No dice for No Labels? How Chris Christie almost made third-party presidential run — but didn't

It was over. But it almost wasn’t.

The No Labels group may have announced its failure to bring a nonpartisan third-party “unity” ticket to the 2024 presidential altar earlier this month, but Sneed hears a groom was actually ready to sign on — but a bride could not be found.

In an exclusive interview, Dan K. Webb, a top national trial lawyer headquartered in Chicago — who was in charge of creating the vetting process for the No Labels third-party run — tells Sneed “the ticket came this/close to reality weeks ago.”

Webb says former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who had nixed a No Labels invite to run for president soon after bowing out of the Republican presidential primary in January, “suddenly signaled late last month he would run if we secured him a Democrat as a running mate.”

Webb says recent polling by the centrist No Labels group last month “was matching polls Chris [Christie] was conducting showing a third-party candidate could split the vote three ways if Chris ran.”

“It could give the voters a clear choice: equally taking votes away from [Democrat] Joe Biden and [Republican Donald] Trump. And for the record, we never considered [Robert F.] Kennedy [Jr]. No Labels was not going to destroy its brand,” he said.

Jose Luis Magana/AP Photos

While the mostly moderate Republicans considering leading the No Labels ticket were bowing out last month, the group had substantial polling “clearly proving beyond dispute that 65 to 70% of the American public today did not want the choice of the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates Biden or Trump,” said Webb.

“We needed a Republican on top of the ticket to beat Trump!

“Then Chris [Christie] signaled he was ready to run with ONE condition,” said Webb. “Finding a Democrat to run as Christie’s ‘unity’ vice president.

“But it didn’t work. We failed. We couldn’t do it. We needed a unity ticket, and no Democrat would run, because they were afraid of leaving the party and never going back!

“When that shut down, Chris pulled the plug. He felt he would not be able to capture the attention of the American public without a unity ticket.

“Up to that point, Chris was in the game, the only Republican who ran in the presidential primary who agreed to tell the truth and attack Trump,” said Webb.

Gallery Books via AP; AP File Photo

A week later, on April 4, No Labels folded its big tent on the White House idea, also just a week after one of the group’s founders, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, died unexpectedly.

“That two monopolistic parties in this country, Republican and Democratic, have failed to field candidates the country wants is a disaster,” Webb said.

“And I fear the Democratic Party is engaging in aggressive, unacceptable conduct by attacking any third party competing in the presidential election,” he said.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photos

“No Labels will persist in supporting major congressional figures committed to supporting nonpartisan political behavior as we have for a decade.

“And we are not folding up and going away,” said Webb, a longtime Republican and Chicago’s formidable former U.S. attorney.

“We’ve got work to do.”

Sneed could not get comment from New Jersey.

Helloooo, Chris.

The O.J. Simpson case …

The man in the mirror.

In 2017, Sneed interviewed Chicago’s former top cop Phil Cline, who was commander of the Area 5 Detective Division in 1994 when his troops searched the grounds outside the former O’Hare Plaza Hotel near the airport. That was where O.J. Simpson had briefly stayed after his former wife was found brutally murdered and nearly decapitated on June 12, 1994.

Quoth Cline: “Simpson had a cut hand and claimed he had cut it on a broken glass in the hotel bathroom. If I remember correctly, someone on the airplane coming from L.A. claimed he spotted a cut on Simpson’s hand.”

Myung J. Chun/Getty

Simpson, who died on Wednesday, was eventually found not guilty of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

But Cline, who now heads the Police Memorial Foundation, told Sneed in 2017: “Like I said: For the crime of killing his wife, all [Simpson] has to do is look in the mirror.”

Fun in the shade …

Hmmm. Where was everyone? Not a soul to be seen in a three-block radius north and south of my north suburban home during the solar eclipse Monday.

So, while the press scurried to big, noisy crowds at stadiums, planetarium grounds and even zoos to observe what animals do when the sun dances with the moon, Sneed decided to go it alone.

Armed with my old 2017 Solar Eclipse ISO “Eclipsor” sunglasses seconds before the moon mounted the sun, I encountered a backyard’s sudden stillness, shadows over a patch of bright blue cilla, a skin-dimpling temp drop, wind-blown daffodils, an abrupt flight of birds off six backyard feeders, and my elderly, lazy old dog pacing in place.

And I experienced the gift of a few minutes of heaven … on a very quiet earth. Peace at last.

Sneedlings …

Ring the wedding bells and congrats to Chicago Sun-Times reporter Mitch Armentrout on his marriage to his beloved Chrissy Mysko on Monday, the day of the solar eclipse. It was also the fifth anniversary of their first date! ... Watch for Dem Cook County state’s attorney nominee Eileen O’Neill Burke and 34th Ward Ald. Bill Conway to be among the featured “jurors” at the National Hellenic Museum’s “Trial of Pericles” event next Wednesday at the Harris Theater. Was Pericles, the great Greek leader, a champion of Democracy in 451 B.C.E. when he fiddled with the Athenian constitution? Not for Sneed to decide. …

Saturday birthdays: Al Green, 78; Rick Schroder, 54; Joan Hall, ageless. … Sunday birthdays: Julie Christie, 84; Adrien Brody, 51; Antwon Tanner, 49; Sarah Michelle Gellar, 47, and Abigail Breslin, 28 … and a special birthday shoutout to Carol’s Tom Carroll, ageless and often priceless.