NEW YORK–The people who attended the “No Labels” conference here on the campus of Columbia University really, really want the government to get things done. “So much partisanship, and not enough getting things done,” said Antonio Villaraigosa, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles who traveled across the country to join No Labels’ fight against the “excessive polarization and hyperpartisanship of American politics.”
“Labels … get in the way of getting things done,” said Tom Davis, the former Republican congressman from Virginia.
The No Labels organizers even enlisted a popular rapper named Akon — you know him if you like songs about gangstas, heavy on the n-word — to compose a paean to getting things done. Although bad weather kept Akon himself from making a planned appearance at the event, his “No Labels Anthem” still received its world premiere at Columbia:
See a man with a red tie
See a man with a blue tie
So how ’bout we tie ourselves together and get it done?
So there’s just no doubt that No Labels is about getting it done. But what is it? That’s not so clear. Sure, No Labels activists believe we should cut the deficit and improve health care and become energy independent. But after listening to a few hours of speeches at the group’s rollout, it was not at all obvious that the attendees would ever agree among themselves on how to do those things.
No Labels was formed by a group of Democratic and Republican political consultants. On the Democratic side, there is Nancy Jacobson, a former finance director of the Democratic National Committee and veteran of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. On the Republican side, there is Mark McKinnon, who worked for former President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain before announcing, as the 2008 general election race got under way, that he would no longer work for McCain because, as he said at the time, “I just don’t want to work against an Obama presidency.”
Now, after two years of an Obama presidency and a Republican opposition, McKinnon believes something is terribly wrong. “Nancy called me about nine months ago and said she wanted to start an organization to address hyperpartisanship,” McKinnon says. “She had me at hello.”
The event featured appearances by a number of Democratic politicians: Villaraigosa, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, and retiring Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh. For some reason, most of the Republicans who showed up were recently defeated officeholders: South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. God knows why a group devoted to principle above politics would invite the opportunistic Crist to speak, but No Labels did.
The events were moderated by MSNBC personalities Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Dylan Ratigan, and Michael Smerconish. If Fox News seemed to be associated with the Tea Party, then No Labels was an MSNBC affair.
For all of MSNBC’s leftward tilt, the event’s organizers insisted No Labels was strictly bipartisan. And indeed, many participants said they had voted for both Republicans and Democrats in state and local elections. “I am a Democrat who has always voted for the person’s stand on the issues rather than just by party label,” said Bunny Davis of Tucson, who warned the gathering about a takeover of “extremists” in Arizona. But the story was a little different when it came to the White House. “Have I voted for a Republican for president?” Davis said. “No, I haven’t.”
Of course there were people there who have voted for Republicans for president. But at times the No Labels rollout just felt like a Democratic campaign event. For example, before lunch the group’s college-age volunteers, all wearing orange No Labels T-shirts, filled the stage to sing Akon’s anthem. I wish they didn’t have no labels, they chanted, swaying with the music. There’d be more change with no labels. The music was interrupted with brief clips from speeches by John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.
No Labels organizers claim that they, unlike the Republican or Democratic parties, represent the true majority of Americans. “We can do it because we have the numbers,” said co-founder John Avlon, a former Rudy Giuliani staffer and author of the book “Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America.” It’s not clear what numbers Avlon was referring to. It’s also not clear how No Labels, were it to become a viable political movement, would ever get things done.
Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
