No to labels and knee-jerk partisanship, but yes to what?

Normally the premium in contemporary American politics would be found in sheer, simple negativity.

You know what I mean -- no to Pelosi, no to Palin, no to Obama, no to abortion, no to unions, no to corporations, no to higher taxes, no to tax cuts, no to war, no to bailouts, no to stimulus, no to gays in the military, no to not asking and not telling, no to having your clothes seen plumb through at the airport.

It's all golden for raising money and winning votes.

Alas, I fear the well-intended "No Labels" movement, launched last week, may find itself in the ironic position of foundering for lack of actually being for something.

This business about "No Labels" springs largely through efforts of persons close to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who perhaps fancies himself as transcending the two parties.

It has been joined by thousands of persons nationwide who are tired of the worsening polarization and dysfunction of our politics. They are weary of conservatives pulled to the extreme right by tea partiers and of liberals pulled to the extreme left by moveon.org. They are intolerant of tolerance not being tolerated.

A Democrat who opposes the teachers' union or a Republican who declines to call Obama a socialist -- this is a modern American politician at optimum peril of the greatest harm, that inflicted by his own troops.

These non-labelers say they are not pushing for a third party, which is wise. Instead they want those with the two traditional partisan labels to feel free to keep those labels as general descriptions and alliances.

But they want these partisans to be pressured into putting down those stifling, polarizing labels from time to time in service to the effective problem-solving favored by 70 percent of Americans navigating somewhere in the soft middle.

In other words: Maybe a deficit-reduction commission could get its preliminary recommendations considered rather than clobbered from both sides by jerking knees.

Any regular reader of this column knows that I have an affinity for this kind of movement, one that seeks to eschew doctrinaire partisanship in favor of a committed effort not for assuaging the base or raising money or getting re-elected, but for finding pragmatic and reasonable solutions to our near-crises.

"No Labels" calls itself centrist, which surprises me since I believe one could put labels aside for a time and for the greater good and come to the action from either the left or the right.

Beyond that, "No Labels" professes to stand merely for working together on problems such as the deficit and debt and for explaining that problems of that magnitude are so complex that they defy partisan-motivated solutions.

Alas, then, the deficiencies in the "No Labels" movement are these: (1) Money is the greater polarizing force, and you need to ask people to put down their campaign funds if they are going to be able to put down their labels. I speak of campaign finance reform, even public financing. (2) A sweet and generic invitation to our politicians to seek label-transcendent solutions will fade inevitably, perhaps instantly, if not accompanied by specifics actually suggesting a few tangible solutions.

Perhaps you recall the combination that I advocate. It is serious fiscal conservatism combined with generational advancement in social tolerance.

A politician who would put down his label right now and embrace real spending reforms and gays in the military -- he would be in a good place, provided those on both his flanks could get control of their knees and be persuaded to put down their money.

The movement we need is "No Labels, Less Money, Fiscal Discipline and Social Tolerance."

John Brummett is an award-winning columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and author of "High Wire," a book about Bill Clinton's first year as president. His e-mail address is jbrummett@ arkansasnews.com.