Publisher’s note: Joe Lieberman, an independent, is a former American senator who represented Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. He was the Democratic candidate vice-presidential during the 2000 presidential election. The opinions expressed in this comment are his. See more opinion on CNN.
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When Ralph Nader presented himself to the presidency in 2000, he offered a simple justification for an offer that would ultimately help to “spoil” the election of the Democratic ticket, I had the privilege of being with Al Gore. In Nader’s opinion, the two parties were ideologically indistinguishable.
This argument was baseless. There were significant differences in the policy between the George W. Bush -Dick Cheney post – which ended up victory, partly thanks to Nader – and ours. To Nader, it was not really the “bipartite duopoly” because he invented it. It was his desire to push Gore and the Democratic Party on the left.
Today, of course, no one can reasonably say that the two parties are not ideologically distinct. The basic problem in Washington, DC, is that they are too divided to do a lot.
Although a majority of Americans aspires at the time when Republicans and Democrats worked together to find bipartite solutions to large problems, many members of the Congress refuse to work together on immigration, the debt ceiling and other essential problems for the nation, even when biparism is the means of restoring our common prosperity and safety. Indeed, today, with the Republicans controlling the Chamber and the Democrats of the Senate, bipartite is the only way to adopt legislation.
Although the cancellation of divisions distressing our political system will not be simple, there is a step that can be taken – and it begins by giving voters a real alternative during the 2024 presidential election.
Most often, when the Americans voted for the president and the vice-president, their ballot has only two viable tickets: one appointed by the Democratic Party and the other by the Republican Party. But what would happen if they had a third viable option?
The process to add that the third viable option is not only difficult and long, but it varies from one state to another and in the District of Columbia.
Today, no label, a non -profit organization that I co -resistant, set the foundations for such a campaign in 2024. Since the beginning of 2022, our team has worked with diligence through the country to obtain access to the ballot for a potential ticket without labels, generally by collecting a certain number of petition signatures for voters of each state.
If we succeed, a unit ticket – made up of a democrat and a republican – could be presented to voters right alongside the republican and democratic candidates.
We consider this to be an insurance policy for the country – an option to deploy if, and only if, the two main party candidates could not offer voters a choice of candidates for whom they wish to vote or a way to get out of the partisan dividence which now dominates in the national capital. We will constantly monitor the feeling of the Americans through our own research and questions, as well as public polls, to take this determination.
In this way and several other ways, no effort of the labels could be more different from the “spoiler” campaign that Nader tried two decades ago.
First, if no label lends its ballots to a presidential ticket, the presidential candidate would be a democratic and the vice-presidential candidate would be republican, or vice versa. As such, this would call on certain voters who could otherwise have voted for the Democratic ticket and other voters who would have voted otherwise for the republican ticket. And that would call on other voters who would not have voted either.
These candidates would be selected by a diversified and distinguished group of citizens sitting in a committee – and would be ratified by delegates who would meet at the National Convention of No Labels scheduled for April 2024. This agreement will occur about six weeks after the primaries of March 5, one day, which has historically clarified who will be the main candidates.
Second, no effort in 2024 of the labels is designed to push democratic candidates to the left or republican candidates on the right. It is rather intended to force one or both parties to call on the growing majority of America. If they don’t, our voting line will create the opening for a unit ticket that will.
According to a recent CNN survey, the number of individuals who identify as independents is increasing, now comprising 41% of the electorate – against only 28% who described themselves as Democrats and 31% who described themselves as Republicans. These figures are more proof that there could be a potential path to victory for an independent ticket in 2024.
But if there does not seem to be such a path in the coming months, no label will be held down, rather focusing on the work we have done in the last decade to elect and organize members of the Chamber and the Senate who have demonstrated the courage to reach the aisle – including the members of the Bipartite Solvers Caucus house.
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It seems that the Biden administration can already begin to recognize the imperative to call on the majority of common sense. President Joe Biden recently signed a republican measure to eliminate a Washington, DC bill, reducing sanctions for those who commit violent crimes, and he has announced stricter border control policies.
Our hope is that the Republicans who jockey for the appointment of their party will also see the need to reach their base instead of calling on policies and the division policy.
In the end, no label hopes not have to offer our line to vote to an independent unit ticket. We want the parties to return to their minds. But to judge by the angry and apocalyptic reactions of the strategists in both parties at the idea of the labels insurance policy, it is clear that party leaders now know that there could be a political cost to ignore the majority of common sense. And it is a reason to hope for a better future for our government and our country.
