Our old friend for Connecticut is back to hand the 2024 presidential race over to Donald Trump in order to satisfy his well-heeled masters, and I can't see anything good from this effort to destroy both Joe Biden and the country in the name of corporate cash.
Former senator Joe Lieberman knows better than most the impact third-party bids can have on presidential elections. His 2000 Democratic campaign for vice president fell just 537 Florida votes short of victory, in a state where Ralph Nader, the liberal activist and Green Party nominee, won more than 97,000 votes.
But that didn’t stop the Connecticut Democrat turned independent from joining a meeting Thursday in support of plans by the centrist group No Labels to get presidential ballot lines in all 50 states for 2024. The group calls its effort an “insurance policy” against the major parties nominating two “unacceptable” candidates next year.
Asked if President Biden, his former Senate colleague, would be unacceptable, Lieberman said the answer was uncertain.
“No decision has been made on any of that. But we’re putting ourselves in a position,” Lieberman said. “You know, it might be that we will take our common-sense, moderate, independent platform to him and the Republican candidate and see which one of them is willing to commit to it. And that could lead to, in my opinion, a No Labels endorsement.”
Uncertainty over the $70 million No Labels ballot effort has set off major alarm bells in Democratic circles and raised concerns among Republican strategists, who have launched their own research projects to figure out the potential impacts. As Lieberman spoke, the Arizona Democratic Party filed a lawsuit to block No Labels from ballot access in that state on procedural grounds. Matt Bennett of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way has argued that the plot is “going to reelect Trump,” and Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has accused No Labels of wanting “to play the role of spoiler.”
“The only way you can justify this is if you really believe that it doesn’t really matter if it is Joe Biden or Donald Trump,” said Stuart Stevens, a former presidential campaign strategist for George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney, who now works with the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “So it is sort of a test. If you live in a world where it doesn’t matter, this is kind of harmless. If you live in a world where it does matter, it is dangerous.”
Splits have also emerged inside the organization. William Galston, a Brookings Institution policy scholar, said this week that he would separate himself from No Labels, which he helped found, over its 2024 planning for a third-party campaign to challenge Biden and Trump.
“I am proud of No Labels’ record of bipartisan legislation, and I know its leaders want what is best for the country. But I cannot support the organization’s preparation for a possible independent presidential candidacy,” he said in a statement. “There is no equivalence between President Biden and a former president who threatens the survival of our constitutional order. And most important, in today’s closely divided politics, any division of the anti-Trump vote would open the door to his reelection.”
No Labels chief executive Nancy Jacobson said Galston had added a lot to the No Labels cause. “We’re sad to see him go,” she said in a statement.
Of course, the real problem is that one country wrecking Joe knows another.
Among the group’s advisers is former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory, a Republican who just lost a Senate bid in the face of Trump opposition; former director of national intelligence Dennis Blair; and Benjamin Chavis Jr., a former executive director of the NAACP.
“I just wanted to emphasize on the spoiler question: I would not be involved if I thought in any account that we would do something to spoil the election in favor of Donald Trump,” Chavis said at the meeting, which was attended in person or via Zoom by 16 No Labels staff and supporters, including Blair and McCrory. “That’s just not going to happen.”
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who has not declared whether he will run for reelection next year, and former Maryland governor Larry Hogan (R) are also supporters of the effort, and both said they have not ruled out participating in a No Labels presidential ticket, if it happens.
“If enough Americans believe there is an option and the option is a threat to the extreme left and extreme right, it will be the greatest contribution to democracy, I believe,” Manchin said in an interview. When asked whether he would participate in a No Labels ticket, he said, “I don’t rule myself in and I don’t rule myself out.”
A Manchin/Hogan ticket won't take a single Trump 2024 vote, but in a contest like 2016 or 2020 where the Electoral College race was decided by only thousands of votes in four or five states, this could absolutely hand the nation back to Trump, and everyone knows it.
Of course we'd get two evil Joes to try to take down the decent one.
By the way, if you're still unclear about the real motive here in the effort to spoil Biden's re-election, understand that Joe Manchin is now firmly on the GOP side of attacking Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's fraud case against Trump.
“It’s just a very, very sad day for America,” said Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the Democrat, referring to Mr. Trump’s indictment in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
“Especially when people are maybe believing that the rule of law or justice is not working the way it’s supposed to and it’s biased — we can’t have that,” Mr. Manchin said. “But on the other hand, no one’s above the law. But no one should be targeted by the law.”
At this point Manchin's screaming need for revenge against Joe Biden is going to result in him announcing he will retire from the Senate in 2024 and run as a third party spoiler.
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