No Labels tells me they don't want to be a 2024 election spoiler. It's time to prove it.
Imagine a group that looks and acts like a political party (while insisting it is not a party) with deep-pocket donors (whom the group won't identify) holding a secret meeting with hundreds of delegates (whom the group also won’t identify) to determine the best way to have an impact on the 2024 presidential election.
That describes the meeting planned for Friday by No Labels, a self-styled centrist nonprofit that has been working on ballot access in November for a third-party presidential candidate, amid fierce criticism for a sweeping lack of transparency.
No Labels, which pitches its potential (unnamed) nominee as a better option in the inevitable rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, faces a fork in the road during Friday's virtual meeting of 800 delegates from 50 states.
They will hear an update on the process of finding a candidate but are not expected to nominate anyone. And they could decide to give up on the race.
Critics fear the group will inadvertently – or intentionally – draw votes from Biden, helping Trump win.
Super Tuesday gives No Labels milestone to define itself
No Labels has long said that it would move to the next phase of whatever it will be in 2024 after Super Tuesday.
Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat and the founding chairman of No Labels, told me Friday's meeting will be "a tri-partisan political convention" for delegates who will "ultimately decide if we run a ticket and who a ticket is."
No Labels seeks a "unity" ticket, likely with a Republican for president and a Democratic running mate. The group has secured ballot access in 16 states and is working on 17 others. The candidates, if they get selected, would be responsible for ballot access in the remaining 17 states.
Ryan Clancy, chief strategist for No Labels, would not identify the delegates and didn't have much to say about their selection process other than each had experienced "one-on-one conversations" with the group. He said the secrecy is meant to protect the delegates, whom he called "true believers," from critics who are trying to "bully" them.
"The reason we're not releasing the names of the delegates is the same reason we're not releasing the names of any of our other supporters," Clancy said. "And we're just not going to subject them to that."
Politics can be a rough sport. It should be played in the open. The members of any organization that keeps under wraps actions that could change the course of a presidential election should expect – and deserve – scrutiny for their efforts and criticism for their secrecy.
Haley as a third-party candidate: Biden's toast. Trump's unhinged. How about a third-party ticket led by Nikki Haley?
If not Haley, then who will be No Labels candidate? Silence.
No Labels was fairly transparent about two things during an interview this week. Lieberman, who had floated in January Republicans former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as potential No Labels nominees, now says he does not see either jumping to the group after faring poorly against Trump in the Republican primaries.
Haley said no to the notion just Tuesday. Christie left his options open.
Both would have faced legal challenges in states with "sore loser" laws that prevent candidates who lose primary elections to later switch to third-party general election tickets, Lieberman said.
Clancy also offered more detail on a No Labels internal presentation about how to approach the general election, which CNN reported on Saturday. He said the strategy laid out a middle road between far-right and far-left approaches to fiscal issues, foreign policy, national security and immigration.
Under a banner of "terrible choices," Clancy said he developed a contrast in how "the median voter" views the Democratic ticket, tagged with phrases like "open border" and "abandon Israel," and the Republican ticket, tagged with "anti-immigrant" and "immoral isolationism."
For a group that casts itself as an "affirmative" alternative to down-and-dirty politics, that has the ring of some same-old, same-old stuff.
Since No Labels says it wants to beat Trump as much as it wants to beat Biden, how is it going to attract that candidate after Trump is steamrolling once-credible Republican contenders in his party's primary?
Critics say No Labels is living a political fantasy
No Labels has been in such a scrap with critics like MoveOn and The Lincoln Project that it sent a letter in January to the U.S. Department of Justice, accusing those groups of racketeering. The Department of Justice has offered no response. And the critics are not backing down.
No Labels has said for months that it has no interest in being a spoiler and will only field a ticket if it sees an opportunity to win the election.
Biden's voter issue: Joe Biden's problem with angry liberal voters isn't going away. Not on Super Tuesday.
Rick Wilson, co-founder of The Lincoln Project, points to a column in The Atlantic, where No Labels founder Nancy Jacobson said the group is "not in it to win it" and is only trying "to give people a choice."
Wilson, a longtime Republican strategist who has worked on a third-party run, said the "grim, horrible mathematics that cannot be altered by wishing or dreaming" shows that there is "no, repeat no, constituency to get to the 270 Electoral College votes" for a third-party candidate to win the presidency.
"It doesn't exist," Wilson said. "It's a fantasy at best. It's a lie at worst."
Clancy countered that Jacobson was talking in The Atlantic about the No Labels effort to secure ballot access as a nonprofit, not about winning an election as a political party.
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, were also floated as potential No Labels nominees. Both passed.
Wilson said Hogan, who had been on the board of No Labels until December, and Manchin, who is not seeking another Senate term, looked at the numbers and knew they could not win.
No Labels claims it doesn't want to be spoiler, but ...
Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, a progressive group, said No Labels should show more transparency while "deciding on behalf of the country whether they want to run a spoiler ticket for president."
She also expressed concerns about Jacobson's "not in it to win it" admission and how the group found 800 delegates for a secret online meeting this week that had once been envisioned as an old-fashioned in-person political convention to see whether a ticket could win support.
“They are contradicting themselves regularly," Epting said. "They're inconsistent. They're unclear. The math doesn't add up. The facts don't add up to what they say they intend to do. And then even at that point, they have contradicted their own intent.”
Epting said No Labels could either go "full campaign mode" after Friday's meeting or stand down from the race. MoveOn plans to spend more than $32 million in six presidential swing states plus Ohio between now and November. Some of that will be aimed at No Labels if necessary.
That sounds like plenty of ways for No Labels to lose and no clear path to victory. The group shows no affection for Trump. But its potential voters would probably come from reluctant Biden supporters.
And every dollar MoveOn has to spend on knocking down No Labels is a dollar it could have specifically focused on defeating Trump.
Sounds like a spoiler, intentional or not.
Secrecy gives me biggest reason to be skeptical
A third group, Citizens to Save Our Republic, on Tuesday released an "open letter" to No Labels delegates, asking them to sign a "no spoiler pledge" that would require any candidate to drop out of the race by July 1 "if they lack a viable path to victory."
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Former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat who co-founded that group, tried a different tact with No Labels, praising it for "positive contributions to the political landscape" while also warning of dire consequences if a third-party candidate plays spoiler this year.
"With the stakes so high, it is imperative that Americans have a clear up and down choice this fall: do they want to continue as a democracy with Biden or become an autocracy with Trump," Gephardt wrote.
I'm not sure what No Labels will decide Friday. I'm not sure No Labels knows, either. But the group's instinct for secrecy is a sure sign we should be paying closer attention and calling for more transparency.
November's outcome is too important to be influenced in the shadows along the margins by a group of unknown delegates whom nobody voted for, who are doing their work in some electronic meeting room we can't enter.
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: Super Tuesday is over. No Labels must name its third party candidate
