I believe Joe F'ckin Lieberman even less than I trusted him 15 years ago when I started this blog, so when the old bastard says his No Labels group isn't going to be a third-party spoiler that throws the election to Trump, I believe him precisely as far as he can throw me.
The third-party No Labels group will stay out of the 2024 U.S. presidential race if polling shows its candidate would play a "spoiler" role by helping to elect either the Democratic or Republican nominee, co-chairman Joe Lieberman said on Sunday.
The group will on Monday release what it calls a "common sense" agenda of policies meant to help unite the country behind a cooperative moderate alternative to the partisanship that characterizes contemporary U.S. politics.
Lieberman, a former U.S. senator and unsuccessful vice presidential candidate, said No Labels hopes to offer a legitimate "third choice" candidate.
"We're not in this to be spoilers," Lieberman told ABC's "This Week" program. He spoke a day before the group was due to release its agenda in New Hampshire, an early primary state.
"If the polling next year shows, after the two parties have chosen their nominees, that in fact we will help elect one or another candidate, we're not going to get involved," he said.
Others involved in No Labels include businessman John Hope Bryant, civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis Jr., Republican former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, and Republican former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory.
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin was due to speak at Monday's No Labels event in New Hampshire, feeding speculation that he could be weighing a third-party candidacy.
Opinion polls suggest the November 2024 election will again pit Democratic President Joe Biden against Republican former President Donald Trump. Both have disapproval ratings above the 50% mark.
Bullshit they won't get involved. I guarantee you their candidate, almost certainly a ticket like Manchin and a blue state GOP governor like Larry Hogan, will stay on the ballot in swing states with the express intent of helping Trump get into office in 2024.
There aren't very many swing voters in America these days, but remember, in 2020 Biden came within 44,000 votes of an Electoral College tie, which would have been resolved by the House in Trump's favor. If roughly half of the swing voters who voted for Biden that year would be willing to ditch him for a No Labels-y candidate, then the group could easily throw the election to Trump.
I write this at a moment when No Labels has just released a policy document that -- it kills me to say this -- is not laughable or easily dismissed. I'm not saying that I agree with it. But it's easy to imagine swing voters nodding in agreement.
The document is equal parts reasonableness, neoliberal boilerplate, and GOP-donor-friendly deficit hawkery. (Obviously, there's quite a bit of overlap in the last two categories.) To moderate voters, much of this will be appealing:
On the issue of abortion, No Labels avoids taking a stand on what point in a pregnancy abortion should be allowed, but rather argues that the issue needs to be reframed with “empathy and respect” to reflect the mixed results of public polling.
“Most American do not support a total ban on abortion and most Americans do not support unlimited access to abortion at the later stages of pregnancy,” the document reads....
The group seeks a similar middle ground on transgender debates. The group argues that most Americans support laws that protect transgender people from discrimination, while they also “don’t want sexuality and gender issues taught to young children in elementary schools and do want fairness in women’s sports.”
We should create a path to citizenship for Dreamers ... but we should also stop letting so many undocumented immigrants stay in the country. We should improve math and reading scores and make sure no child goes hungry ... oh, and charter schools are awesome. We should have universal background checks and not allow gun purchases by those under 21 ... but we need to respect an individual right to own firearms.
This will all seem reasonable to many voters, but probably not many Republican voters. For them, absolutism on guns, immigration, abortion, and trans people, to name just four issues, is an ingrained part of personal identity. By contrast, moderate Democratic voters (and voters who lean Democratic when the Republican opponent is Trump) aren't really invested in liberal ideas. So, yes, the No Labels candidate will absolutely appeal to more 2020 Biden voters than 2020 Trump voters.
No Labels doesn't have to win a state. They just have to make sure Biden can't get to 270. All they'd need is fewer than 50,000 votes in states like Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and if they flip any of those to Trump, it's over.
And yet, No Labels knows this and is going ahead with it. No, they won't drop out of the race. They will absolutely stay in it as long as they have the money, and they'll have millions on tap for that. And Never Trump Republicans will vote for Trump just like they did in 2020 and 2022.
It's all a ratfucking. Any group that has both Joe F'ckin's in them is bad, bad news.
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