The No Labels movement, currently led by Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman and former GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman, may have found the perfect candidate in Donald Trump, according to Byron York, writing in The Washington Examiner.
Speaking at the group’s “Problem Solver Convention” in Manchester, Trump started with kind words for his hosts. “No Labels — I’m a believer,” he said. “We all know that’s where we have to go in this country, because we’re getting nothing done whatsoever.”
That would also fit with some, mostly Internet-based efforts, to get registered voters to switch from Democrat to Republican in closed primary states so they can vote for Trump in their state primary.
Trump began his talk to the group by detailing his experience with Central Park’s Wollman ice-skating rink, which sat out of service for years as an inefficient and ineffective NYC government under Ed Koch struggled without making any progress at all.
Years passed. Millions of dollars were wasted. City contractors couldn’t get the cement right, couldn’t get the cooling pipes right, couldn’t even make the rink level.
Frustrated by the government’s failure, Trump offered to take over the job. “After the seventh year, I went to Koch, and I said Ed, I can do this thing, fast,” Trump told the audience Monday. “This is ridiculous — they’re not working, they’re using the wrong everything.”
The city gave Trump the job. “I met with the unions, I met with people that do refrigeration,” Trump said Monday before launching into an extended and perfectly Trumpian discussion of methods of ice-making for skating rinks.
Trump took no profits and promised to cover any cost overruns himself. There weren’t any; he got the job done in six months, under budget.
“You can do that with this country,” Trump told the No Labels group. “Our roads are falling apart. Our bridges, our tunnels, our airports…”
What Trump did was take the focus off of politics and put it on leadership, along with the “skills and inclination” to get things done. As York writes, “Indeed, what could be more No Labels than working together to fix our crumbling infrastructure? They talk about that sort of thing all the time. Trump actually did it.”
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