No Labels still hasn’t named a presidential candidate

No Labels, the nonprofit trying to lure a third-party candidate to run for president this year, should consider rebranding itself as “No Candidate.”

In the three weeks since the group’s intentionally unidentified 800 “delegates” supposedly voted in a private virtual meeting to move forward with a plan to find a candidate, a steady string of potential contenders have told No Labels, “No thanks.”

And there has been a concerning migration in messaging from No Labels, which had been pushing two key talking points since last year. It does not want to be a spoiler that helps former President Donald Trump defeat President Joe Biden, and the group will only field a candidate if they’re likely to win the election.

Critics, and there are many in a growing chorus of concern, suggest that the folks running No Labels have no direction but are stubbornly sticking to a plan that will ultimately tilt the field in Trump’s favor. And some suggest the financial incentive – six-figure salaries for the people pulling the levers of power and fat contracts for consultants – are keeping it all in motion.

Is No Labels really a lucrative grift posing as a civic exercise? It’s starting to look that way.

Richard J. Davis, a former Watergate prosecutor who served in Jimmy Carter’s administration, worked with No Labels when it launched in 2010 with a focus on getting legislators to cooperate in a bipartisan manner.

Davis wrote an op-ed for The Hill, saying the group has lost its way and has become “a victim of its own arrogance” likely to help Trump win the presidency if it stays on this course.

“They’re running out of candidates who could be credible,” Davis told me. “One reason to keep this alive, in their mind, is to give them bargaining leverage with the Biden campaign to give them something. There’s no good reason to keep going.”

Davis said he thinks No Labels will have to “pull the plug” if they can’t find a credible candidate.

No Labels, which in the past has been responsive to my questions while keeping its donors and operations secret, went silent this past week and did not respond to questions about its timeline for taking action.

One of the questions I had for No Labels was about money – salaries and contracts. While No Labels looks like a political party, which would have to file monthly reports with the Federal Elections Commission, the group only has to file an annual nonprofit 990 tax form with the IRS. The most recent filing available to the public is for 2021. So our understanding of the group’s finances are more than two years out of date. That, coupled with the group’s insistence that donors stay secret, creates a lot of doubt and distrust for an organization that keeps claiming it has good intentions.

The Daily Beast reported in November that it had obtained the 2022 tax form for No Labels, which showed founder Nancy Jacobson taking a $300,000 annual salary, among other six-figure paydays for top staffers in a year when the group raised $21.2 million. Jacobson’s husband, Mark Penn, owns the polling firm that consults for No Labels. That firm was paid $428,100 in 2021, according to that year’s form 990.

Penn, a former strategist for Bill and Hillary Clinton, made news in 2019 when he met with Trump during his first impeachment to discuss polling and again last year when he wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed urging Florida Gov. Ron Desantis to run for president, while dismissing Biden as not being up to the job of defeating Trump again.

No Labels originally planned an inperson convention, out in the open for all to see, for April in Dallas but canceled that in November. The group posted a video announcing a 12-member “Country Over Party Committee” that will interview would-be candidates and recommend one to the group’s delegates.

Again, all in secret. We don’t get to see how any of that happens.

End Citizens United, a nonprofit that works “to get big money out of politics,” knocked that committee as an “antidemocratic” move from a “corrupt darkmoney sham.” End Citizens United sued No Labels in January, seeking to force the group to disclose its donors.

Jonas Edwards-jenks, an End Citizens United spokesperson, said he’s been asked many times to speculate about what motivates No Labels.

“The one thing that keeps coming up is this is a grift,” he told me. “They’re using this to keep the fundraising going, to fill their pockets and keep their names in the news.”

Politico reported last June that a former No Labels employee identified Harlan Crow as one of the group’s funders. If that name rings a bell, it’s because Crow is a Republican mega-donor who was exposed last year for providing free lavish vacations and private jet travel to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.

Speaking of keeping a name in the news, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last week became the only highprofile political brand to not rule out a No Labels run. Speaking on a podcast hosted by Democratic political strategist David Axelrod, Christie said he “wouldn’t preclude anything at this point.”

Christie, a onetime Trump adviser turned virulent critic of the former president, dropped out of the Republican primary on Jan. 10 before anyone had a chance to vote for or against him. Is he really the guy to beat both Trump and Biden? Short answer: No.

This is the fear for critics of No Labels, that someone like Christie enters the race and draws enough Republican and independent anti-trump protest votes – which might have gone to Biden – that they enable Trump to prevail. Some think that might be an unintentional outcome. Some wonder if that’s the point all along.

Kate degruyter, a spokesperson for Third Way, a center-left think tank, said the secrecy around No Labels makes it difficult to discern a true motive. The group could have held an open convention, observable by the public.

“Instead, they chose to replicate the model of the smoke-filled room that the major parties got rid of decades ago,” degruyter said. “What struck me as really alarming was, even in the language of announcing the committee, they have shifted away from the language of how they would only go forward if there could be a victory.

Good ideas sometimes turn sour over time.

No Labels has been around for 14 years. It achieved something, getting people talking about bipartisanship, urging legislators to actually legislate instead of engaging in nonstop political skirmishes. That’s something to be proud of.

The rest? Not so much. No Labels has gone from noble intentions to shady chicanery. They’ve spent months spouting a “just trust us” message while showing us no reason to trust them.

The math doesn’t add up. No Labels can’t field a winning ticket. They’ve walked away from the claim of being “in it to win it.” Now they look like they’re just in it to stay in it. That may be about money or relevance or leverage. It doesn’t matter anymore.

If No Labels is who they claim to be, now is the time to abandon the 2024 presidential ballot. If they don’t, then No Labels is what the critics have been warning us about all along.

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @Bychrisbrennan