In my Nov. 22 column I expressed some tempered optimism that the group “No Labels” might have some success in the first primary state of New Hampshire to move the presidential primaries in a positive direction.

How silly of me.

The goal of the bipartisan movement is to encourage candidates to put the good of the country and the need to address the challenges it faces ahead of political expediency. In other words, it wants to identify candidates willing to compromise to get legislation enacted. Having identified such candidates, No Labels hopes to encourage voters to support them.

It’s not working. You don’t want to be a moderate in this primary election cycle, it appears. Our polarized politics are becoming more polarized.

After a press conference by the group in Manchester, N.H., last week, I had an opportunity to talk by phone with former Democratic Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and former Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah, co-chairmen of the No Labels group.

Huntsman said No Labels is “moving the dialogue from anger, animosity and finger pointing toward problem solving and establishing a process and a national strategic agenda for getting that done.”

Seriously?

The fact is that “anger, animosity and finger pointing” are working quite well. All one has to do to confirm this is check out Donald Trump’s position in the Republican primary polls.

At that press conference in Manchester Monday, No Labels revealed the presidential candidates who had agreed to take the “Problem Solver Promise.” But it is not much of a promise, watered down to try to get some candidates to step up.

The group’s National Strategic Agenda has four goals:

• Create 25 million new jobs in the next decade.

• Assure the viability of Social Security and Medicare for the next 75 years.

• Balance the federal budget by 2030.

• Make the United States energy secure — no longer dependent on foreign sources — by 2024.

The “problem solver” candidates only have to agree to discuss one of the goals with leaders of both parties within his or her first month in office. They don’t even have to say up front which goal or how they plan to solve the problem. As promises go, that is about as modest as it gets.

Six candidates took the, ahem, courageous step of making the promise — Republicans Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul, and Democrat Martin O’Malley.

The fact that Trump was on board added to the meaninglessness of the entire affair. How could anyone hold up Trump, a man who has demeaned Mexican- and Muslim-Americans and the disabled, who makes fun of the looks, demeanor and perspiration propensity of his opponents, as someone ready to pull people together to solve problems?

The original plan called for candidates making the pledge to receive the group’s “No Labels Problem Solver Seal of Approval,” but a spokesman said it was decided that looked too much like an endorsement. Also jettisoned was the plan to ask New Hampshire primary voters to sign their own promises to only vote for designated problem solvers.

Given the hollowness of the entire affair it is hard to criticize other viable candidates, including Republicans Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and Democrats Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, for blowing the whole thing off. None of the candidates taking the pledge bothered to attend. The national press paid little attention.

In our conversation, Lieberman pointed to the irony surrounding the current election.

“A lot of the anger and the frustration that is now expressing itself” among voters is that “they think the people in Washington are spending too much time with partisan politics and fighting each other, rather than trying to make their lives better,” said Lieberman.

But rather than leading to support for moderates with records of working across ideological lines, that anger is “expressing itself in supporting various candidates who are on the attack,” he said.

It appears what many potential primary voters want is for Washington to get things done, but only things that align with their ideology. That means unless one party controls the presidency, House and Senate, stagnation continues.

Then the anger will grow — rinse and repeat — after checking the label, of course.

Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.

Twitter: @Paul_Choiniere

p.choiniere@theday.com