Is Robert Kuttner speaking in code?

[ProSense]

Robert Kuttner

<...>

The latest incarnation of the bipartisan delusion is an organization calling itself "No Labels." This is not an anti-designer consumer protest, but a political organization advertising the conceit that there is something virtuous per se about being post-partisan, never mind the content.

No Labels, according to the Wall Street Journal,

has raised more than $1 million to seed its effort against what it calls "hyper-partisanship." Backers include co-chairman of Loews Corp. Andrew Tisch, Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich and ex-Facebook executive Dave Morin. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, as well as U.S. senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Michigan's Debbie Stabenow, will attend the New York launch.

The group's goal is to start a centrist equivalent to the tea-party movement on the right and MoveOn on the left. It sees an opportunity based on the defeat of liberal Republicans in recent years and the heavy losses taken by conservative Democrats in 2010.

'I've never seen such a wide opening for a third force in American politics,' says William Galston, a Brookings Institution fellow and No Labels adviser.

Spare me! Is Joe Lieberman, one of the great hacks of American politics, anybody's idea of a fresh thinker?

<...>

What are Debbie Stabenow and Antonio Villaraigosa, of all people, doing associating themselves with this crowd? Didn't partisan Democrats and the labor movement work their tails off to get these people elected?

One of the two organizers of the effort is Nancy Jacobson, a big-time Democratic fund-raiser who is married to strategist Mark Penn, the pollster who invariably advises Democrats to move to the right. You can guess who will get the contract if this outfit takes off.

According to several reports, the fantasy of this group is that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg would agree to run as a centrist independent in 2012.

<...>

Seriously, what the hell does all this mean? A centrist tea party?

[madfloridian]

1. That sounds like the DLC. They tried Unity 08 also, didn't they?

http://nolabels.org/

You are right...it sounds ridiculous.

The founding leaders are mostly Republican or Lite.

http://nolabels.org/about-us/founding-leaders/

Huge list of citizen leaders.

http://nolabels.org/about-us/citizen-leaders/

[TheWraith]

2. Centerist Tea Party? Contradiction in terms: extreme moderates.

This might well be backed by friends of Bloomberg, since he seems to think he can buy any office he wants. If there's a "movement" to draft him, no matter how astroturfed it was, he would look better.

[Merlot]

4. Maybe bloomieberg should have a chat with meg...

ask her how buying the gov seat worked out for her. Although 140 Million is pocket change to both of them.

[OHdem10]

3. DLC Centrists trying to revive themselves after the beating they

took in the last election..

Is this a group to try to put Bloomberg in as President.

They are a contradiction.

Centrists have no committment. Tell me one person who can
tell you a principle they stand by. They live by polls and
focus groups--tell them what to believe.

This country is looking for authenticity. People who will
take a stand and believe in something.

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Moveon.org is a force like the Teabaggers?

We wish there was a group with the backing and the leadership to run successful primaries and affect political discourse that way.