All day Monday, I'll be covering the kick-off event for No Labels--a new organization advocating for citizens to put aside--not forget--their labels "to do what's best for America." You can get a sense of the mission through a Washington Post op-ed by two founding members, David Frum and Bill Galston (and a sense of the discomfort of some by this response by Stanley Kurtz).
It's not a small event. For approximately 1,000 country-wide national members, some heavy hitters will be at the podium, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYT columnist David Brooks, Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator Joe Manchin and a slew of MSNBCers (Dylan Ratigan, Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough. You can read the full line-up here.
And you know they're serious when they come up with their own anthem.
It only took one conversation with Lisa Borders, one of the founding leaders of No Labels, for Akon to immediately understand the meaning of this movement’s message. Never give up your label, just put it aside to do what’s best for America. With lyrics like “See a man with a blue tie, see a man with a red tie; so how about we tie ourselves together and get it done,” Akon shares his passion for politicians to put the labels aside so we can find practical solutions to our nation’s problems. Akon stayed up all night to create this song and now you can listen to it for free and share the song to help inspire others to put their labels aside.
Check back here on Monday or follow me on Twitter for updates and for links to the articles I'm writing for a few different publications.
Allen McDuffee is a political reporter, investigative journalist and blogger. From 2011 to 2013 he covered policy, politics, ideas and think tanks for The Washington Post and has also written for The Nation, The American Prospect, Huffington Post and New York Observer, among others.
