The “No Labels” campaign has done one thing, at the very least: It’s unmasked how the Democratic Party feels about American voters.
For those unfamiliar with No Labels, it’s a centrist movement that aims to either 1) get a candidate on the ballot in all 50 states or 2) endorse a candidate that meets its standards.
Among those associated with the movement are West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, former Utah Gov. John Huntsman and founding co-chairman Joseph Lieberman — once a Democratic senator from Connecticut who switched to independent after losing a primary to hard-left anti-Iraq War candidate Ned Lamont in 2006. (Lieberman would end up winning the race, and he retired from active politics after his term expired in 2013.)
In an interview with Fox News in July, Lieberman strongly hinted that the movement would be running its own candidate if the status quo in the 2024 race doesn’t change and we get a rematch of President Joe Biden vs. former President Donald Trump.
“We haven’t decided to run a ticket. It’s not even clear that if it ends up being Trump and Biden, as it looks like it will now, that we’ll do that,” he told the outlet.
Well, in Arizona — the state that finally decided the race for Biden when it was called in 2020 despite the fact the current president only won by a razor-thin margin — Democrats are freaking out about the movement. How dare it offer voters a choice that’s not Pepsi or Coke?
In a Wednesday article titled “No Labels push in closely divided Arizona fuels Democratic anxiety about a Biden spoiler,” The Associated Press’ Jonathan J. Cooper reported, “The very existence of the No Labels group is fanning Democratic anxiety about Trump’s chances against an incumbent president facing questions about his age and record.”
“While it hasn’t committed to running candidates for president and vice president, No Labels has already secured ballot access in Arizona and 10 other states,” Cooper wrote. “Its organizers say they are on track to reach 20 states by the end of this year and all 50 states by Election Day.”
And, according to AP’s numbers, more than 15,000 Arizonans have registered as No Labels supporters — a big problem in a purple state, and one that Democrats believe (sans evidence) is being secretly fueled by conservative money.
“In Arizona, which Biden won by about 10,000 votes, the state Democratic Party sued Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, also a Democrat, to try to prevent No Labels from being on the ballot. The party lost in court and then dropped its lawsuit,” the AP reported.
“Now Democrats are pushing Fontes to force No Labels to disclose its donors, having insinuated that the group is being supported by conservatives attempting to thwart Biden. No Labels has so far refused to name how it is funding its work, saying it follows federal law and wants to protect the privacy of its donors.”
Because clearly, Joe Lieberman and Joe Manchin just follow the Republican Trumpist gravy train. Right. Have these people not paid attention to politics since, say, the year 2000? Or ever?
Not that Arizona Democrats don’t have a lot to worry about, said Rod McLeod, a state party strategist.
“If they have someone on the ballot who is designed to bring the country together, that clearly draws votes away from Joe Biden and does not draw votes away from Donald Trump,” McLeod said.
And we can’t have that.
As the AP noted, much of the problem in typically red Arizona has to do with the state’s libertarian-leaning conservatives being uncomfortable with Trump and his close allies.
“Biden’s narrow 2020 victory came with the help of anti-Trump Republicans, right-leaning independents and voters who disliked both candidates but saw Biden as a better option than Trump,” the report said. “He’ll need their support to win a rematch.”
And that may be the case in a number of other states, too — which is why it’s not just Arizona Democrats who are panicking.
Take “The View” co-host Ana Navarro, who once was considered a token conservative on the panel but doesn’t even pretend to lean right anymore. While her husband was involved in No Labels, she called the movement “dangerous” in a July rant shortly after Lieberman’s interview.
“I think this is the stupidest thing ever,” Navarro said.
“This is dangerous because — let’s just put things in context,” she said. “This is not a normal thing. This is not Bill Clinton versus George Herbert Walker Bush with Ross Perot playing spoiler. No. This is Donald Trump.”
The bedrock principle of American republican democracy is that one is able to vote for whoever is on the ballot — or, in some cases, write in a separate eligible candidate. (Or Bugs Bunny, if you go to the polling place high on the hippie lettuce.)
However, no, Biden acolytes have loudly declaimed. This year, you have only two choices. Period, end of discussion. And not only that, but one is dangerous to democracy! So, in order to preserve democracy, there’s only one candidate you can vote for, because the second is evil and adding a third just helps the second, despite no concrete evidence that’s the case.
Got that?
This is the very definition of anti-democratic. Capital-D Democrats believe that a third-party candidate spoils lower-case-d democracy because, in their view of that process, only one candidate is worthy — and if you don’t agree with them, get right into that basket of deplorables.
Joe Biden should have an easy path to victory. The incumbent always has held a strong advantage, and the establishment media have all but openly pledged to heap invective on the Republican front-runner as a would-be despot. The election is his to win.
If Arizona Democrats and other swing-state liberals are worried about a third-party candidate siphoning off votes, the problem isn’t the quixotic No Labels run.
The problem, instead, is Joe Biden.
It always has been — and as the past four years have demonstrated, he isn’t getting any better.
Instead of fretting about Americans exercising their franchise to vote for an alternative candidate because they’re fed up with the system, fret instead about an 80-year-old in clear cognitive decline who is expected to rebuild the economy at home and hold our enemies abroad at bay.
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via westernjournal
