How The "No Labels" Party Could Elect Trump
The No Labels Party should not be tossed aside lightly. It must be thrown with great force!
The No Labels Party should not be tossed aside lightly. It must be thrown with great force! This dark money funded, so-called bipartisan, centrist “unity ticket” is profoundly dangerous to our common democracy and could put Trump back in the White House. Ignore this well-crafted billionaire donor class stratagem at your own peril.
According to David Brooks, No Labels has $46 million pledged as of September 2022, and it is looking to have about $70 million on hand by election time. For the price of a mere $70 million, No Labels would have enough money for their nationwide ballot access efforts, allowing their Presidential candidate to run in all 50 states. They have the billionaires behind them to make that happen, too — names like arch-conservative John Catsimatidis, president, chairman, and CEO of Gristedes Foods, as well as Manchin enthusiast Nelson Peltz, founding partner of Trian Fund Management.
Here it gets even more seedy than John Catsimatides (if that is at all possible). As you can imagine, a billionaire-friendly party has difficulty playing by the rules. Their math can only be properly construed under the category of fuzzy. And the candidate selection process at No Labels is entirely undemocratic. “(No Labels is) … planning to employ a top-down candidate selection process: No Labels has indicated that candidates would be chosen by a group of people handpicked by the organization, which has close ties to corporate lawmakers like Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and Susan Collins (R-ME),” writes Andrew Perez in Jacobin. So, if you are trust people like Manchin, Sinema and Collins, then read no further …
This is a party for the billionaire donor class, pure and simple. Former Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican told the New York Times in May that their focus right now is ballot access and that they are at present conferencing with donors and their leaders. “Billionaire friendly” doesn’t quite capture the fact that the donor class doesn’t just buy a seat at the table here, but at No Labels it would appear that they have influence over the actual candidate nominating process!
I actually had no interest in highlighting No Labels until I heard Matt Bennett from Third Way discussing the subject with Molly Jong Fast on the Fast Politics podcast:
Molly Jong Fast: Where have they qualified so far?
Matt Bennett: The first place (they qualified to be on the ballot) was Arizona.
Molly Jong Fast: Which is a place where they could really throw the election to Trump.
MB: They absolutely could. The election was decided by 0.2% last time. They are on in FL, which has become, unfortunately a red state ... They are trying to qualify, basically, everywhere. They now say they want to be on in 50 states. And they have put out this electoral map, where they claim they are going to win 25 or 26 states. It's insane to think they could win anything, much less 26 states. But they are purporting that this is a national effort and it appears they have the money to do it
MJF: That's really scary
MB: It really is. To put this into perspective as to just how damaging this could be, in 2016, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson were two third-party candidates on the ballot. They did not have much money, they did not have any name ID almost anywhere but they were an alternative to voters who didn't either like Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump and a lot of voters -- at least a lot in the context of a very close race -- chose that option. They got 5, 6, 7 percent in a lot of swing states. Just to give you a sense of how devastating this was -- in MI, WI and PA, which, we all remember, those were the three states that killed Clinton. if she'd won those, she's have become President. She lost them very narrowly. In all three of those states, Trump won in 2016 and he lost them in 2020. Nevertheless, his share of the vote in all 3 went up from '16 to '20 and the reason is some of the third party voters in '16 went to Trump, but more went to Biden. so Biden's share relative to Hillary's went up by more.
Its crystal clear evidence that a third party candidate can be a spoiler, it certainly was in 2016. It obviously was with Ralph Nader in 2000 And a very well financed candidate could be incredibly dangerous and damaging.
And herein lies the urgency. Never forget — in Arizona, Biden won by a mere 10,457 votes. Now, imagine Kyrsten Sinema campaigning in her home state for the No Labels candidate, possibly even her close friend, Joe Manchin, who is being seriously considered in their top down candidate selection process. Also, never forget the lesson of Ralph Nader, who gave us — how did we survive through it all? — Bush the Younger. Those who do not learn from History are doomed to repeat it, said the now forgotten cultural critic George Santayana.
While No Labels presents itself as anti-partisan, don’t believe it. Their 501(c)(4) status allows No labels to keep their donors secret, most of them are center-right Republican fat cats. No Labels lost most of their Democrat donors when they endorsed Trumpy Republican Cory Gardner over moderate Democrat Mark Udall in Colorado. Incidentally, they are a minor party in Colorado and could conceivably swing the blue state red. How’s that for “anti-partisan”? And lest we forget, billionaire Harlan Crow — of the Nazi memorabilia and of Clarence Thomas — is one of their “whale” donors. Because nothing suggests anti-partisanship quite like Harlan Crowe.
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