Is A No Labels Unity Ticket Just What the Doctor Ordered?

Quite Possibly, but Not Without Risk.

Here’s the thing. The patient (the American Body Politic) is in a terrible state of malaise and does not like the political prescriptions the attending physicians (Doc Dem and Doc GOP) insist the patient take, i.e., yet another dose of Bidenicillin or another dose of Trumpicillin.

The patient might just be right. Both prescriptions have been tried for extended periods, and neither prescription has made the patient feel normal again. More than half the country’s voters seem eager for another political prescription.

No Labels, the Washington-based, non-partisan public-interest group, is making a strong case that a Unity Ticket consisting of a well-respected Democrat and a well-respected Republican as alternatives to Biden or Trump candidacies might be just what the country needs as we look to 2024 and beyond. While the political establishment has criticized a potential No Labels unity ticket as one that would consist of spoiler candidates, the ticket would almost certainly feature Democratic and Republican candidates far more popular than either President Biden or former President Trump and their running mates. That’s why the political class in Washington is so unhappy. Our two main political parties enjoy their hold on politics in America and take great umbrage to any alternative that represents a threat to that hold.

Now, to be sure, fledgling third-party attempts to compete with the two main political parties in America have not only failed but have generally skewed election results to the benefit of either the Republican or the Democratic candidate. Many believe that Ralph Nader’s third-party candidacy cost Democrat Al Gore the election to George W. Bush in 2000 and that Jill Stein’s third-party candidacy cost Hillary Clinton the election in 2016. George H.W. Bush fumed that third-party candidate, Ross Perot, cost him the election against Bill Clinton in 1992. So, yes, it is very dicey when a third-party candidate mounts a serious presidential campaign against a contending Democrat or Republican. But No Labels believes it can demonstrate that what is past is not necessarily prologue, and they might just be right. After all, a whopping 60% to 70% of the electorate are not happy about another Biden-Trump dust-off.  

The main complaint (yes, there are others) against Biden is that he is too old, and the main complaint against Trump (yes, there are others) is that he is simply unfit to serve. Columnist Peggy Noonan, a Republican and an astute and experienced political observer believes a Trump nomination will, quite literally, spell the end of the Republican Party. I agree with her assessment.

Could a No Labels Unity Ticket actually win?

Very possibly. No Labels is not pursuing this alternative recklessly. The organization views its initiative as an alternative to, or an insurance policy against, a Biden-Trump race. If the nominees of the two main parties are different, No Labels will not remain in the scrum.

Donald Trump is an authoritarian steeped in self-interest and self-regard, who has demonstrated before all the world that he is neither a Republican (except in name only) nor anyone who gives a nit for the Constitution of the United States of America. On the contrary, he attacked it in a full frontal assault on January 6, 2021.

As of now, President Biden, who would be 82 at the start of a second term, will be the standard bearer of the Democratic Party in the race for the Presidency in 2024. He is well past his prime, and the nation knows it. So was Ronald Reagan at 77 at the end of his Presidency, and everyone around him knew it, as did much of the country. Donald Trump will turn 79 in June of 2025 following his inauguration should he win the election next year.

No one older than President Reagan had ever served in the Oval Office. At the end of a second term, Biden would be a decade older than Ronald Reagan after his second term. Of course, the country knew that Reagan’s Vice President, George H.W. Bush, an accomplished and competent public servant, was ready to assume office if President Reagan could not finish his second term. Few people feel that way about President Biden’s Vice President.  Vice President George H.W. Bush, of course, did succeed President Reagan when he was elected to the Presidency in 1988. He was 62 when he completed his presidential term on January 20, 1993.

Age will not be President Biden’s only problem when he runs again. Hunter Biden’s travails will also be an issue, and President Biden’s efforts to help his son (when he was Vice President), though probably not illegal, were, nonetheless, unseemly. Hunter wanted his business contacts to know that he was influential, and it appears that Joe Biden was willing to help him. Hunter wasn’t influential in the corridors of power, and Joe Biden was skating on thin ice to help his son portray himself as a power broker. Hunter had no power to broker. Hunter Biden wrapping himself in an aura of power and influence, with his father’s friendly assistance, is not a nothing burger. It is a something burger because it will provide Trump or whoever turns out to be Biden’s opponent with mud to throw.

It will stick in the craw of many voters that Trump and Biden are the only choices our two political parties insist we have. Most American voters resent that. Biden will be the Democratic candidate simply because he wants to be, not because he is the best the Democrats could offer. His age is a legitimate issue, and his younger Vice President, Kamala Harris, provides little comfort that she’ll take over if necessary.

In all but two states, it takes only a plurality (with three tickets competing for votes) to win all of the state’s electoral votes. It isn’t hard to identify the states in which No Labels could be pretty competitive and have a solid chance of winning a plurality of the ballots cast, thereby capturing enough electoral votes to prevail in the Electoral College. 

To many American voters, the two-party, take-it-or-leave-it paradigm is offensive, especially when the two candidates do not enjoy the support of a majority of the electorate.

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 Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georga, the Trump Indictments, the Fox Corp Settlement, The CNN Trump Town Hall, the Hunter Biden plea deal, The New American Cult of Personality, and my interviews with:

William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police, New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels

Senator Barbara Boxer

Senator Joe Lieberman

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan

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