Pat McCrory insists No Labels is not about electing Trump. Be skeptical. | Opinion

Politics are quiet in this deep summer month, but former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is offering an interesting diversion.

McCrory is a co-chairman for the centrist political movement that calls itself No Labels. The other co-chairs are former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, former Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and civil rights leader Ben Chavis.

No Labels is poised to offer a third choice if the 2024 presidential race is a contest between Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Democrats are nervous about the group, which is raising money from unidentified donors, though news reports say its backers include conservative mega-donor Harlan Crow. If No Labels offers a presidential candidate, it could attract political moderates by eschewing partisanship and calling for “commonsense solutions.” That would tilt a Biden-Trump contest in Trump’s favor.

The weight of that possibility has prompted questions about what exactly is this new political product that has no label.

The task of explaining the movement on national news shows has fallen to McCrory. He’s drawing on his experience as a shape-shifting politician to frustrate those who ask about the movement’s core beliefs. McCrory, who had flexible positions as mayor of Charlotte, as a one-term governor and as a candidate for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in 2022, is well-suited to the task of fuzzy responses.

I caught up with McCrory by phone on Wednesday. He was in New Hampshire, where No Labels had hosted a town meeting featuring Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who is flirting with a third party candidacy.

I asked McCrory about the vagueness of No Labels’ policy positions. He pointed me to a 63-page “Common Sense Policy Booklet” posted on the No Labels website. The positions are still generic and vague. On guns, for instance, the group’s stand is: “Americans have a constitutional right to own guns, but society also has a responsibility to keep dangerous weapons away from dangerous people.”

McCrory said he wasn’t worried about participating in an effort that could, in the end, help Trump win.

“I’m concerned that Trump and Biden may be a spoiler for a third party, like No Labels,” he said. “We’ve never seen in my lifetime well over 60 percent of people dissatisfied with either leading candidate. So we’re keeping our options open if those numbers continue. If No Labels gets in the race, they’re going to get in the race to try to win, not just to make a statement.”

“The main thing that got me involved,” he said, “is that I’m worried about anarchy and the lack of civility in politics.”

I asked how does a third party candidacy that potentially could put the most divisive and uncivil president ever back in the White House serve democracy and civility?

“I strongly disagree with that. I have no interest in helping either (Biden or Trump),” he said. “I want the American people to honestly have another choice and they deserve another choice. It’s almost like you use that to discourage any other options in American politics.”

As governor, McCrory came to Raleigh wearing the mantle of a moderate, big city mayor who happened to be a Republican. But he quickly fell in step with right-wing Republican legislators. That capitulation culminated in his backing of the notorious 2016 “Bathroom Bill,” which codified discrimination against transgender people and likely cost him reelection.

In his 2022 U.S Senate primary race against U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, a Trump loyalist, McCrory was lost and without a political compass. He wasn’t pro-Trump enough, he wasn’t anti-Trump enough.

Now McCrory is setting out anew, making a virtue of his non-commitment by fronting for a movement that refuses to specify what it stands for and who is supporting it. But it’s clear what No Labels is: A group whose candidate could not win, but certainly could skew the 2024 presidential race.

McCrory receives no pay from No Labels and it’s hard to see what is motivating him. He is supporting a movement that could return an indicted and twice-impeached president to the White House with disastrous consequences for democracy and for the nation. For a man promoting better choices, he appears to be making a bad one.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com