Frontpage Mag by
The self-proclaimed centrist outfit No Labels is preparing to run a third-party candidate in 2024. They are buoyed by polling that shows a “pox on both your houses” sentiment among the voters. As Karl Rove summarizes the data from Economist/YouGov and NBC, 33% of voters want Trump to run, 26% want Biden. More than half of voters prefer both stay out of the race, and both candidates have negative rating higher than positive ones.
Leaving aside the accuracy of polling, such numbers superficially suggest that a third-party candidate would be attractive to these electoral Mercutios who want to “throw the grumpy old men out,” as the headline of Rove’s column put it. But Democrat showrunners are attacking No Labels, since they fear that a third party would suck votes from Biden, just as Ross Perot probably did to George H.W. Bush in 1992. Or a third-party spoiler could keep Biden from amassing enough electoral college votes, throwing the election into the Republican Majority House of Representatives.
These calculations, however, are not what make No Labels’ plans questionable. It is rather the ideas and assumptions that this group has embraced since its creation––a technocratic progressive vision contrary to the Founder’s Constitutional architecture and founding principles and ideals…
