No Labels and the Rise of the Center

The No Labels group is set for its official launch in New York City early next week.  The organization states, "We are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are united in the belief that we do not have to give up our labels, merely put them aside to do what’s best for America."  It has been denounced as a liberal front group by Republicans and called a conservative ploy by Democrats.  Solomon Kleinsmith, who maintains Rise of the Center and is a contributor to Third Party and Independent Daily, has been involved with the group for a few months, and will be traveling to New York to attend the organization's launch.  Solomon was invited to write a commentary on the group for WNYC's politics blog, in which he explains, "Why I'm coming from Nebraska to help launch a centrist movement." Excerpt:

These people [partisan Democrat and Republican nay-sayers] cannot possibly know if there is a hidden agenda behind No Labels, nor can they know who the financial backers are who haven't come out publicly, but this doesn't stop them from pretending. Many are claiming that No Labels is a political party, laying the foundation for a Bloomberg Presidential run in 2012. If this had any truth to it, I'd actually be all for it, but they conveniently are ignoring that No Labels is a 501c4 (commonly called super PACs). I directed a "c4" in 2008, and two minutes of research would show that such organizations have strict limits on how much they can spend on partisan activities, not to mention outright bans on much of what political parties do. . . .

No Labels doesn’t fit into their artificial ideological worldview, so they pull off mental gymnastics to invent wingnut conspiracy theories about how the group must be a puppet of dark forces from the other end of the political spectrum. . . .


These ad hominem attacks are one sign that No Labels is my kinda group. I put up with the same attacks every day myself. I’ve been praying for years for a well organized, well funded and professionally run political organization that centrist independents like myself could genuinely be a part of without being treated like second class citizens. I’m happy to see them attempting to create a big tent where moderates from both sides can work together with centrist independents. If I were to put together a MoveOn for moderates, as some aptly are calling No Labels, it would look largely like what I have seen from them thus far.

Read the whole thing.