No Labels, No Problem

No spoilers!

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Not since Abraham Lincoln has a 3rd party candidate been successful, but political nonprofit No Labels thinks the time for change is near. No Labels chief political strategist Ryan Clancy joins Sarah Isgur to discuss why he thinks there’s a moderate majority in America that’s ready to bust the two party system.

Show notes –

–No Labels’ website

–No Labels on North Carolina ballot

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Comments (31)
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  1. Avatar photo
    John Will

    Matthew McConaughey 2024

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  2. MathewA

    Here's the thing. If all the people that had switched to Independent, rejoined a party and voted in the damn primary then we could get different choices.

    By switching to independent that just leaves the extremes and so they pick the candidates and we are stuck with poor choies.

    The solution isn't a 3rd party, it's to take back the friggen primaries.

    Primaries usually only have 15-20% of the voters voting. So say that's 7.5% for each party. That means you only need 4% of the total general election vote to win a primary and that's EVEN LESS if there are more than two candidates running.

    If we could get just a couple percent of the general election voters to start voting in primaries again we could take back the parties from the extremes.

    So if you are a general election voter that doesn't vote in the primaries, here's your sign. YOU ARE THE FRIGGEN PROBLEM

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  3. Philip.R.M.Hunt

    The No Labels approach of running a centrist third party presidential candidate is doomed to fail in achieving their stated goals. I agree with their diagnosis that the main problem with our politics is polarization and both parties becoming more extreme, but their solution is terrible. The root of the problem is our primary system which promotes polarization and until that is fixed, third parties will just be spoilers for one side or the other. Ryan Clancy protests we don’t know for sure that this approach will primarily hurt the Democratic Party, but I think any objective observer will conclude that is highly likely unless Trump is struck by lightning. Trump’s supporters are more fanatically loyal than Biden’s so Trump will not lose as many to No Labels.

    If no labels honestly wants to solve the country’s polarization problem and not just hand the election to Trump (as their third party approach likely will) then here is the agenda they should pursue: The first step is to make primaries open in all states and for all offices like in CA and WA. Next get Instant Runoff Voting or some variation thereof in all states for all elections. This seems to depolarized elections in AK very effectively. Finally, do as Jonah says and do away with the primary system all together and let party leadership pick the candidate. (Jonah is not a caucus of one - there are at least two of us.) Then and only then start running third party alternatives.

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    1. MathewA

      I actually think mandating open primaries is wrong. Private parties should be able to determine who their candidates are.

      The solution instead is to get voters to actually vote in the primaries.

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      1. Philip.R.M.Hunt

        Sure private parties should get to determine their candidates and determine the rules for how their own candidates are picked. That is a good argument for parties to get out of the government run primary system altogether and go back to the old way of parties running their own candidate selection though caucus and conventions they run and fund themselves. Open primaries is the second best solution.

        Getting more voters to vote won’t improve candidate quality and reduce extreme candidates. The voters that are not voting are typically uninformed and apathetic. Only people who take the time to investigate the candidates bios and positions carefully are going to make good choices. This is very similar to the problem Madison identified in the 1780s with the early state constitutions and articles of confederation- they were way too democratic and a lot of bad quality candidates were getting elected. So in the next round of state and federal constitution drafting they aimed to make the new constitutions less democratic.

        Actually we should do the opposite than getting more people to vote in the primaries - to vote in primaries you should have to take a test to prove you have done your homework and are making an informed choice. Nah. Better just to turn over candidate selection to the party professionals who are better informed and will take the time to make better decisions. The voters still get to their say in the general - but between two highly vetted candidates. Voters want more than two choices in the general? Go Ranked choice voting. Third parties won’t be spoilers and voters can signal their choices on the issues more exactly.

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        1. MathewA

          I wouldn't be opposed at all to testing before you could vote. Unfortunately it was used to block black voter participation so I think that will never happen again.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Rjosephpaquette

    If, it ends up Trump vs Biden round two, I and many Americans will be very happy there is a No Labels candidate on the ballot.

    I honestly hope their efforts will not be needed.

    Libertarian candidate could serve a similar function, if that party was not dysfunctional as well. (Yes, a very different set if problems from the major parties, but still prevent them from picking a winning candidate)

    I have donated to three “not Trump” republican candidates.

    Suggestion for a No Labels Ticket.
    Mitch Daniels/Joe Manchin.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Aylene Wright

      Libertarians actually came close to being able to take seriously in the 2016 election, when they ran two former Republican officeholders, Gary Johnson and Bill Weld.

      Unfortunately, they have since then deteriorated into a bunch of clownish contrarians, not to mention their recent embrace of Putin. As I suspect most disgruntled conservative ex-Republicans, left partially due to their horror at Trump doing the same, that's going to DQ the LP as a place to park a "principled protest vote". I know it does for me.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Rjosephpaquette

        I voted for Johnson. I could NOT bring myself to vote for Clinton or Trump. Libertarians have indeed squandered that success.

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    2. MathewA

      I'd vote for that ticket

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  5. Avatar photo
    Rajeev

    This guy makes Mike Lindell look like a squish. Everything he says he knows is a complete lie. An absolute embarrassment to anyone that takes statistics and politics seriously. It makes a lot of sense because they are lining their pockets with tons of money in order to sell what they know is snake oil.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Rajeev

    No Labels is a disingenuous group. They are intellectually lazy and a bunch of hacks. There is no effort to build any grassroots support they just want to run a presidential candidate. They could endorse Kyrsten Sinema tomorrow and vow to endorse whomever they see is most moderate regardless of party in every house race.

    They are the very prototype of the modern grievance politics. Everything is based off of victimhood and they will call anyone hypocrites when everyone knows they can't win a state and telling them that they cry about "voter-suppression" when in fact they are anti-math and living in a fantasy world.

    There is no opening they know it. Everytime Ryan Clancy says there is he is just another Ted Cruz lying through his teeth.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Jack

      [Citation needed]

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  7. Avatar photo
    Patrick

    Enjoyed this, thanks Sarah. All we hear from partisans is that No Labels has these hidden motives to swing the election to one candidate or another. I think it’s pretty clear that’s not true. One can disagree with the strategy, but he definitely seems to recognize the problems of our current candidate selection. I wish them well.

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  8. PKirch

    Thanks for this interview, I've heard talk of No Labels on the Dispatch before, but it was great to hear from them directly. Nice job Sarah.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Scott Faust

    Rather than doing all the work to get ballot access in all 50 states plus DC, then waiting on that black swan electoral cycle (which may never come) when a 3rd party could win... Why not do this, No Labels, or a similar org:
    Nominate TWO tickets, one center left, the other center right.
    The goal then is not necessarily to win the election, but to punish the major parties for making bad nominating choices. The alternative slates will presumably in some measure "spoil" both major party campaigns, but the party which made the worse decision will be hurt more in proportion.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Paul Beltman

    No interest.

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