‘Biggest threat to our survival’: experts blast No Labels as Manchin tests the waters
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, on Monday shared a stage with former Governor Jon Huntsman, Republican of Utah, at an event hosted by No Labels.
No Labels insists it is neither a political party nor engaging in a "spoiler" effort to take votes away from President Joe Biden and hand Donald Trump the 2024 election, despite its goal of having a third party presidential and vice presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.
Manchin at times has been President Biden's greatest challenge on the left. The West Virginia politician is a coal baron in his spare time, earning millions from the pollutant.
Monday night at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, home of several presidential debates, Manchin refused to say if he planned to run for president on a third party ticket, but defiantly made clear he hadn't ruled it out.
“I’ve never been in any race I’ve ever spoiled. I’ve been in races to win,” Manchin said, as CNN reported. “And if I get in a race, I’m going to win.”
"Sitting beside former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman," CNN added, "Manchin railed against withering bipartisanship in Washington, DC, saying the 'business model' of the two major parties 'is better if you’re divided.' Huntsman offered a similar critique, as the men complimented one another’s work and blamed the 'extremes' of the Republican and Democratic parties on Capitol Hill for holding up popular legislation."
Manchin's allegation ignores President Joe Biden's historic accomplishments, signing into law many bipartisan bills despite having a slim majority in the House and an evenly-split Senate during his first two years, and now a GOP majority in the House and effectively just a one-seat majority in the Senate.
“We’re here,” Manchin claimed, “to make sure the American people have an option.”
Except the American people have options: A Democratic nominee, likely President Joe Biden, and a Republican nominee, yet to be determined but currently, likely Donald Trump.
Mother Jones' David Corn wrote on Monday that No Labels "says it is not a political party," which "means it does not have to reveal the donors that have pumped tens of millions of dollars in recent years into its coffers. Parties must disclose their funders; nonprofit outfits, as No Labels claims to be, do not. But in several states, No Labels has established an affiliate that explicitly declares it is a political party, and some of these groups, particularly the party it set up in Florida, have deep Republican roots."
Referring to a potential third-party presidential candidate, Corn added, "Democratic and Never-Trump Republican strategists ... cite polls to contend that such a move would likely draw more votes from President Joe Biden than Donald Trump, assuming these current front-runners end up being the nominees."
Monday night on MSNBC, Corn told Joy Reid many of the Republicans donating to No Labels support Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
Liberal and conservative experts are lashing out at No Labels this week.
"The seductive allure of a third party candidate who is sold as being above the political fray has swung elections in the past. 2024 is too important for a repeat. A vote for any candidate other than the Democratic nominee is a vote for Trump," warned former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, now a professor of law and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst.
Dave Wasserman, the U.S. House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, in late 2016 pointed the finger at third party candidate Jill Stein, placing blame for the election of Donald Trump at her feet. Trump had lost the popular vote but took the White House via an Electoral College win, in particular in three states.
"Jill Stein is now officially the Ralph Nader of 2016," he tweeted. He posted the number of votes Stein won and compared them to Trump's margin of victory in 2016 across Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, suggesting had Stein not run, Hillary Clinton – who won the popular vote – would also have won the Electoral College and the presidency.
Indeed, just days after the 2016 election, even before Wasserman's tweet, Vanity Fair's Tina Nguyen wrote: "Millions of Americans, dissatisfied with both candidates and unwilling to choose between the lesser of two evils, registered their protest by voting for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, helping hand a number of critical swing states, and the presidency, to Donald Trump."
Conservative commentator Bill Kristol on Tuesday tweeted, "No Labels' 63 page policy booklet has no mention of...Ukraine, the most important foreign policy challenge facing us, the central front in the global fight for liberal democracy and against brutal dictatorship. Didn't want to upset their Trump-friendly donors, I suppose..."
Pointing to the Mother Jones report, The Lincoln Project notes, "No Labels' own polling has shown: a third-party candidate would pull more from Biden than Trump in 2024. There's not a scenario where their spoiler doesn't secure a second term for Trump."
The Lincoln Project also put out an ad denouncing No Labels.
David Rothkopf, the foreign policy, national security and political affairs expert and commentator, blasted No Labels.
"A vote for a No Labels candidate is not just a vote for Trump, it is a vote for the end of democracy, for authoritarianism in the US, for a pro-Putin, anti-NATO, pro-corruption, pro-1%, anti-the rest of us government."
Former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer: "The No Labels 2024 campaign is about money and relevance. The organization pays a company called HarrisX for its polling. HarrisX is owned by Mark Penn who also happens to be married to Nancy Jacobson, the founder of No Labels."
A very defensive Jacobson insisted No Labels is "not a party," while NBC News' Vaughn Hilliard held her feet to the fire as she ducked his question about why they refuse to reveal their donors – which political parties are required to.
After a back and forth on the issue, Hilliard pointedly told Jacobson, "you're registering as a political party."
"That's just language," she replied.
"Entirely possible that a 2024 third-party candidate could, intentionally or not, tip this nation toward a fascist Presidential autocracy," NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss announced Monday.
Describing what's at stake, constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe, University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and a former professor of law at Harvard Law School on Tuesday denounced third party candidates including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and, should he decide to run, Senator Manchin.
"Third party candidates like RFKJr, Cornel West, possibly Joe Manchin, are the biggest threat to our survival as a free people who govern ourselves."