Joe Lieberman, a former senator from Connecticut, has agreed to serve as the co-chairman for No Labels, a loosely codified set of vaguely defined sentiments organized to convince affluent donors to part with money. Lieberman takes over from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who up until last week was the man doing this thing, until he decided not to do it anymore.
In an announcement, Jon Huntsman, the other No Labels co-chair, former Utah governor and Dadaist candidate for president in 2012, said: "Joe was a proven leader and an undisputed problem solver in virtually every area of public policy when serving in the U.S. Senate ... His vision of a new culture in Washington, D.C. -- where the politics of point-scoring is replaced by the politics of problem solving -- is a great fit with our organizational goals, and I look forward to collaborating with him as we develop our National Strategic Agenda."
That Huntsman calls Lieberman an "undisputed problem solver" who is averse to the "politics of point scoring" indicates that today is the first day Huntsman met Lieberman.
"Joe will play a key role in attracting presidential hopefuls to our growing club of problem solvers," Huntsman said.
No Labels' club of "problem solvers" is interesting in that no club member is required to solve a problem. As Yahoo News' Meredith Shiner reported in July, "The 'Problem Solver Seals' granted by No Labels to lawmakers require nothing of those members from a policy perspective, aside from agreeing to be part of No Labels, and to attend meetings with other No Labels members to discuss broad principles of bipartisanship."
There is no aspect of this story in which anything can be said to be "at stake." There are literally no stakes.
Manchin almost made it a year as the organization's co-chairman, ultimately parting ways with it over its decision to endorse Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) in last week's Senate contest in Colorado, a race Gardner won. The group's decision to back Gardner was part and parcel with a new organizing strategy in which the avowedly anti-congressional-gridlock organization was hoping for an increase in congressional gridlock, in the hopes that its point of view would finally find some degree of salience that had previously failed to materialize.
Reached for comment, Irony told The Huffington Post, "As you can see, I'm not dead by a damn sight."
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