Stakes are much too high for ‘spoiler’ candidates

In describing the twin threats of the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the potential candidacy of a No Labels ticket (Be as wary of No Labels as you are of Trump, March 22), the South Florida Sun Sentinel has sent a clarion call that all Americans who treasure our democracy should hear.

As someone who sought my party’s presidential nomination twice, I firmly believe that running for office, especially the highest in the land, is the right of every eligible American. Yet 2024 poses a threat, as you note in Jon Meacham’s words, that “the forces now in control of the Republican Party represent the most significant threat to basic constitutionalism we’ve experienced since the Civil War.”

These are not the partisan exaggerations of a political campaign. They express quite clearly that Trump’s return is a threat to our democracy that Benjamin Franklin might have foreseen when responding to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

I co-founded Citizens to Save Our Republic, a bipartisan group of present and former officeholders, to raise concerns about third-party efforts such as No Labels’ unwitting efforts that would likely imperil our republic as we know it by Trump’s return to office. We do not have to imagine or theorize about his intentions; his words alone have repeatedly given us all the advance warning we need.

Third-party candidates who cannot possibly win 270 electoral votes are not running for President. They can only earn the title “spoiler.” The stakes are simply too high in this election year for us to entertain such a fool’s errand.

The Sun Sentinel is to be commended for taking such a forthright position on the greatest threat we face, and may your words lead others to think long and hard about the fate we face as a nation.

Richard A. Gephardt, Washington, D.C. The writer is co-founder of Citizens to Save Our Republic and a former Democratic Leader of the U.S. House.