No Labels is a political organization founded for the purpose of increasing centrism and bipartisan cooperation, something that an increasing number of Americans desperately want these days.
So it was no surprise that they drew far more people than expected at their recent town hall at Saint Anslem College where I managed to squeeze in after conjuring up press credentials. It was standing room only as the crowd filled several overflow rooms to hear Democrat Senator Joe Manchin speak alongside Republican and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman about shared goals.
It’s about time!
The formation of No Labels is based on the realization that many of us have come to after a lot of years of reading about politics and current events: every political party on earth is inherently corrupt and prone to evildoing. They make good people do bad things.
It’s the nature of the beast, a party has just one function, one role, and that is to get its members elected by hook or by crook, country be damned. And since it’s just about impossible to get elected in any western democracy without being a member of a major party the best we can hope for is some measure of bipartisanship. No Labels is trying.
Much of the discussion from the speakers, as well as the audience, was about our runaway spending and debt, something that politicians always claim to be concerned about but only when the other party wins the White House. It’s amazing how deficits don’t matter to politicians when the president is in the same party.
This issue alone is reason enough to support No Labels and its goals as it’s blatantly apparent that parties, and the interest groups that throw money at them and their members, are always going to stand in the way of any meaningful reform. But put in a room where they can speak and act freely, outside of party leadership, politicians can and will come together to do the right thing.
At a time when much of Congress’ time is spent infighting while a lot of us are clamoring for them to at least go out and fix a pothole, No Labels helped create the Problem Solvers Caucus in the House of Representatives, which has about 60 members, and was instrumental in the recent Bipartisan Infrastructure Law..
At Saint Anslem I was fortunate to run into my nephew and fellow political junkie Brendan Mirra, who was able to give me his Gen Z opinion on the event, and a possible “unity ticket” in the event voters are left with the same candidates in 2024 that we had in 2020.
“In a country and time as polarized as here and now, it’s always encouraging to see elected officials talk about working together and getting things done.
“Senator Manchin and Governor Huntsman are politicians with records of productive compromise. Hearing them talk about shared interests across the political spectrum such as climate change and the national debt shows what could be accomplished if we spent more time talking and less time fighting.
“I do remain skeptical about a potential 2024 run. I think they had good ideas, but I’m not sure if they should put together a ticket.”
I watched the event live online. I found the event had more political double talk than sincere attempts at solving problems. Take the deficit and debt. Of course they are a problem, but they offered no real answers beyond the POSSIBILITY of lifting the Social Security cap and making SS means tested. And they completely dodged the issue of big (and dark) money in politics. Given their past record of advocating for campaign finance reform, contrasted now with their current behavior of taking dark money and lacking any transparency in revealing their donors, No Labels has many of the same negative behavior as the two parties. They really just offered talking points (many that I agree with) but offered nothing concrete to solve our problem. And unless you really think that "both sides" are equally "bad" (which I sure you do believe that trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power is the same as opening money in climate change), No Labels has no reason to run as 3rd party against a Biden, who truly is acting in a moderating manner. (And if you support 3rd party efforts...why did you oppose Ranked Choice Voting in MA? Which would eliminate the spoiler effect of 3rd parties?)