December 13 marked the launch date for an organization named No Labels. The group describes itself this way:
No Labels is a 501(c)(4) social welfare advocacy organization created to provide a voice for America’s vital center, where ideas are judged on their merits, a position which is underrepresented in our current politics. No Labels provides a forum and community for Americans of all political backgrounds interested in seeing the nation move not left, not right, but forward. No Labels encourages all public officials to prioritize the national interest over party interest, and to cease acting on behalf of narrow, if vocal, special interests on the far right or left.
Although No Labels has both a Declaration and a Statement of Purpose, you will find the most useful information about the group on its Frequently Asked Questions page.
As a political centrist, I found most of what I read at the No Labels website appealing enough, although I disagreed with a bit of it. First of all, the group would have been more aptly-named, “No Polarization” since they aren’t really opposed to labels, as they explained:
We are never asking people to give up their labels, only put them aside to do what’s best for America.
Besides – I enjoy using labels to describe people. Some of my favorite labels include: corporatist, plutocrat, oligarch and tool. Another statement on the No Labels website with which I disagreed was the following remark, from their Statement of Purpose:
We can’t seem to break our addiction to foreign oil.
I would suggest: “We can’t seem to break our addiction to carbon-based energy sources.” There is no such thing as “foreign oil”. The so-called, “American” oil companies are all incorporated in the Cayman Islands and none of them pay income taxes to our government. All of our oil comes from multinational corporations and it is commingled with “Muslim oil” and “Venezuelan Communist oil” at storage depots. If the people from No Labels insist on treating us as idiots in the same manner as the two major political parties, they will deservedly fail in their mission.
I was particularly amused by the fact that so many people expressed outrage about the founding of No Labels. The new organization managed to draw plenty of ire from an assortment of commentators during the past week and it made for some fun reading. One of the “Founding Leaders” of No Labels is John Avlon of the Huffington Post. He recently wrote this essay in response to spleen-venting by Rush Limbaugh on the right and Keith Olbermann on the left – both of whom expressed displeasure with the inception of the new association:
“If we do this right, we can discredit this whole mind-set of the ‘moderate center’ being the defining group in American politics,” said Rush. “Because this No Labels group is going to end up illustrating what a fraudulent idea that whole concept of, ‘There are people who decide issue by issue. On the left they like certain things, on the right they like certain things.’ ”
So Rush believes that there are no principled Americans who decide what they believe on different policies issue-by-issue. For someone who talks about freedom a lot, he doesn’t have much faith in free will or free-thinking. He doesn’t believe that Americans — especially independent voters — can consider themselves fiscally conservative but socially liberal. You either walk in lockstep as a social conservative and fiscal conservative or you are a ‘hard-core liberal’ — libertarians, apparently, need not apply.
* * *
Keith Olbermann named No Labels one of the “worst persons in the world” last night (a badge of honor he gave to me earlier this year). He called us “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” and “a bunch of fraudulent conservative Democrats pretending to be moderates and a bunch of fraudulent Republicans pretending to be independents.” Again, there’s the impulse to divide and deny the legitimacy of anyone who doesn’t conform to a hyper-partisan view of politics.
Conservative columnist George Will provided this amusing bit of speculation that the entire effort might simply be a pretext for Michael Bloomberg’s Presidential ambitions:
Often in the year before the year before the year divisible by four, a few political people theatrically recoil from partisanship. Recently, this ritual has involved speculation about whether New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg might squander a few of his billions to improve America by failing to be elected president.
Oh, snap! Good one, George!
The strangest reaction to the kick-off of No Labels came from Frank Rich of The New York Times. The relevant portions of Mr. Rich’s rant seemed to be based on the theme that the Republican-dominated 112th Congress will be intransigent and therefore, President Obama along with his fellow Democrats, must fight intransigence with intransigence. This formula for gridlock would ultimately prove more harmful to Democrats than Republicans.
The Frank Rich diatribe was particularly bizarre because it rambled all over the place, with rants about people and subjects having nothing to do with No Labels. Peter Orszag has no connection to No Labels. So, why did Frank Rich go off on the wild tangent about Orszag, Citigroup and Scott Brown’s contributions from the financial sector as though any of them might have had something to do with No Labels? Forget about what John Avlon told you concerning Keith Olberman’s putting No Labels on his “worst persons in the world” list. According to Frank Rich, the entire No Labels effort is actually a “a promotional hobby horse for MSNBC”. It gets weirder: Rich believes that because a political consultant (Mark McKinnon) and a fund-raiser (Nancy Jacobson) are “prime movers” for No Labels . . . therefore “No Labels itself is another manifestation” of the syndrome wherein “both parties are bought off by special interests who game the system and stack it against the rest of us.” At this point, the only factoid I can find to support that allegation is the inclusion of the term “foreign oil” in the group’s Statement of Purpose. So, I’ll keep an open mind. Besides, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as well as Jesse Ventura’s television program with the same name. Nevertheless, it becomes difficult to stick with Frank Rich’s theory that by failing to seek re-election as Senator of Indiana, Evan Bayh deliberately “facilitated the election of a high-powered corporate lobbyist, Dan Coats, as his Republican successor”. The fact that Bayh’s father, former Senator Birch Bayh, is a lobbyist is interposed to emphasize the likelihood that Evan will also become a lobbyist. Is this discussion being offered to explain that Evan Bayh “stepped aside” to allow Dan Coats to become Senator because Bayh has a genetic pre-disposition to the “Lobbyist Code of Dishonor”? If so, in what manner does this impact No Labels? Guilt by association?
The animosity generated by this group’s stand against what it calls “hyper-partisanship” demonstrates that the opponents of No Labels are advocates of hyper-partisanship. In the days ahead, it will be interesting to see who else speaks out to “give acrimony a chance”.