Recently, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and his buddy West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin tried to breathe life into an idea that they helped launch more than a decade ago — a centrist, third-party operation called “No Labels.”
It’s born from the notion that our bitterly divided political system fails a majority of the country by electing people who pander to the extremes and run for the sake of running, not to solve the real problems facing Americans.
“The only element of American society that has not been transformed — every other industry has been transformed through innovation, new technology, whatever — is politics,” Huntsman said at a forum in New Hampshire. “It’s still the same old, same old. I mean, if we end up in 2024 with the same set of nominees that we did in 2020, I mean is that insanity? Is that the definition of insanity or what?”
The solution Manchin, Huntsman and the No Labels crew are proposing is to press a candidate, either Republican or Democrat, to embrace the No Labels platform — which is really a group of poll-tested platitudes more than a cohesive philosophy.
If no one does adopt their viewpoint, then No Labels already has wheels in motion, through a chain of satellite affiliates around the country, to try to put their own ticket — consisting of one Republican and one Democrat running as president and vice president — on the ballot in as many states as possible to give voters an alternative.
Huntsman had a brief presidential bid in 2012, but Manchin seems to be the likeliest option at the top of the ticket. In New Hampshire, he leaned hard into the coy, “will-he-or-won’t-he” dance like he just wants to be courted a little harder, wooed a little more fervently — because sure, the whole world is clamoring to have Joe Manchin for president.
That’s not to say I’m unsympathetic to the argument the No Labels crowd is making. I completely, wholeheartedly agree that our political system is rotten. The whole thing is rigged to cater to the extremes and fail to solve problems.
I have used this space — for all the good it does — to advocate for reform for years, knowing full well that it will never happen organically because it would require action from the same people who accumulate immense power and wealth specifically because of the broken status quo. So, as Huntsman and Manchin imply, crises go unsolved and our rudderless nation hurtles toward oblivion.
Here’s the problem: When Huntsman has had an opportunity to actually do something about it, he has refused to step up.
Back in 2019, after he returned from his post as ambassador to Russia and it seemed clear he was going to take another shot at running for governor, I wrote in this space that he was uniquely situated — thanks to his name ID and ability to raise money — to tap into that big No Labels energy and run as an independent.
If he had, he would probably be governor today. Instead, he ran a lackluster race to try to sell himself as a serious Republican, even pledging his allegiance to Donald Trump (as he also did in 2016) and went on to lose the GOP primary.
Skip ahead two years and we have another independent — this time Evan McMullin — trying to embrace the centrist path against Mike Lee. About a year earlier, Lee worked behind the scenes to help brainstorm a plot for Trump’s team to put up alternate slates of electors in an attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election and keep the loser in the White House. He helped to sow the seeds of an insurrection.
But with Lee’s campaign sagging and McMullin — according to Lee’s own polling — within striking range, Huntsman stepped in to support his old buddy and in the process helped send the poster child for gridlock, hyper-partisanship and intransigence back to the Senate.
Those two examples offered much better opportunities for a centrist insurgency than the presidential landscape, where No Labels would have to first manage to get their split ticket on the ballot in enough states to make a difference.
If they can’t qualify in enough states to have a legitimate opportunity or, worse, they only qualify in red states or blue states and swing the outcome of the election, they’re not changing the political landscape. They’re being a spoiler.
“I’ve never been in a race I’ve ever spoiled. If I’ve been in races to win and if I get in the race I’m going to win,” Manchin claimed — even though that is exactly what he would be doing.
Polling in swing states done by a group led by former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (and first reported by Axios) shows pretty convincingly that in a likely Trump-Biden rematch they would throw the election to Trump.
In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin combined, Biden leads Trump 52% to 48%. Add a generic moderate candidate and Trump wins — 40% to 39% with 21% going to the No Labels ticket.
Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, states that are now toss-ups, move in Trump’s direction by an average of about 5 points. Wisconsin, where Biden is leading, moves by 9 points and flips completely.
Long story short, Huntsman and his Quixotic crew can’t win, but they can do more than just about anyone else to put a man now facing more than seventy felony charges — including the new charges Tuesday of conspiring to overthrow the 2020 election — and a proven danger to the country and enemy of democracy back in the White House.
The nation would benefit from more choices, better debate and more representative candidates. But if No Labels wants to have an impact on our political landscape, they should go find a bunch of moderate congressional candidates with an actual shot to win and support them with everything they’ve got.
Instead, they’re floating the idea of a half-baked moon shot that doesn’t have the slightest chance to succeed or move the needle in a meaningful way, but could do long-lasting and irreparable harm to our country.
The stakes in 2024 are far too high for that kind of ego-fueled nonsense.
Editor’s note • Jon Huntsman Jr. is a brother of Paul Huntsman, chair of the nonprofit The Salt Lake Tribune’s board of directors.
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