A Mysterious Third Party Enters the Presidential Race

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

No Labels, which pitches itself as a centrist movement to appeal to disaffected voters, has secured a considerable amount of funding and is working behind the scenes to get on Presidential ballots across the country. The group has yet to announce a candidate, but “most likely we’ll have both a Republican and Democrat on the ticket,” Pat McCrory, the former governor of North Carolina and one of the leaders of No Labels, tells David Remnick. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are reportedly under consideration, but McCrory will not name names, nor offer any specifics on the group’s platform, including regarding critical issues such as abortion and gun rights. That opacity is by design, Sue Halpern, who has covered the group, says. “The one reason why I think they haven’t put forward a candidate is once they do that, then they are required to do all the things that political parties do,” she says. “At the moment, they’re operating like a PAC, essentially. They don’t have to say who their donors are.” Third-party campaigns have had significant consequences in American elections, and, with both Donald Trump and Joe Biden historically unpopular, a third-party candidate could peel a decisive number of moderate voters away from the Democratic Party.

Plus, three New Yorker critics—Doreen St. Félix, Alexandra Schwartz, and Inkoo Kang—discuss why so many scripted and reality shows use psychotherapy as a central plotline.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:12.6	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:16.4	Last week on the program, I talked with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was best known as a proponent
0:22.2	of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories before he launched a presidential campaign.
0:27.3	But he is not the only wild card to emerge in the 2024 presidential race so far.
0:34.0	No labels is a would-be political party that you may not have heard of yet.
0:39.1	They haven't announced to their candidates, but they've secured a considerable amount
0:43.8	of funding and they're working behind the scenes to get on the ballot across the country.
0:48.7	No labels is pitched as a centrist movement to appeal to disaffected voters in both major
0:54.6	parties.
0:56.6	Now the history of third party candidates from Martin Van Buren to Teddy Roosevelt,
1:00.9	Horace Greeley to Ross Perot, is an interesting one, but no one running from that position
1:06.3	is ever one.
1:08.5	And yet third parties can have real consequences.
1:11.7	There are many to this day who believe that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election in 2000,
1:17.2	where that Ross Perot spoiled things for George H. W. Bush in 1992 and that led to the Clinton
1:23.5	presidency.
1:25.2	At this early point, Joe Biden and Donald Trump seem the likely nominees for their parties,
1:31.4	yet polls tell us that they are profoundly unpopular with voters.
1:36.0	So who knows, a third party could have an outsized impact.
1:40.9	One of the leaders of no labels is Pat McCrory, the former governor of North Carolina.
1:46.2	I spoke to him recently to try to understand what role this new party, if that's what it
	...

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