'No Labels' On the NC Ballot in 2024? Have Democrats Been Out of Line?

 

Tomorrow, Sunday, in a special called meeting the State Board of Elections will make a decision regarding No Labels, the putative new political party that Pat McCrory is jointly leading, and whether it has navigated new and frankly unjustifiable questions about its purpose which Democrats on the SBOE have posed before they'll let No Labels on next year's ballot.

At its last meeting on July 6th, SBOE officials acknowledged that No Labels had submitted 14,797 verified signatures on a petition requesting ballot access, which according to law must be granted. That number of verified signatures is more than enough. Nevertheless (and here's where I have to agree with Pat McCrory that it's all political, and I'm not happy about it), the Democratic Chair of SBOE, Alan Hirsch, managed to delay approval for "more time to ask questions," the most important of which apparently runs "Who are you really, and who do you stand to hurt?" which is a solidly political consideration, appears to frustrate the law, and is therefore out of line.

I also fear what No Labels can do to enable Trump back into the White House, a place that man should never darken again, but pulling a stunt like delay to handicap a movement that has otherwise followed the law and met a demanding threshold -- that ain't a good look for Democrats. It's a lousy look and I rue the day:

As for who No Labels might field in 2024?

Well, that decision will not be made this year.

Republicans and Democrats alike have labelled No Labels a spoiler.

NC Newsline asked Catawba College political scientist Dr. Michael Bitzer this week about McCrory’s newfound attraction for a third party and their chances of making political history.

“The sense that I got was after the U.S. Senate nomination loss, he [McCrory] felt very much like a person without a political home,” said Bitzer.

And even as voters voice their objections about Democrats and Republicans or a rehash of 2020, there is a certain practicality as they get closer to casting their own ballot.

“In the end, people tend to be party loyalists and they tend to come home. And third parties tend to be the spoilers in American politics,” Bitzer explained. (Clayton Henkel, NCNewsline)

 

Slow News Monday

 

This cryptic headline appeared in the News and Observer yesterday: "Former Gov. Pat McCrory is not running for president, but he does have plans for 2024." What?

Turns out it was a nothing-burger article, very much in keeping with the latter days of our former governor, who was during his one term in office little more than a throw rug under the feet of Berger-Moore. The news is that McCrory is now a "volunteer" -- he used that word himself -- with a struggling new political "party" calling itself No Labels (what, "Beige" wasn't even considered as the name?)

Not really that "new" either. It was founded in 2010 with Joe Lieberman as the figurehead national chair. The NandO article at least got me interesting in learning more about No Labels, whose centrist goals are wholly unobjectionable except that it might -- be warned! -- might run a third-party presidential ticket in 2024 "if data shows that Americans aren’t satisfied with the party nominees and the No Labels candidates have a path forward to win, McCrory said."

Which means, practically speaking, diluting the vote for Joe Biden and allowing the nightmare of Trump to return.

The one tangible thing No Labels has accomplished is the formation in the US House of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which has accomplished some good things including passage of Biden's big infrastructure act.