“This is not a bunch of moderates intent on overtaking the world,’’ said former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who ran in the Republican presidential primary in 2012 and is a cochairman of No Labels. “This is an attempt to get beyond the anger and the acrimony and the finger-pointing.”

In many quarters of Washington, the response has been: Good luck with that.

No Labels has been unable to advance, in any meaningful way, a single item from its relatively modest list of goals. Critics dismiss it as window dressing, with some congressional staffers comparing it to a high school civics project and going as far as drafting memos to their bosses urging them not to join.

Even its own members admit the group has a long way to go. They say their most important accomplishment to date has been to simply convene both parties for monthly breakfast meetings at which Republicans and Democrats listen to each other — or at least feign to listen — instead of labeling the other side as crazy.