Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Even with Manchin, RFK Jr. On Ticket The "No Labels" Third Party Option Is A Non-Starter

              "Doh! I tired of old guys! I gonna vote No Labels ticket!"

Unless you've been asleep or under a rock the past three months, you had to have heard of the  "No Labels" campaign which purports to "give choices" to American voters.  Pardon me, but this is total bullshit. There are NO choices! It's either Joe Biden for 2nd term as President or bust, no matter how old or crumbling voters see him. (And that is mainly because of the endless Reep brainwashing which has seeped into many mainstream sectors like toxic slime.)

No Labels, we are informed, "constitutes a mostly moderate mix of Democrats and Republicans."  But what grabbed my attention is that none other than Harlan Crow is among them.  The character who has been wining, dining and entertaining Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in what many legal experts - like Harvard's Prof. Lawrence Tribe - perceive as debased influence paddling. See e.g.

Harlan Crow on collision course with Senate over Clarence Thomas gifts | Clarence Thomas | The Guardian

 Is anyone really stupid enough to believe Crow is doing this out of the bountiful goodness of his gracious heart to afford Americans more choice in their 2024 presidential options?  No, as Janice said, even Americans can't be that damned dumb or low I.Q. and they have to know third party efforts never prevail.  They just allow maggots to get in, like Jill Stein's Green campaign and Constitution Party nominee Gary Johnson provided enough margin for Trump in 2016. See:

How third-party votes sunk Clinton, what they mean for Trump - Roll Call

Excerpt:

An astounding 7.8 million voters cast their presidential ballots for someone other than Trump or Hillary Clinton. The two biggest third-party vote-getters were Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson (almost 4.5 million votes) and the Green Party’s Jill Stein (1.5 million voters). But others received almost another 1.9 million votes as well.....While third-party hopefuls drew just under 83,000 votes in the Keystone State in 2012, they drew more than three times that number, 268,000 votes, four years later. Apparently, hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters couldn’t stomach either of the major parties’ nominees, so they cast protest votes for third-party and independent candidates."

The preceding details an extraordinary account of how enough American voters allowed their brains to be so deformed - to cast wasted votes on 3rd party nobodies.  The effect was to snatch two states (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - the latter which he won by a mere 23,000) and shoehorn Trump into the White House.  Are people thinking of doing this again? According to recent polls it appears so given 69% actually believe Biden is too old to make another run at the White House.  This is pure idiocy because it paves the way for 3rd party desperation which isn't a rational choice. It's acting the part of a lemming, and following other lemmings over a cliff.   Rick Wilson, long time GOP strategist and now Lincoln Project founder had this to say in a recent WSJ interview:   

"No Labels is operating from a fictional playbook that has its candidates picking up wins in states like Pennsylvania and FloridaIt's a spectacular combination of  hubris and irresponsibility at a level that I have trouble believing. They've made a financial and personal decision to destroy Joe Biden. "

He is 100 percent correct.  There is no way in hell any third party candidate will pick up "wins" in any state. What s/he will do is play spoiler for the other candidate(s) and in this case that will be Joe Biden, given so many fools disenchanted with his age. To which I say:  Grow the fuck up already and put on your 'big boy' (or big girl) pants and stop fantasizing over codswallop.  You are merely tossing away a legitimate vote to help hurl a turd named Trump back into the Oval Office. And this time the fucker- at various rallies - has vowed to "finish the job" of decimating the government.  Think you've got it bad now with the right media hyped up inflation and other BS, wait until this traitor gets in again!  

By law, we know that No Labels has to publicly name its donors, and I sincerely believe that may be enough to take 3rd party dreamers up. That is, if they are paying attention and not distracted by Tik Tok fluff.  This clown outfit also claims it will "evaluate its general election chances after Super Tuesday primary voting.  If it should determine its "unity ticket" (pardon me while I laugh) has an Electoral College path to victory it will reveal is VP and presidential picks at an April convention in Dallas. Most likely picks for my money?  Joe Manchin for president, and the vaccine flake RFK for VP.  I could well be wrong, but that is my bet.

Why?  First of all any such ticket will need two things right out of the gate: i) gravitas, and ii) name recognition. Also, a large dollop of disenchantment with the current choices plus an admixture of fantasy, i.e. that the No Labels duo can win.  Both Manchin and Kennedy have the first and also the second, but maybe not for what most of us regard as the right reasons. (Manchin has already conceded his "might be open" to a presidential bid - and it would have to be with a 3rd party.)

 RFK also has the legacy of his uncle (JFK - assassinated in Dallas in November, 1963)) and father (Robert F. Kennedy Sr. assassinated in Los Angeles in June, 1968) to draw on.  Never mind both of them would be turning over in their graves at how he mutated into an anti-vaccine fruitcake. Even claiming recently his 2008 diagnosis of spasmodic dysphonia - can  be traced to a Covid vaccine injection.  This is an outright lie given: a) there were no Covid vaccines in 2008, and b) Covid did not even exist in 2008!  But how many of his groupies - like the Silicon Valley lot, are paying attention?  

Before any readers dismiss the threat as more histrionics than fact, consider these aspects: 

 (1) The group has a $70 million budget (so far) and it's bound to grow as the primaries near.  

(2) They have already qualified for the ballot in Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Utah and are pursuing other states.  

Fortunately, most Dems are serious about stopping these damned spoilers. For example, Dems in Arizona are suing to kick No Labels off the ballot. (And more lawsuits are expected in other states). Meanwhile, in Maine, the Secretary of State has accused these electoral pillagers of leading voters to believe they were merely signing a petition when they were actually signing up to change to the No Labels party. At the same time, Moveon.org has dispatched letters to Secretaries of State asking them whether these miscreants are doing the same foul play in their states.   

There are, to be sure, other disastrous ways this No Labels lot could send the next election into the crapper. For example, a ticket such as I supposed earlier (Manchin, RFK)  could swing the votes in enough critical states so that we end up with a 269-269 Biden-Trump electoral vote tie. In which case the House - now led by the GOP - would pick the victor. Wanna make a bet they pick Donald Trump?  

The only way to really avoid such an outcome - assuming Americans don't soon come to their senses - would be if enough states use rank choice voting.  This was used in Alaska before the midterms last year and denied the wacko Sarah Palin of a return shtick. It basically put all the contenders' names (e.g. 4) on the ballot and had voters rank their preferences, from 1st to last.  The beauty of this system is it systematically weeds out extremists and flakes.  It makes it harder for them to get elected by simply appealing to their hard line, nutso base. Alas, not enough states have such a voting system which means we remain at risk.

See Also:

by Heather Digby Parton | July 22, 2023 - 7:52am | permalink

— from Salon

Excerpt:

Back in April, I wrote about the potential sabotage of the 2024 presidential election at the hands of the centrist group No Labels. They were signaling that they planned to run a third-party "unity" ticket to satisfy the wishes of the majority of the public who are telling pollsters that they are unsatisfied with what looks to be a replay of the 2020 election. The group already gathered a lot of money, which they are not required to reveal because they claim they are not a political party (even though they are setting up affiliate groups in the states that are calling themselves parties.) They insist they are not trying to be spoilers, but that raises the question of what they are doing. If you ask them, they don't seem to have any idea

And:

by Joan McCarter | July 19, 2023 - 6:57am | permalink

— from Daily Kos

Excerpt:

The charlatans behind No Labels took their show to New Hampshire on Monday, where they launched an effort to get their third party (which they insist is not a political party) on the ballot for 2024. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginian who uses the label “Democrat,” and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican, pretended to be statesmanlike while blathering about “common sense” and refusing to answer why they are threatening the nation with another Trump presidency.

There was a lot of that “common sense” prattle out of their mouths and literally in the backdrop to their talk. That’s because the group, clearly trying to invoke Thomas Paine, has released a policy booklet outlining their nonpositions on the issues of the day. Instead of actual positions, the booklet issues both-sides pablum. On abortion, for example: “In the realm of politics, our elected leaders must find a sustainable and inevitably imperfect compromise that balances the belief of most Americans that women have a right to control their own reproductive health and our society’s responsibility to protect human life.”

And:

COMMENTARY

And:

No Labels Donor Has Financial Ties to Jared Kushner


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