It’s a nice sounding idea for a political science paper. A common-sense third-party alternative, to inject some substance into the presidential debate. It’s heavy on the guidelines, pushes some important limits, but mouth the words “Ralph Nader” and you can remind yourself of how real politics works.
Care to elect Donald Trump?
Sorry, but what more is there to know? Every poll suggests that a third party run by a bipartisan No Labels ticket is not going to draw the hardcore Trumpers. Those folks, and we know that there are more of them than we credit, are staying put. What it will do, plain and simple, is give them the plurality that will be good enough for them to win. The big money behind No Labels is Republican money, and the anti-Trump Republicans are notably also anti-New Labels. No Labels are the best friends Trump could have.
Oh yes, and No Labels is no choice. In a year when abortion is likely to drive voters to the polls in a number of key states, No Labels punts, to put it nicely. “Abortion is too important and complicated an issue to say it’s common sense to pass a law — nationally or in the states — that draws a clear line at a certain stage of pregnancy,” that section of the No Labels platform concludes. Common sense to whom? What’s so complicated about saying that before viability, a woman decides.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, No Labels is an interesting addition to the political landscape.
Look, there is a problem. We seem, at least at this juncture, headed for a rematch that people aren’t all that eager to see. Thus, the interest in whatever happens to be the latest flavor of the month.
It seems, speaking of flavors of the month, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has returned to the familiar trope of antisemitism. Last year, he got in trouble after speaking at an anti-vax rally where he unfavorably made the comparison “(e)ven in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” as if we had it worse. Then recently, he was videotaped suggesting that Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people had been spared COVID-19, remarks he continued to defend as both scientists and Jewish leaders castigated him.
Certainly, no one would be talking about RFK Jr., or about No Labels, for that matter, were there more enthusiasm for the prospect of the coming contest. Some of that will simply build with time, as the prospect does — or does not — become the reality. A big part of that, frankly, is the challenge faced by the campaigns. It’s a long way until the seventh game of the World Series and even if we’re pretty sure of the two teams who are going to be playing, we’ve still got to get through all the formalities — the caucuses and the primaries, the waving of the flag, the speeches and the nominations, the conventions and the rituals, the debates and the days after — that decide an election. In other words, it’s a process.
And maybe we just need to get used to the idea that President Joe Biden is a stronger candidate for reelection than most modern incumbents, that Trump is sui generis and will remain so, and the question is whether any of the Republicans have what it takes to match him.
