I hadn’t taken a look at the No Labels “Common Sense Agenda” until reading Andrew Cline’s report on its rollout. It’s full of stuff like this, which Cline quotes: “A world led by America is safer than a world led by Russia and China would be.” That’s item 18 on the agenda. Or, rather, that’s the way No Labels describes it. It is, of course, not an agenda item at all. It’s a proposition, one that presumably brings most Americans together, just as No Labels always says it wants. An actual agenda would divide them, and maybe the organization’s supporters as well.

The organization has solved the problem by making a list of aspirations and marketing it as an agenda. Slick. What No Labels dislikes about politics as usual is that it has too much substance.