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Nancy Jacobson No Labels

No Labels Has No Takers For Its Spoiler Campaign Against Biden

It looks like it’s time for No Labels to give up the ghost. The ostensibly centrist organization has long been floating a presidential “unity ticket” to bridge the partisan divide. However, when you can’t count on either Sens. Joe Manchin’s or Kyrsten Sinema’s ego to keep you afloat, you’re toast.

On Tuesday, NBC News published a rundown of all the potential presidential candidates besides Manchin and Sinema whom No Labels has tried—and failed—to secure for their third-party folly:

  • Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming
  • Former GOP Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan
  • GOP Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp
  • Former GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
  • Former GOP Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels
  • GOP New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu
  • Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley
  • Former Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick
  • Businessman Mark Cuban
  • Retired Navy Adm. William McRaven
  • Actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

The latest person to brush off No Labels is former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, an anti-Trump Republican. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that while “it was an honor to be approached,” he wants to spend his time on fixing the Republican Party.

Even former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory—who sparred with Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas on NBC’s Meet the Press last August—has jumped ship. McCrory, a Republican, had the group’s national co-chair until resigning last week. “I gave it my all for over a year as volunteer co-chair, but it is now time to move on,” McCrory told NBC News. That came after the group decided it was going forward with running its own presidential ticket—if they can find someone to head it up, that is.

No Labels announced last week that it was forming a vetting committee to identify their candidates for president and vice president, which means scraping the bottom of the barrel to find someone willing to associate themselves with the group. Their process, like just about everything else in the organization including who’s financing it, is being kept secret.

The organization has bled high-level staff in the past year, including its “vice chair, two vice presidents, two national co-chairs, the head of its digital operation, the director of its political field program and more,” according to NBC News. Its staff appears disgruntled too, with one anonymously telling NBC, “You are constantly being asked to sign NDAs in that organization.”

Former allies are turning on the group as well, including one of its influential early supporters, “No Labels seems to have become the victim of its own arrogance,” attorney Richard J. Davis wrote on Tuesday. Davis served as assistant secretary of the Treasury Department in President Jimmy Carter’s administration and as an assistant special prosecutor during Watergate. “Its leaders are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause that they developed a dangerous tunnel vision,” he said.

No Labels’ latest plan is to play this farce of a third-party run into August, at which time they’ll pull the plug on it if it hasn’t gained serious traction. But this plan is even being mocked by the centrist think tank Third Way.

“No Labels nominates their presidential ticket in March. Over the next four months, the candidates pour their heart, soul, and millions of dollars into gaining ballot access and persuading voters, all the while not knowing whether their party will submit their names into nomination,” Third Way pointed out in a blog post this past Thursday.

“The candidates would be running with one foot in the door and one foot out. And the No Labels Party leaders would retain an unprecedented amount of power to pull the rug out from under their campaign.”

No wonder No Labels can’t find any takers. But at least they have another four or five months to grift their high-dollar donors, which seems to be the primary motivation for No Labels’ co-founder and CEO Nancy Jacobson, who holds the key. It’s her ego trip.

“This is Nancy’s decision, and her decision alone,” a source told NBC News. “If she wants a ticket, we’re getting a ticket.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

'No Labels' Wants Justice Department To Investigate Its Critics

'No Labels' Wants Justice Department To Investigate Its Critics

Critics of the No Labels movement have been warning that if a Joe Biden/Donald Trump rematch is really close in the 2024 presidential election, a No Labels candidate could act as a spoiler and put Trump back in the White House. Many of No Labels' critics are Democrats, although some are Never Trump conservatives like Amanda Carpenter and The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson — a former GOP strategist who is supporting Biden and believes that a second Trump term would be disastrous for the United States.

No Labels, meanwhile, is arguing that pro-Democrat groups are going too far in their efforts to discourage them from running a presidential candidate in 2024.

According to the Washington Post's Michael Scherer, No Labels leaders are asking the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch a criminal investigation of Democrat-leaning groups it claims are harassing and bullying them.

Scherer reports, "The group, in a January 11 letter signed by former Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT.), former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) and others, argues that a public and private pressure campaign to discourage donations to No Labels and support for the ticket goes beyond legally protected political speech…. The Justice Department has not responded to the letter, according to No Labels leaders."

In their letter, No Labels told the DOJ, "It's one thing to oppose candidates who are running; it's another to use intimidation tactics to prevent them from even getting in front of the voters."

Scherer notes that No Labels' opponents "have publicly declared their intent to put pressure on donors and potential candidates to steer clear of the group."

Former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO) has maintained that No Labels opponents aren't try to intimidate or bully the group but rather, are merely trying to let voters know what is at stake in the 2024 election.

In December, Gephardt told reporters, "We are worried about any third party. We realize it is a free country. Anybody can run for president who wants to run for president. But we have a right to tell citizens the danger they will face if they vote for any of these third-party candidates.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'No Labels' Now Seems To Mean 'No Democrats'

'No Labels' Now Seems To Mean 'No Democrats'

In a Zoom call last month, Ryan Clancy, chief strategist for the supposedly centrist political group No Labels, admitted that their potential “bipartisan” “unity” presidential ticket doesn’t need to have a Democrat on it.

“And what if it’s a Republican and an independent? I think that’s certainly possible,” he told participants in the December 20 “Common Sense Talks With Ryan Clancy” event, according to a recording obtained by HuffPost. Common sense, you see, means excluding Democrats unless they are “Democrats” like former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (who turned independent to hang on to his seat after losing the Democratic primary in 2006) or West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, perennial spoiler of Democratic policies.

This isn’t entirely new for the group. After all, they indicated last June that if the Republican nominee ended up being Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, they’d probably back down and not field a spoiler candidate. They’re okay with fascism, you see, unless it’s coming from Donald Trump. That’s just common sense, No Labels-style.

One of their prominent spokespeople, former GOP Rep. Fred Upton admitted in an interview with CBS News last July that if it ends up being President Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump on November’s ballot, No Labels is aiming “to actually have a Republican presidential candidate and a Democrat [sic] vice presidential” candidate.

Most of the group’s funding is kept in the dark. It’s one of those political “charities” that have flourished since the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. FEC. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, No Labels doesn’t have to disclose donors. But digging by investigative reporters has revealed at least some of them.

One of their “whale” donors is none other than Harlan Crow, the New Republic found. You know, Supreme Court Clarence Thomas’ billionaire benefactor. The New Republic discovered that Crow gave more than $130,000 to No Labels between 2019 and 2021. In addition to his donations, Crow has participated in fundraisers for the group and has hooked No Labels up with about two dozen of his millionaire and billionaire friends, according to the documentation TNR found.

By the way, 501(c)(4) organizations are supposed to—by law—limit activities to the “promotion of social welfare” or lobbying. These groups are legally not allowed direct political involvement, like fielding candidates, as a primary activity. If trying to secure a slot on the presidential ballot for their third-party ticket in all 50 states is not their primary activity, it would be good to know what is. Beyond the grift, that is, because some people are making an awful lot of money out of this venture.

There’s some good news coming out of that December event, however. The rank-and-file membership of the group seems to be pretty concerned that No Labels will help elect Trump. One attendee said she’d “been a long supporter of No Labels” but was “having trouble trying to figure out how this is going to not reelect Trump.” That sentiment was reinforced by another attendee, who said that for him it was “absolutely the number one priority in 2024” that Trump lose.

“Love everybody at No Labels,” said John Leonard, the treasurer for the Raleigh, North Carolina, chapter of No Labels. “But I support what [the attendees] were saying earlier. ... I really worry about the prospect of Biden losing support and Donald Trump being inadvertently elected in the Electoral College.”

Even No Labels members seem to be cottoning on to the fact that this really isn’t about bipartisanship and unity as it is spoiling 2024 for Joe Biden.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Harris Poll Isn't What It Used To Be -- Now That It's The 'No Labels' Pollster

Harris Poll Isn't What It Used To Be -- Now That It's The 'No Labels' Pollster

No sooner did four new national polls show President Joe Biden edging past Donald Trump -- reversing the results of recent weeks -- than a fifth survey emerged that purported to show the opposite. In that poll, released by Harris X, Trump was still ahead of Biden by a few points.

But on closer inspection, that fifth poll raises some suspicions – and some questions about how news organizations should treat polling by Harris X. Billed as an “exclusive” on The Messenger website, it brandishes the name Harris, once a polling outfit with a respected pedigree. Yet that name is no longer what it was – because Harris X, as the firm now calls itself, is actually a subsidiary of Stagwell, Inc. And Stagwell is owned and controlled by one Mark Penn.

That name may be familiar from Penn’s days as a political consultant to Bill and Hillary Clinton, with whom he has long since broken. He is better known now for his connections to No Labels, the dubiously “independent” pseudo-party that is threatening to nominate a presidential ticket on a third line – thus potentially swinging the election to Trump. No Labels is run by Penn’s wife Nancy Jacobson, and No Labels has a cozy arrangement with Penn and Stagwell for polling by Harris X.

As Thomas Byrne Edsall recently noted in the New York Times, most elected Democrats and more than a few Republicans now suspect that Jacobson and Penn – who has cultivated Trump assiduously – are operating No Labels as a covert effort to re-elect the former president.

So whenever Harris X polls the presidential race, it confronts a glaring conflict of interest, or perhaps several. Its polls need to show that Biden is weaker than Trump to justify entering the race with a third-line candidate. Never mind that No Labels refuses to disclose its donors – many of whom have been exposed as pro-Trump Republicans – or its candidate selection process.

But these sore points may not faze The Messenger, whose founder and CEO is one James Finkelstein, a close associate of Trump and Rudy Giuliani since New York days whose brother Andrew Stein, a failed New York Democratic politician and convicted tax evader, was a longtime Trump confidant and adviser. The masthead of The Messenger is littered with political editors who formerly worked for such Trumpist outfits as the New York Post and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review..

Maybe their poll was conducted according to best practices and is on the level. Maybe Mark Penn and Nancy Jacobson and No Labels are on the level too. And maybe not.

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