That gust of wind you just felt? That’s a huge sigh of relief from No Labels critics across the political spectrum who feared the third-party effort would inevitably pull votes from President Joe Biden, acting as a spoiler to help former President Donald Trump retake the White House.
No Labels dropped plans Thursday for a so-called “unity ticket,” which was expected to be a moderate Republican running for president with an equally moderate Democrat as vice president. That would have cut into the cross-party support Biden won in 2020, when Republicans and independents fed up with Trump backed the Democratic nominee.
“Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run, and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before,” No Labels said in a statement. “But No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidate emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”
That’s a little off the mark. No Labels mostly pushed an in-it-to-win-it message. But the group’s founder, Nancy Jacobson, was quoted in a February story in The Atlantic walking away from that message, saying the group only trying “to give people a choice.”
It is true that no politician with established name recognition wanted a spot on the No Labels ticket. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who flamed out in the Republican presidential primaries in January before any votes were cast, last week took his name out of the running after he and his advisors considered it.
No Labels is out but political spoilers still exist
Rahna Epting, executive director of the progressive group Move On, on Thursday responded to the news by proclaiming that “millions of Americans are relieved that No Labels finally decided to do the right thing to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. ”
She and other No Labels critics are also concerned about other potential spoilers, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running as an independent or Jill Stein running again on the Green Party ticket.
Epting called it time for Kennedy “to see the writing on the wall that no third-party has a path forward to winning the presidency. We must come together to defeat the biggest threat to our democracy and country: Donald Trump.”
Don’t hold your breath on that one. Kennedy has what No Labels did not – name recognition inherited from an uncle who was president and a father who was assassinated while seeking that job. His campaign is built on an odd coalition of Camelot nostalgia and fear-mongering about science.
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And while any candidate seeking the presidency brings an element of vanity to the effort, Kennedy’s vainglory seems to be the most dominant factor in his quest, which clearly poses problems for Biden.
Just consider what Trump, the most obvious narcissist in the race, had to say about Kennedy last week.
“He is crooked Joe Biden’s political opponent, not mine,” Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social. “I love that he is running!”
The No Labels secrecy hurt their stated mission
Matt Bennett, a spokesperson for Third Way, a center-left think tank, on Thursday said his group had “waged a campaign to dissuade any serious candidate from joining” a No Labels ticket, which Third Way had predicted was “doomed, dangerous, and would divide the anti-Trump coalition.”
Bennett said his group was “deeply relieved” that No Labels was out of the race but still concerned about “third-party spoilers.”
The animosity for No Labels was often rooted in the group’s secrecy, operating as a nonprofit with millions of dollars from donors it refused to identify.
We know, because Politico reported it last June, that one donor was Harlan Crow, a billionaire and Republican mega-donor known for footing the bill when U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas took private jets to lavish vacations.
Doesn’t exactly give off centrist vibes, right?
Dropping out of this election is the latest No Labels failure
No Labels also took heat for making plans that would have provided a little transparency for the process and then just abandoning them. The group last year announced plans for an old-fashioned convention this month in Dallas, where we could watch the group nominate a ticket. That idea was killed in November.
Instead, No Labels convened a private virtual meeting last month for 800 “delegates” and then announced that they had voted to move forward with a unity ticket. Who were these delegates? How were they selected? No Labels refused to answer those pretty basic questions.
Is it a grift? Is No Labels an elaborate grift with no candidate? Their secrecy is telling.
No Labels then announced a 12-member “Country Over Party” committee to interview potential presidential candidates – again, all in secret – before finally pulling the plug Thursday.
With $21 million in the bank as of 2022, according to reporting in November from The Daily Beast, and staffers making six-figure salaries while handing out lucrative consulting and polling contracts, some critics started to wonder if No Labels was a massive grift masquerading as a centrist political party.
Still, it was something worth trying in 2024
I think the group just lost its way after launching in 2010 with the laudable goal of getting Republicans and Democrats in Congress to talk to each other, to seek common ground, to actually legislate based on issues and policies rather than division and ideology.
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It can be heady stuff, being the players in the game that so many are worrying about, an inside-the-beltway bubble allure to being the hot topic. Maybe No Labels just finally saw the field from outside that bubble on Thursday.
The group’s statement expressed concern that “the division and strife gripping the country will reach a critical point after this election, regardless of who wins” while vowing to keep its movement going.
Good luck with the reset. Be more transparent going forward. Get back to the focus on bipartisanship that motivated No Labels 14 years ago. Give critics reasons to reconsider your motives.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No Labels leaves 2024 presidential race after never really entering it