No No Labels

But mischief isn’t managed

“No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”

But little things like mere “credible paths” and “responsible courses” don’t stop everybody. No Labels sorta surprised political watchers this week by announcing it was standing down. Obviously this November will long be remembered as The Election Nobody Wanted, so many people thought that a Joe Manchin or Larry Hogan or a Nikki Haley or Chris Christie would join up with the group to give voters “a choice.”

We put “a choice” in scare quotes because voters have already had a choice—in whom to nominate in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Those choices have been made—even though many Democrats have long told pollsters they wish their guy wouldn’t run, and the winner of the Republican primary leaves behind a significant minority of his own party’s voters.

That has left an opening for a third party. But not one with a path toward victory.

No Labels figured that out. A third-party candidate would do as well as third-party candidates have always done in American presidential elections. That is, either not much, or way too much.

H. Ross Perot spent a ton in a serious bid in 1992 and 1996, and carried nary a state. A not-as-serious bid from Ralph Nader probably threw Florida to George W. Bush in 2000—the least acceptable candidate, likely, for Nader voters.

But what, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. worry? So far, he’s collected enough signatures to get on the ballot in five states, including a couple of key swing states. More importantly to his campaign, he has chosen a running mate with a checkbook.

If Americans aren’t more clever with their general election votes than they have been with their primary votes, then RFKJ could make this another case when the president (Democrat or Republican) goes into office without a mandate, and thus weakened. A weak president is a weak administration. That’s not good for anybody in this country.

Woodrow Wilson once called British history a continuing thesis against revolution. So it might be said that American history is a continual warning against falling for the seductive appeal of The Next New Thing. Such as a third-party presidential run. Reason may work slowly, but tested by real-life experience at every turn, far more effectively. That’s what a conservative would tell you, anyway.

Not only does a third party have no path to winning in November— and probably pushing the election to the one person its voters would rather not see elected—but what would a third-party president do once in office? He wouldn’t have any allies in Congress, because not a one would be a member of his party.

As much trouble as President Biden has in Congress, he has about half of all its members in his party, and thus friends to carry legislation. President Trump had the same advantage during his term. A third party would take the slings and arrows from all sides, above and underneath, behind and in front. His administration would be DOA on Jan. 20, 2025, far earlier than any other administration has been declared At Room Temperature.

Thankfully, we’ll never see such a thing.

The two-party system gets a bad rap. But without it, how would the electorate know who to hold responsible in government? There would be no party in power to blame or praise. Instead, this country could come to resemble some of Europe’s less stable democracies, in which multiple parties have to form coalition governments.

Then watch that government swing and sway when a disagreement emerges among the handful of parties in the coalition, each with only a limited amount of public support.

The two-party system supplies a way for voters to make their choice clear and provide a stable, accountable government.

How have a contest without clearly defined teams? Or even vaguely defined ones? The players would be left to wander all over the field on their own without common aims. Whatever its faults, whatever sad spectacles it produces, at least the two-party system is a system, not a random encounter.

The two-party system works. That sound you hear is the friction of its unevenly moving parts. But they move. Even if none too fast. Which would suit the Founders fine.

Heaven love the well-intentioned folks who form all these third parties in America. They’re welcome to all the politics they want. It’s a free country.

It’d just be a shame to waste a perfectly good presidential vote on any of them.