A fine book, with an admirable aim, but I fear its ceiling is "preaching to the choir." As we get closer to 2024 with the prospect of a viable third-party or (viable) moderate major-party primary challenger the book may sadly become more and more only an interesting thought experiment.

This book was written in support of No Labels' effort to elect a centrist president in 2024. No Labels plans to accomplish this by winning a plurality in 23 (as yet undivulged) states and thereby prevail in the electoral college. No Labels calls this their 2024 "Insurance Policy."
Presently No Labels is striving to gain ballot access in all 50 states, but the Democrats are already challenging these efforts. Joe Lieberman, a founder and leader of No Labels has recently suggested that No Labels will have gained ballot access in only 20 states by the end of 2023. Unnamed sources have indicated that No Labels has already given up these efforts in 16 states which will leave 15jurisdictions to be settled in 2024.
Several persons have recently indicated that No Labels is a Trojan Horse that plans to assist with electing Mr. Trump next year. Bill Galston, of Brookings, has resigned and stated that No Labels' efforts will help Mr. Trump to get over the top. And TYT has now posted a strident YouTube attack on No Labels.
But what about the book? Its biggest detraction is that it contains more than a few misstatements of the facts. For example, Mr. Paepke asserts that tax cuts have increased the deficit which is untrue. Want proof? See:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W006RC1Q027SBEA
Every tax cut has always increased our government's tax receipts. What has always caused the deficit (and debt) to rise has been profligate overspending by both political parties.
A second example, (among many) relates to climate change. The concentration of the greenhouse gases in our planet's atmosphere has been steadily increasing but temperature has not since 1998 followed suit. From 1998 through 2012 the Average Global Surface Temperature (AGST) fell and this first "hiatus" was followed after two short years by a second "hiatus" from 2015 until today were the AGST also declined. That is 23 out of the past 25 years where things got cooler instead of warmer as climate science predicts. Want proof? See:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series
Overall. this is an interesting book for political junkies, but it will not sell well among average readers.

I liked this book. I agreed with much of it but disagreed strongly with one part. I’ll get into that later in this review. It is the type of book that gets you thinking. The book is The Purple Presidency 2024: How Voters Can Reclaim the White House for Bipartisan Governance by C. Owen Paepke.

I thank both Netgalley https://www.netgalley.com and RealClear Publishing for the chance to read this before publication. The book will be published on June 13.


The book focuses on partisanship and election of a President willing to govern in a bipartisan way. For the past few decades, both parties have become more extreme.

About 10 years ago I reviewed a book ( https://www.jackreidy.com/blog/2012/06/27/the-parties-versus-the-people-by-mickey-edwards/ ) which discussed many ideas similar to those in this book.

Since then, I think the partisanship has actually gotten much worse. I believe the United States would be better off the members of Congress would consider the national interest over their party interest. And in many cases, this involves true bipartisanship and compromise. Unfortunately almost all in Congress vote the party-line and a bill is often called bipartisan when it is overwhelming supported by one party and only a few from the other party.

I usually don’t get into my politics in a book review but it seems necessary here. I consider myself a moderate. I have voted for both parties as well as third party candidates. But the Republican party become so extreme that I have voted almost exclusively for Democrats in the last 10 or so years. I think it would be great for most Americans to have better choices in elections and encourage moderate candidates.

One option discussed in the book is to have a third-party candidate run for President in 2024. This is only one option but it did disturb me. I could be wrong but this is what I think.

I think it would be a great mistake to support a third party run for the Presidency in 2024. At this point, we do not know for certain who the major 2 parties will nominate but it does look like a rematch between Trump and Biden. Of the two I think Biden is more moderate by far.

If a third party nominates a candidate to appeal to the moderate vote, it seems likely this candidate will lose badly but could siphon off enough votes to elect Donald Trump. Given President Trump’s previous behavior, this could be a very bad unintended outcome.

It seems unlikely to me that any candidate could be elected President now without support of one of the major parties and would have a very hard time governing as they are starting with zero support in Congress. I think the way to go is to support more moderates in state and Congressional races. And when there is a significant presence of moderate legislators, then attempt to move candidates for President of the major parties in a more moderate direction.

If we cannot do that, then the third party option should be considered. But it would be a mistake to try for the Presidency until the attempt has a better chance of success.

Although I disagree with one of the possible solutions of this book (and the one of the title), I do agree with the premise most Americans are more moderate than the parties and politicians and something needs to be done about that.

I think this an important book that anyone concerned with our dysfunctional the political system should read. You may or may not agree with my opinions but this book may help refine yours. Despite disagreeing with a major option of the book, I highly recommend The Purple Presidency 2024.