No Labels, the “centrist” group that kept threatening to run a nice “moderate” third-party ticket as an alternative to the radical extremism of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, announced yesterday that it will not in fact be fielding a presidential candidate for 2024 after all.
Turns out No Labels couldn’t find anyone willing to play the role of spoiler to get Donald Trump elected, although if the group had a shred of integrity it would have packed it in after fifteen seconds of thinking about whether the two major party candidates really were equally bad, because Jesus Tapdancing Christ Riding a Roomba Around the Kitchen Like a Kittycat In a Little Shark Outfit that’s a ridiculous false equivalence.
In a statement, No Labels said that Americans really really want a third party candidate to jump in and help Trump win, but nobody was willing to step up and be remembered lovingly for decades in the same breath as Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. Only the statement wasn’t that honest:
“Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before. […] But No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”
And lo, there was rejoicing.
Politico notes that after prominent national figures like Chris Christie, Joe Manchin, Dean Phillips, and possibly the Yip-Yip Muppets noped out, the group kept looking for potential candidates, “including former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan. But he too declined.”
Yr Wonkette assumes that there’s a county recorder somewhere in Nebraska who’s really bummed that No Labels keeps refusing to respond to her emails offering to volunteer as tribute.
Also, Politico ran a video of No Labels co-founder Mark McKinnon in a goofy hat and scarf, acknowledging that many potential candidates worried that a No Labels run would have ended up electing Trump, although he also denied that was the group’s intent at all heavens no, and even its late co-founder Joe Lieberman said he’d never do anything to help Trump.
So if you can’t believe the guy who helped hand George W. Bush the 2000 election, you must be pretty cynical or a realist. And do read historian Rick Perlstein’s holy-shit account of how Lieberman ratfucked his own VP bid in Bush’s favor, too.
But while No Labels is out of the 2024 spoiler business, the group also made clear it will never not do what Americans really want and just go the fuck away. In its statement, No Labels pledged to remain a persistent herpes sore that will never fade from the genitals of America’s body politic.
“Big ideas are not new for us,” the group said in its statement. “We have been working since 2010 to organize citizens across America and members of Congress through the Problem Solvers Caucus, which we created to push back on the extremes in our politics and push forward solutions to America’s biggest problems. That work is more important now than ever.”
“For now, suffice it to say that this movement is not done,” the group went on to say. “In fact, it is just beginning.”
Just like the closing credits of every third terrible monster movie.
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