By Chris Powell
Prevailing opinion is that a third-party “fusion” presidential ticket like that being contemplated by former Connecticut U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman’s “No Labels” group will draw more votes away from next year’s presumptive Democratic nominee, doddering Joe Biden, than from the presumptive Republican nominee, loony Donald Trump.
That’s why leading Democrats are nearly hysterical about No Labels while leading Republicans seem indifferent. Those Democrats include former Connecticut U.S. Rep. Toby Moffett, who appeared July 22 on WTNH-TV8’s “Capitol Report” program to disparage No Labels while claiming that he doesn’t understand why Biden is so unpopular. Moffett called Biden “the most active, accomplished president in modern history,” extravagant praise that may be explained only by the former congressman’s own senescence or his employment as a Washington lobbyist.
A national poll taken two weeks ago by Quinnipiac University challenges the prevailing opinion about No Labels. Not only did 47% of respondents, most of them unaffiliated voters, say they would consider voting for a third-party ticket, equal to the percentage who said they would not, but more Republicans than Democrats said they would consider voting third party — by 38% to 35%.
Of course all this is hugely speculative before No Labels settles on a ticket. But when have the two most likely major-party presidential candidates generated so much disgust and contempt?
A minor party has never won a presidential election. But a minor party would not have to win the election to save the country next year. A minor party would need only to attract enough support to be seen as a great danger to one or both of the major parties prior to their nominating conventions, causing them to discard their awful candidates. In that case, Lieberman has said, No Labels would not put candidates on the ballot.
As Moffett did the other day, leading Democrats are acting as if only Trump disgusts many people. But millions don’t want to vote for Biden any more than they want to vote for Trump. The Democratic leaders terrified by No Labels can solve their problem by inducing the president and Vice President Kamala Harris not to seek renomination and by recruiting an alternative presidential candidate more credible than Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose surprisingly large support among Democrats in opinion polls is another indication of Biden’s grave weakness.
Indeed, the biggest threat of Trump’s re-election isn’t posed by No Labels but by Biden himself. So Democrats should take responsibility instead of trying to shift it to No Labels.
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If the country is going to uphold the Constitution’s principle of racial equality as it was recently articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision prohibiting “affirmative action” -– racial preferences and discrimination — the decision will have to be applied beyond college admissions.
For “affirmative action” has been incorporated in many other places.
Municipal governments, including some in Connecticut, like Hartford’s, have enacted racial and gender quotas in construction projects.
Higher education is full of racial preferences quite apart from admissions. For example, Central Connecticut State University awards financial grants exclusively to teachers from racial minorities as a way of encouraging their recruitment for and retention on the university staff.
While the Supreme Court’s decision makes perfect sense as a matter of law and justice, it doesn’t diminish the urgency of integration. But racial preferences have been a “top-down” and arbitrary mechanism of integration when the country needs a mechanism that works from the bottom up, so that children have a better chance of equal opportunity as young adults because they are more equally qualified by upbringing and education.
A bottom-up mechanism of integration would address poverty, which remains closely correlated with race, the pernicious effects of welfare policy, the lack of parenting, and all sorts of bad outcomes in life.
This correlation provides an opening for policy that isn’t frankly racial discrimination. But integrating by reducing the cost of living, especially the cost of housing, is a lot harder than deciding college admissions by race.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 