Editor’s note: Joe Lieberman, an independent, is a former U.S. senator who represented Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. He was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in the 2000 presidential election. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. See more opinions on CNN.
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In 2000, Ralph Nader, who ran for president, offered a simple reason for his candidacy that would ultimately “spoil” the election for the Democratic ticket on which I had the privilege of sitting alongside Al Gore. He said that the two parties were ideologically inseparable.
This argument was baseless. There were significant policy differences between the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney ticket—which eventually won, thanks in part to Nader—and ours. For Nader, it wasn’t really about the “two-party duopoly,” as he himself coined it. It was about his desire to push Gore and the Democratic Party to the left.
Today, of course, no one can reasonably claim that the two parties are not ideologically distinct. The fundamental problem in Washington, D.C., is that they are too divided to accomplish anything.
While a majority of Americans long for the days when Republicans and Democrats worked together to find bipartisan solutions to major problems, many members of Congress refuse to work together on immigration, the debt ceiling, and other issues that matter most to the nation, even when bipartisanship is the way to restore our shared prosperity and security. Indeed, today, with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats in control of the Senate, bipartisanship is the only way to pass legislation.
Ending the divisions that undermine our political system will not be easy, but one step can be taken: it begins by offering voters a real alternative in the 2024 presidential election.
More often than not, when Americans vote for president and vice president, their ballots include only two viable candidates: one nominated by the Democratic Party and one by the Republican Party. But what if they had a third viable option?
The process of adding this third viable option is not only arduous and time-consuming, but it varies from state to state and within the District of Columbia.
Today, No Labels, a nonprofit organization that I co-chair, is laying the groundwork for such a campaign in 2024. Since early 2022, our team has been working diligently across the country to gain ballot access for a potential No Labels ticket, typically by collecting a certain number of petition signatures from voters in each state.
If we succeed, a unity ticket – consisting of a Democrat and a Republican – could be presented to voters right next to the Republican and Democratic candidates.
We view this as an insurance policy for the country, an option to be deployed if, and only if, the two major party candidates fail to provide voters with a choice of candidates they would like to vote for or a way out of the partisan divisions that currently dominate the nation’s capital. We will continually monitor American sentiment through our own research and polling, as well as public opinion surveys, in making this determination.
In this and many other respects, the No Labels effort could not be more different from the “spoiler” campaign Nader attempted to wage twenty years ago.
First, if No Labels were to lend its voting lines to a presidential candidate, the presidential candidate would be a Democrat and the vice-presidential candidate would be a Republican, or vice versa. Thus, it would appeal to some voters who might have voted for the Democratic ticket, and other voters who might have voted for the Republican ticket. And it would appeal to still other voters who would have voted for neither.
Those candidates would be selected by a diverse and distinguished group of citizens serving on a committee — and would be ratified by delegates who would meet at the nonpartisan National Convention scheduled for April 2024. That convention would take place about six weeks after the March 5 “Super Tuesday” primaries, a day that has historically clarified who the major party nominees will be.
Second, the goal of No Labels in 2024 is not to push Democratic candidates left or Republican candidates right. Rather, it is to force one or both parties to appeal to the growing common-sense majority of Americans. If they don’t, our slate will create the opening for a unity ticket that will.
According to a recent CNN poll, the number of people who identify as independents is on the rise, now representing 41% of the electorate, compared to just 28% who describe themselves as Democrats and 31% who describe themselves as Republicans. These numbers are further evidence that there could be a potential path to victory for an independent ticket in 2024.
But if such a path doesn’t appear to be emerging in the months ahead, No Labels will step aside, focusing instead on the work we’ve done over the past decade electing and organizing members of the House and Senate who have demonstrated the courage to reach out to other parties — including members of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus.
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It appears that the Biden administration is already beginning to recognize the imperative to appeal to the common sense of the majority. President Joe Biden recently signed into law a Republican bill to repeal a Washington bill that would reduce penalties for violent crimes, and he announced stricter border control policies.
We hope that Republicans vying for their party’s nomination will also see the need to reach beyond their base instead of resorting to divisive policies and measures.
Ultimately, No Labels hopes not We need to offer our ballot line to an independent unity ticket. We want the parties to come to their senses. But judging by the angry and apocalyptic reactions of strategists in both parties to the idea of No Labels’ insurance policy, it is clear that party leaders now know there could be a political cost to ignoring the common-sense majority. And that is reason to hope for a better future for our government and our country.
