Pinning a Label on No Labels

By David Corn  July 22, 2023

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman at a No Labels town hall meeting in New Hampshire on July 17, 2023.

Those who follow my work at Mother Jones or my tweets, threads, and spouts, as well as my posts on Facebook, Post.news, Mastodon, and BlueSky, know that I’ve lately been busy probing No Labels, the self-proclaimed centrist outfit that’s preparing to possibly run a bipartisan “unity” third-party ticket in 2024—and that I’ve zeroed in on its finances. The group says it rejects what it calls the extremism of the right and of the left and insists its noble intention is to offer American voters next year an escape from the binary choice offered by the two-party duopoly. Polls and historical voting data convincingly indicate that such an effort would likely draw more votes from Joe Biden than Donald Trump—presuming they are the two nominees—and, thus, would be a boost for the twice- (maybe thrice-) indicted Trump. Yet the leaders of No Labels assert that their aim is not to be spoilers who help Trump regain the White House.

Democratic and Never-Trump Republican strategists are highly suspicious, believing there must be ulterior motives at play, given that the data (and common sense) so overwhelmingly suggest this endeavor could indeed affect the tally in a few swing states and tilt the election to Trump (or perhaps another MAGA-ish Republican). What adds to this suspicion is that No Labels is a dark-money group that refuses to disclose who is funding its 2024 scheme.

That’s where I come in. With the help of my colleague Russ Choma, I’ve broken stories that have revealed some of the group’s donors, as well as intriguing aspects of its operations. A list of contributors underwriting No Labels’ 2024 project that we discovered shows that the organization’s financial backers lean heavily toward the GOP and includes a few major fat-cats who have handed millions of dollars to Republican candidates and entities. (Several big-bucks No Labels supporters are Democrats.) One prominent No Labels patron, a Florida real estate developer named Allan Keen, gave $135,000 to Trump’s 2020 campaign. Why would GOP mega-moneybags be so supportive of this venture? When we reached out to Keen and other GOP donors to inquire about their generosity toward No Labels, they declined to comment. (The Democratic donors also kept mum.)

And there’s another thing: No Labels says it is not a political party—and that’s why it doesn’t have to tell us who finances it. (Political parties must reveal their donors.) So despite my efforts and those of other reporters who have revealed previous donors to the group—including Harlan Crow, the right-wing billionaire who collects Nazi memorabilia and who has been a benefactor of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—we do not know for sure the identities of the people or entities that have pumped tens of millions of dollars into the group in recent years or that will be providing the $70 million it says it’s raising for its 2024 plan. Yet, as I recently reported, No Labels, the not-a-political-party, has set up state political parties in Florida, North Carolina, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and Maine. So, yeah, it’s not a political party. It just births political parties. This is dodgy.

Here's something else that doesn’t make sense. No Labels, as I noted, denounces what it considers to be the extremism of the Republicans and the extremism of the Democrats. But this formulation essentially equates Biden and Trump as extremists. Really? One of these guys refused to accept an election loss, pushed the Big Lie that the contest had been rigged against him, and incited a violent insurrectionist attack on Congress. The other one brokered bipartisan deals on infrastructure, Covid policy, and manufacturing. Trump leads the MAGA movement of extremists and seeks to exacerbate tribal divisions; Biden is a conventional Democrat who won the Democratic nomination and the White House by vowing to ease political tensions and has tried to do so. No Labels both-sidesism is absurd. One more reason to wonder what these folks are up to.

In May, two co-chairs of the group—former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent, and Benjamin Chavis Jr., a onetime head of the NAACP—issued a statement proclaiming, “Trump should never again be president of the United States.” They added, “We don’t believe there is any ‘equivalency’ between President Biden and former President Trump, who is a uniquely divisive force in our politics and who sought to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election.” Yet other No Labels leaders did not sign on to this declaration. And one of the two state chairs of the No Labels Party of Colorado—both are Republicans—recently said that he sees its 2024 activity as useful for Trump. Whatever Lieberman and Chavis stated, No Labels’ fundamental view is that both Biden and Trump ought to be tossed on to the ash heap. 

The group’s not-so-veiled promotion of Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat and DC insider, as its potential 2024 nominee also belies its supposed commitment to generating a new form of breakthrough politics. By the way, anti–No Labels activists have recently set up a super-PAC, led by former House Democratic leader and current lobbyist Dick Gephardt, to oppose No Labels.

Looking to understand what’s going on with New Labels, this week I had a chat with William Galston. He’s a longtime Washington policy wonk and a self-described moderate Democrat. Galston is someone with whom I might disagree about certain issues, but he has always struck me as a smart fellow who is passionate about all sorts of policy matters. In 2010, he helped start New Labels, looking to create a group that could concoct bipartisan compromises on different fronts. In April, he quit No Labels. As he put it: “I felt compelled to resign in disagreement over its decision to launch a bipartisan presidential campaign.” Galston, a numbers-guy who has studied the data, explained his decision in the Wall Street Journal by stating the obvious: “Mr. Biden can win the 2024 election if he is able to consolidate the anti-Trump vote, as he did in 2020. But if a No Labels ticket receives even a tiny share of the vote in key states, Mr. Trump could end up back in the Oval Office.”

I asked Galston why his old No Labels comrades—including former Democratic fundraiser Nancy Jacobson, who runs the group, and Ryan Clancy, its chief political strategist—seem hell-bent on an enterprise that could result in a Trump restoration. “It is very simple and straightforward,” he tells me. “The No Labels leadership believes the public disaffection with the two-party system is so pervasive and so deep, there is a historic opening for an insurgency.” He adds: “They see public opinion more like a bell curve than a dumbbell”—meaning there is a bulge in the moderate middle, not a hard-and-fast division between two far-apart and ideologically separated camps. That bulge, in their view, is waiting to be captured.

“Combine these two propositions and what you have is an unshakeable conviction that if you give people a reasonable alternative, they will flock to it,” Galston continues. “Because the desire to end the polarization is so deep, people will run to it.”

Flock to Joe Manchin? Or Jon Huntsman Jr., the former GOP governor of Utah, who is another No Labels favorite? They truly believe that? That’s what Galston thinks. “They believe they can be the Perot campaign on steroids,” he notes, referring to the 1992 third-party bid by oddball billionaire Ross Perot, who hit the mid-30s in polling before he left the race. (Perot later reentered the contest and ended up pulling 19 percent and perhaps being a drag on George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign.)

Galston concedes that donors to No Labels may be kicking in money because they think a third-party ticket will aid Trump or another GOP standard-bearer. But he takes his former colleagues at their word when they say they do not wish to be spoilers. He also says that he believes No Labels will reach its goal of pulling in $70 million for its efforts to win ballot lines throughout the country and can probably obtain access in every state. That is, this is a real threat to Biden, should he be the nominee.

Galston fears not the motives of the No Labels gang but the possible impact of their actions. After speaking with him, I was still a bit flummoxed. If you believe Trump is a dangerous authoritarian who imperils the future of the republic, why do anything that might possibly pave the way for his return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Do the No Labelers truly think that Manchin or some other same-old politician could seize the public imagination and gallop past both Biden and Trump? That seems nuts.

Perhaps there’s another piece of this. With this project and a potential No Labels ticket, Jacobson, Clancy, Lieberman, Manchin, Huntsman, and other No Labelers (including former GOP Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina) can keep themselves in the mix. Look, we’re talking a lot about this group. It has relevance. (And Clancy, according to recent tax returns for No Labels, is making $300,000 a year for his work for the organization.)

A few days ago, No Labels held a town hall meeting in New Hampshire that featured Manchin and Huntsman to launch its policy platform, a predictable mishmash of centrist positions and vague notions (for example, the document says that the state should respect a woman’s right to make decisions about her health care but it also has a responsibility to protect human life). And the event (and Manchin) got a boatload of attention in the political press. Could the desire of this small gang to be power players be influencing their thinking about the electorate and the 2024 elections?

In the end, what is driving No Labels doesn’t matter. Actions speak louder than spin. Almost everybody in the political world—except for them—see this operation as a possible godsend for Trump. Maybe it will peter out or perhaps next spring—the point that the group has identified as its go/no-go moment—the No Labelers will come to their senses and pull the plug. As much as Manchin loves the limelight, he may not want to end his political career in Naderesque fashion as the pol who helped put Trump back in power.

Until then, Democrats and Never-Trumpers are right to fret about all this—particularly since No Labels refuses to be transparent about its donors. Dark-money organizations ought to be viewed darkly. Moreover, given the profound risk of a Trump comeback—he has developed a comprehensive plan for implementing authoritarianism—anything that could possibly lead to this warrants worry. The assurances of No Labels mean little. It deserves to be labeled dangerous.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

This week, the judges pleaded for a mercy rule—mercy for them.

Please, they requested, no more Marjorie Taylor Greene. Every day, it seemed, she was outdoing herself. She argued that the United States should not be sending military aid to Ukraine because most Americans could not find Ukraine on a map. (Can she?) She warned that President Joe Biden is trying to “finish what FDR started” by addressing “rural poverty” and problems related to “education” and “medical care.” (That sounds terrible.) And when the House Republicans held a hearing that presented no new evidence to back up their assertion that Biden is running a crime family, she uttered, “When evidence and proof of a crime is presented, no prosecution should be denied no matter who the person is.” (Except, of course, when it’s a fellow who’s been indicted for allegedly swiping classified documents from the White House and who is about to be indicted for trying to steal an election.)

Okay, the mercy rule is invoked for MTG. No surprise, there was no shortage of other contenders. Donald Trump Jr. was his usual hysterical self when he pondered what seems to be another federal indictment for daddy. “This is like the end of a civilization,” he brayed.

Yes, it’s the apocalypse.

Meanwhile, his dad was again showing his fondness for authoritarianism. Referring to the leader of China, he remarked, “Think of President Xi. Central casting, brilliant guy. You know, when I say he’s brilliant, everyone says, ‘Oh, that’s terrible.’ Well, he runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect.”

Translation: I wish I could rule America like a tyrant.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), one of the most transactional MAGA Republicans, put her transactionalism on display during a press conference. She was asked why the House Republicans were featuring Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a hearing after he had been caught pushing an antisemitic conspiracy theory. She responded by claiming that Republicans “condemn all forms of antisemitism,” but added, “this is a problem in the Democratic Party.”

She would not condemn RFK’s recent display of antisemitism.

Stefanik came close to winning with her weaselly cop-out. But she loses to Kevin Lincoln, the GOP mayor of Stockton, California. This week, he announced he’s running for Congress against Democratic Rep. Josh Harder. On the day he entered the race, a local news anchor asked Lincoln on air about the recent Pentagon spending legislation passed by the GOP House that limits abortions for servicemembers and ends diversity and inclusion programs in the military: “Would you have voted lock-step with your party on that?”

Lincoln replied, “Well, listen, listen, I haven’t seen that just yet. But the fact of the matter is that we’re going to make sure, you know, that…” He then offered a long pause and an uncomfortable smile that essentially said, “I have no idea what you are talking about or what I am saying.” He then emitted a soft “well.” At that point, the anchor came to his rescue and said, “That’s okay.” At least Lincoln didn’t say, “Oops.” To understand how foolish Lincoln looked, you must watch:

For this stunning example of not being ready for prime time, Lincoln takes the cup.

The Mailbag

I recently asked whether we should give a damn about RFK Jr. Many readers replied with an emphatic “no.” And in another issue, I dissected Kennedy’s promotion of an antisemitic conspiracy theory about Covid. All of this provoked strong reactions.

Michele Missner emailed:

Why is he running as a Democrat? Sounds like he’d fit right in with the GOP crazies. 

There is a reason why Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn have been supportive of Kennedy, as well as the (see above) House Republicans.

Cabot Thunem shared this worry:

My real concern is the people with money who buy congressmen are planning to provide enough support to people like RFK to result in a failed Electoral College vote which moves the selection of president to the House. Does anyone think that a Democratic candidate would prevail in the House where each state gets one vote? With our current House membership, Republicans are almost certain of 28 out of the 50 votes.

As of now, RFK Jr. is running for the Democratic nomination. This scenario would only come into play if a third-party candidate manages to win one or more states in the general election. That’s not likely at this point. Certainly, Kennedy, were he to run as an independent, would not be in such a position. Yet it is important to keep in mind that one of Trump’s schemes to retain power in 2020 was to oppose the certification of Electoral College votes from several states and throw the election to the House.

Catherine Crawford wrote:

I wish the adult autistic community was more covered by mainstream media because they have a lot to say about Robert Kennedy and his dangerous anti-vax talk, as well as the way he has used autistic people as props to distort scientific advances. I mean, they are pissed he is getting this much press after being a thorn in their sides for years. Media outlets know the name Kennedy gives people pause long enough to listen for a minute, and then I guess their piece has served its purpose. But you're correct; he does real harm to real people who are vulnerable already to all kinds of misinformation, and whether we give his followers our attention or not, the cycle of conspiracism goes on. 

John St. Clair Brookes sent in a proposal:

Not long ago, I kicked up a bit of a firestorm on a Yahoo news article. I made the comment that, “Were I president, I'd pass an executive order that makes the willful, wanton, negligent, and knowing dissemination of proven disinformation a crime punishable by fine and internment, or both.” While there were many who concurred, others labeled me a “fascist” and suggested that I needed to go live in China. Overall, better than 2/3rds of the commenters/upvoters approved. It's time something like this happens. Maybe, given your influence, you can start the ball rolling in that direction.

John, sorry, the Constitution doesn’t work that way. And I don’t believe this would be helpful. Who would get to decide and imprison people for lying? Donald Trump (if he is again elected)? I think you need to go back to the drawing board.

John Capobianco emailed this about RFK Jr.:

Do we have to worry about him losing the Democratic nomination but being nominated by No Labels?

That was something I had not thought of. No Labels won’t say exactly how it will pick its “unity” ticket if it runs one in 2024. But my guess is that Kennedy is too nuts for them.

Dell Erwin emailed:

Your article on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was great. How about one on the more likely spoiler, “Brother” Cornel West, another egomaniac? Suggestion: SHORTER PARAGRAPHS!!

Dell, I keep trying with the paragraphs… As for Cornel West, who is running for president as a Green Party candidate, you are right. He deserves some attention, even though he has no shot. Look at how close the election was in Georgia last time. Could West pocket 10,000 votes there from voters who might otherwise pull the lever for Biden? That certainly seems possible. Let’s keep an eye on this.

Will Boland had a different take on Kennedy:

During conversation, I find RFK Jr. interesting and intelligent, very earnest and with an amazing ability for recall with no prompts. He insists and he should be debated seriously as a candidate. Argue the points! Thankfully, he does not parrot the mainstream for we need change seriously and soon. It is clear that the agenda against him is smear and innuendo, which is very cowardly and dishonest and very David Corn.

It's not a smear to report on what Kennedy says or to debunk his disinformation. Alas, such efforts do not dissuade those who want to believe Kennedy—which seems very similar to what happens with Trump and his MAGA cultists.

MoxieCam™

“Moxie, c’mon, this is the most exciting tennis match I’ve watched in years.”

“Do they play with a ball?”

“Yes, they play with a ball.”

“And you’d rather watch this than play with me and a ball? That seems so passive…and wrong.”

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

July 18, 2023: RFK Jr.’s antisemitic lunacy; George Santos and Miles Guo—a Trumpland love story; the current relevance of the 1965 Night of Camp David; and more.

July 15, 2023: RFK. Jr.: should we give a damn?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Lawrence Summers); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 11, 2023: Don’t forget Rudy Giuliani was a Russia disinformation stooge; Elliott Abrams, again; the tantalizing Silo; Chrissie Hynde as Frank Sinatra; and more.

July 8, 2023: Ron DeSantis and the GOP primary of hate; from Twitter to Threads; an Our Land Zoom get-together; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Linda Yaccarino); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 1, 2023: The patriotism of government bureaucrats; Marvin Kitman, RIP; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Rick Scott); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

June 27, 2023: When lying doesn’t matter (including John Durham’s testimony); Hightown, a crime drama that explores the underside of Cape Cod; and more.

June 24, 2023: Why Jack Smith must go farther; Dumbass Comment of the Week (the Trump and DeSantis war rooms); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

June 21, 2023: How Daniel Ellsberg changed the world—and my life; how you can support Our Land; Loves Goes to Buildings on Fire’s love letter to the NYC music scene of the 1970s; and more.

June 17, 2023: How dangerous is Elon Musk?; anatomy of a (No Labels) scoop; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Fox News); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.