Why No Labels will bring 'lots of carnage with no constructive outcome': ex-DNC and RNC leaders

09 July 2023

Over the past few months, a growing number of pundits have warned that the non-partisan No Labels movement's plans to run a third-party candidate in the 2024 presidential race could potentially upset President Joe Biden's reelection to a second term. Such a scenario could result in criminally-indicted former President Donald Trump returning to the White House without winning the national popular vote, as happened in 2016 thanks to the arcane Electoral College.

On Saturday, two ex-party leaders — Republican National Committee Deputy Director Frank Donatelli and Les Francis, an executive director of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — penned a joint editorial for RealClearPolitics in which they explained why No Labels poses an "existential threat" to the survival of the American democratic experiment.

"While the two-party system is not perfect, it has worked pretty damned well," the pair opined, "No Labels, which claims to support 'centrism and bipartisanship' and is painfully self-righteous in doing so, is planning to mount a third-party effort in next year's presidential contest. The results could be catastrophic."

Donatelli and Francis recalled that "since the Republican Party replaced the Whigs in the 1850s, there is no precedent for a third party coming anywhere near winning the presidency. This was true even with a hugely popular figure like former president Theodore Roosevelt, or someone with a boatload of money and a major issue (Ross Perot and the federal budget deficit in 1992), or a regional figure who was dominant in one part of the country and on one issue (Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968 arguing for the maintenance of segregation), made a run for the White House."

Despite those men's relatively respectable performances in the Electoral College, Donatelli and Francis stressed that "there are no available political figures remotely comparable to Roosevelt, Wallace, or Perot today," adding that "a third candidate could influence the final vote in destructive ways, as Roosevelt, Wallace, and Perot all did."

According to Donatelli and Francis, a No Labels "challenge in 2024 will be the political equivalent of fragging – lots of carnage with no constructive outcome. A third candidacy could play into the hands of determined and dangerous anti-democratic elements."

Citing polling that shows a tightening contest between Trump and Biden with "a moderate independent candidate at 13%" and "4% unsure," Donatelli and Francis determined that "a third-party candidate helps Donald Trump," concluding, "if you want Trump back in the Oval Office, sign up with No Labels. If not, then stay as far away as you can."

Donatelli's and Francis' full commentary continues here.

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