major party, as there was in early 2017 when the Democrats were declining and falling faster the the Roman Empire in the late fifth century, the potential organizers of such a party miss the opportunity.

To be fair, former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman (above), a leader of the No Labels movement who died last month, did make it clear that No Labels would sit out the 2024 presidential election if they determined that a No Labels ticket would tilt the election to Trump and there was no clear path for a No Labels victory in November.  So shouldn't I give credit to the leadership of No Labels for gauging the situation and making the right call?  No, I shouldn't.  The folks at No Labels made this decision not out of seeing the error of their ways but because they couldn't find anyone dumb enough to accept their nomination for the Presidency.  One centrist politician after another - and Chris Christie, who's a centrist like I'm a jet pilot - turned down No Labels' offer of the group's presidential and vice presidential nominations.  And let's be honest here: If Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who has talked openly about running for President, had been offered the nomination, he likely would not have accepted it.  Also, to be quite blunt, Lieberman's death took the wind out of No Labels' sails. 

So now that that's out of the way, we should now turn to the next task at hand - denying Robert Kennedy, Jr. ballot access in swing states.

America: The Nervous Breakdown Continues

The 2023 elections continued a winning streak for Democrats that began with Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election victory and continued with the midterm results of 2022.  Andy Beshear was re-elected governor of Kentucky, Democrats won both houses of Virginia's legislature and expanded their majorities in the houses of the New Jersey state legislature, and abortion rights were enshrined in the state constitution in Ohio.  Many people think the MAGA movement is in retreat at the polls.  Don't you believe it.

The Republicans still have the advantage going into 2024.  Forget the polls that show Trump ahead of Biden, and forget especially the greater number of polls that show Biden ahead of Trump, which Biden himself alluded in a testy exchange with a "reporter" from Fox "News."   Here are the basic reasons why 2024 is still in tap to be a Republican year:

• Democrats face strong headwinds to keep their Senate majority.
• U.S. House districts are still gerrymandered. 
• Many voter-suppression laws remain on the books.  
• Voter turnout in off-year elections is low and cannot be used as an effective barometer for midterm or presidential elections.
• The Electoral College can still negate the will of the people if they pick a Democratic President, as the 2016 election so clearly proved.
• Support for abortion rights in Republican states like Ohio do not automatically translate into support for Democratic candidates in statewide elections.

Change these conditions, and the Democratic Party's fortunes can improve.  But as such changes are not likely to happen, even the rosiest outlook on the economy might not save Biden this time.

And there's not just the threat of a third-party candidate playing the role of spoiler to help Trump.  There's the threat of four of them.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is now a leading choice among young voters, and his anti-Semitic and anti-vaccine comments haven't hurt him as an independent candidate.  His appeal among young people might actually hurt Biden.  Cornel West has quit as the Green Party presidential nominee and continued to run as an independent, while Jill Stein - yes, the same Jill Stein who was the Green Party presidential nominee in 2016 and failed to win a 5 percent minimum of the vote to qualify the Green Party for matching funds in the 2020 presidential election - is taking his place on the Green ticket.  And the No Labels movement, which has promised to run a bipartisan presidential/vice presidential ticket, might have a presidential nominee in waiting in the form of Joe Manchin.

The senior senator from West Virginia announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and plans to tour the country to listen to voters needs - an obvious precursor to a presidential run, and possible as the No Labels candidate.  To be fair, No Labels' director, former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, has said that No Labels will not field a presidential ticket if researching and polling show that such a ticket would help Trump, but there will still be at least three other presidential candidates on the ballot who could and probably will screw things up for Joe Biden.

At least.  There could be more candidates.  Some people are still talking about Oprah Winfrey for President, while others are talking about her as a vice presidential No Labels candidate.  And still, waiting in the wings, and being taken very seriously, even by esteemed newsmen such as CNN's Jake Tapper, is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

Oh, honey, I think America is having a nervous breakdown like you wouldn't believe! 

Oh yeah, in Mississippi, Democrat Brandon Presley - a distant cousin of Elvis - lost his bid for the state's governorship to incumbent Republican Tate Reeves despite Reeves being tainted by scandal.  Brandon has just left the building.  Another Brandon is likely to leave the White House a year and change from now.

No Labels, No Guts, No Glory

The group "No Labels" that formed this week aspires to help Democrats an Republicans find common ground to solve this country's problems. A moderate group comprised largely of independents like Michael Bloomberg and including a few Democrats and fewer Republicans (what does that tell you?) , the No Labels group wants the extremes of each major party to put their differences aside and work toward a sensible, centrist governing style.

This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard.

First of all, as E.J. Dionne wrote in a column published today, the No Labels group supposes that the American left is as extreme as the American right. In fact, the American left has moved so much toward the center, the Democrats have become as moderate as the old Rockefeller wing of the Republican party, while the Republicans have become more extremely conservative and beyond the scope of moderation. There are politicians as far to the left as Rand Paul is to the right, but they've become hopelessly marginalized over the last thirty years. As for Democrats, they're willing to compromise - like President Obama - but what's the use when Republicans aren't?

Secondly, "bipartisanship" is a fuzzy aim. If your idea is to support bipartisanship that produces legislation insuring a brighter future for America, fine. But if you support the kind of bipartisanship that gets any old bill passed, no matter how bad it is, you're better off with lines in the sand. Case in point: A telecommunications bill that passed in 1995 and was signed by President Clinton enjoyed broad bipartisan support. It also allowed large media conglomerates to own more broadcast outlets in more media markets - sometimes in the same market - and ruined the quality of programming on music radio. It also put news radio until the control of fewer companies; in New York, news stations WCBS-AM and WINS-AM, once competitors, are owned by the same company. The only major difference between them is that WINS has teletype machine sound effects.

Thirdly, No Labels doesn't seem to have any ideas or proposals of their own. This group doesn't seem to stand for anything; it's only interested in combining the best ideas of either side. It doesn't matter to them that the best ideas in Washington these days may not be good enough. Some of them are just plain bad. But bad ideas are what we Americans are best at generating. No Labels is one of them.

No Labels will go the way of so many other "moderate" groups that tried to move the country forward but proposed solutions that only kept it moving in place. It will disband without any fanfare. Another such group slated to join them would be the Democrats.