Nancy Pelosi pins a label on a No Labels character.
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has recently had a bit of a tangle with the political group No Labels, which is devoted to … what?
Maybe ask West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who dropped out of his 2024 reelection bid to mull retirement or run as its potential presidential nominee.
Calling itself the “commonsense majority,” No Labels says it is “an organization of over 1 million Democrats, Republicans and independents working to bring American leaders together to solve problems.”
Presumably, No Labels is supposed to be about offering the American voter a presidential choice, where, thus far, they haven’t offered a presidential choice. No Label primaries? No word yet.
Oh, No Labels is this ephemeral thing that probably a plurality of voters say they want, which is an end to angry partisan sniping, getting concrete things done in a nonpartisan manner and all the rest of the fantasyland stuff usually reserved for tiny-town politics.
Everyone can agree on sewers and crossing guards. It all gets murky when politicians have to address more volatile subjects like abortion, the Gaza strip, taxes, race and other subjects that defy a low-key solution.
According to Politico, Pelosi teed off on No Labels, which, oddly, aspires to nominate a Republican and a Democrat as a kind of fusion ticket. She specifically called No Labels “perilous to our democracy” and noted that No Labels “do have labels.”
Politico said that No Labels’ national co-chair, former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.), said in a statement it was “disheartening to see Nancy Pelosi literally make things up about No Labels to score political points. She ascribes positions to No Labels that they never took.’ ”
Presumably, Gov. Hogan’s desire to avoid labels doesn’t extend to his funders, real estate bigfoot Harlan Crow, who has a label, which is “Sugar Daddy to Justice Clarence Thomas.”
As noted, there’s a potential No Labels presidential nominee in Manchin but there’s also former Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has also served as ambassador to China and Russia under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, both of whom are easily labeled.
Huntsman, fine. But Manchin? Slogan: “Making America safe for airborne particulates!”
Manchin, again as noted, just abandoned his U.S. Senate reelection campaign to travel about the country to listen to voters’ concerns. Clearly, this is presidential exploratory campaign lingo.
Back in the day, there were actually Republicans who Democrats could vote for without, you know, fearing that they’d want to put their dirty boots on Pelosi’s office desk, wear bison head gear, go into the House chamber armed or suspend the U.S. Constitution. Now that seems to be de rigueur in the New Coup Coup GOP.
God bless Hogan, kinda, who is heralded as a commie (label) in his own party for rejecting rioting in the Capitol.
Lest we forget, another mentioned No-Labeler is Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat who now identifies as an independent. She labels herself as an unpredictable politician (that’s really the most charitable phrase I can conjure here) and was once a quasi-socialist Green Party hack who now apparently represents the banking industry in the Senate.
At least she knows her true constituents, unlike a lot of her colleagues in the upper body.
Speaking of upper bodies, is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a No Labels-type? Once a Democrat, he dropped out of the primary opposing President Joe Biden once people started to pay attention to his, um, shape-shifter politics. It’s not a heavy lift (sorry) to conclude that Kennedy has vaccinated himself against reality and became … 3, 2, 1 … an “independent” presidential candidate.
Let’s return to the subject that’s unpleasant for No Labels: Who’s paying for this alleged political movement? Is it thousands of frustrated grassroots donors kicking in $25 in the name of good government? Hmm. (Final “Jeopardy!” theme music). No.
Politico also reported that in addition to Justice Thomas’s luxury travel agent Crow, there’s Charlie Black, one of Roger Stone’s political consultant partners, as well as billionaire John Catsimatidis, who gave $600,000 to that noted bipartisan problem solver, former President Trump.
We shouldn’t pooh-pooh bipartisan efforts to turn down the deafening turn-it-to-11 volume we’ve all become accustomed to over the past 10 years or so. But No Labels isn’t bipartisan, really.
There is also the Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus. California’s House delegation has a number of its members, such as Reps. Salud Carbajal, Jim Costa, Josh Harder, Young Kim, Jimmy Panetta, Scott Peters and David Valadao.
Intriguingly, one of its most prominent members is Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who was in the House Democratic leadership. He’s also running against President Biden for the Democratic nomination, which is a curious choice for a junior congressman.
That would be like some obscure three-term congressman becoming speaker.
No Labels has also attacked Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider, a member of the Problem Solvers, for criticizing the kumbaya-esque No Labels notion that one can have a credible unity ticket in 2024 without electing Trump.
No Labels doesn’t like Problem Solvers? Huh. Odd, that.
So let ’er rip, Nancy. You’re right. You can solve problems with no labels, assuming the other side is intellectually honest.
That’s a problem that the GOP and its barely cloaked buddies in No Labels haven’t solved.
Jack Ohman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and writer. He can be reached at jackohman.net, on Instagram at @jackohman60 and Threads at @jackohman60.
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