OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The lefty women of ABC’s “The View” discussed efforts by a politically moderate organization to field a candidate for the presidency next year, with one co-host voicing the most concerns about it.
Ana Navarro, a self-proclaimed Republican who regularly spouts anti-conservative rhetoric, blasted efforts by a group called No Labels to field a third-party presidential candidate next year, claiming it would only help former President Donald Trump by peeling away votes from President Joe Biden.
After acknowledging that her husband, political strategist Al Cárdenas, had been involved with No Labels in the past, she expressed her opinion that putting up a third-party candidate this time around is “dangerous.”
“I think this is the stupidest thing ever,” Navarro said during the Monday program.
“And let me just say this, my husband has been very supportive of No Labels,” Navarro continued. “He’s been a part of No Labels. When No Labels started, one of the things they did was bring together a bunch of people in Congress, Senate, and House, with a bipartisan agenda. It was Republicans and Democrats trying to work together on some of the crises that we have in this nation, and I think that part is so needed and so great.
“But this is dangerous because — let’s just put things in context,” she added. “This is not a normal thing. This is not Bill Clinton versus George Herbert Walker Bush with Ross Perot playing spoiler. No. This is Donald Trump.”
Earlier, in an interview with Fox News, founding co-chair Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat-turned-Independent who served as a U.S. senator from Connecticut for decades and was Al Gore’s 2000 running mate, said the organization has yet to actually decide on running a candidate, but that it was becoming more likely.
“We haven’t decided to run a ticket. It’s not even clear that if it ends up being Trump and Biden, as it looks like it will now, that we’ll do that,” he said.
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“I think No Labels invited Joe Manchin and Jon Huntsman because they’re former chairs of our organization and they represent centrist Democrats, centrist Republicans, which is what we’re about,” Lieberman continued.
“I guess it’s natural for people to speculate, particularly in Manchin’s case whether it means he will run on a possible No Labels ticket year. It’s way too early to say that. I think Joe hasn’t decided that at all, as he’s said, and No Labels hasn’t decided it,” he added.
Navarro added of Trump: “He is a threat to national security. He has threatened our democracy. He caused an insurrection. He has weaponized government against his enemies and so if you, Jon Huntsman or Joe Lieberman — I love you, Joe Lieberman, but you’ve got to stop this, Joe. Joe, Joe, this is insane, and you cannot do anything, anything that could possibly help Donald Trump become president. You cannot be an accomplice on that. You are better than that, Joe.”
It should be noted that her claims are opinions, not based on fact. At least as many Americans, if not more, never viewed the riot at the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, as anything other than that, and certainly not a rebellion of any substance.
Also, many conservatives believe that President Joe Biden has actually “weaponized” government agencies to go after Trump, who is now leading him in some polls. Many Americans view the Justice Department’s indictment of Trump as Biden using the power of government to eliminate a powerful political opponent.
In any event, the last third-party candidate of any substance in terms of garnering a sizeable percentage of voters was Ross Perot, who ran on a Reform Party ticket in 1992 — a move that many saw, back then, as handing the presidency to Bill Clinton over GOP incumbent President George H. W. Bush.