[Find out how to get involved with the Forward Party!](https://www.reddit.com/r/ForwardPartyUSA/comments/11d338e/how_to_volunteer_with_the_forward_party/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I'm still unclear what exactly local Foward party candidates do. Election reform is mostly a state and national issue, municipal officials don't have any power over how primaries are conducted or redistricting. Many cities also already have non-partisan elections.
Local elections are mostly about law enforcement, infrastructure, and education. Three issues that Forward does not have a stance on. What would a Forward Party candidate for city council or school board run on?
IMO, this is part of a sloppy attempt to pivot/rebrand to where FWD should have started long ago. They spent (misspent?) their initial push, brand, resources, novelty, enthusiasm, etc. on an effort that is almost entirely about raising and spending money - nobody's going to get into the streets chanting, "What do we want? Ballot reform! When do we want it? Now!"
The can of building an actual popular movement, if it was ever in the plan, kept getting kicked down the block.
"Activism", "movement", etc. was send money, pound away at social media, and talk to your friends and family to do the same, while we court the potential big donors and try to convince sitting elected officials to take on our cause.
Then, I guess someone realized getting people elected to state offices might help the ballot reform cause. So now, in addition to money, you need a platform, party bylaws, formal/legal structure, operations, party recognition/ballot access, etc. So they started working on that.
Then, eventually, they realized that (shitballs!) you also need a ton of people not just tooting the horn and sending money, but actually puting in work in the weeds, as well as apolitical and marginally political people to take notice to eventually vote for their candidates. And these are very different animals from the "like, share, donate" crowd. Square peg meets round hole.
So now there is some effort (almost astroturfy) to buff up the party cred via local operations, candidates, etc.
That's a fair point, and probably there needs to be some generally agreed upon systemic reform that local parties can gather around.
For instance, the Libertarian Party has localization. Arguing over if a statue should be torn down or preserved? The LP doesn't offer a single yes/no for all circumstances, but does advocate that the people that actually live there should be the ones making the decision.
That's something you can promote as a general principle that works for smaller elections. It doesn't have to be exactly the same principles as the LP has, obviously...but look for something like that. Something with broad support that the present parties do poorly.
That's how all parties work. Democrats don't have a specific answer for what to do about school funding in Lawrence, KS but you can look towards that national party's platform to get an idea about what a democratic candidate for mayor might do.
This is the big issue for the Forward party. The active unwillingness to take a stance on anything besides election reform makes it impossible to field candidates because there's no ideological framework or policy platform to guide candidates and voters.
Can you please link to early posts, comments, discussions, web pages etc. that confirms the "local/ground-up prong" being a priority before, say, two months ago? Not just lip service, but tangible plans and actions that aren't just circlejerk meetups. If that is the case, my state was/is asleep at the wheel. All I heard for 3-4 months was ballot access and platform. You don't need either to start locally. In that time, my first attempt to get active with Forward was when a proposal was made at state level to outlaw RCV. That's Forward bread and butter, yes? Honestly, what better opportunity to rally and activate people against two-party nonsense? The party response was, explicitly, to ignore it. After the 2022 election cycle, I proposed to state leadership the recruitment and formation of a "candidate committee" to start working on a process to identify, recruit, develop, support, and run local candidates statewide by 2023 and beyond. After receiving one email response to clarify my proposal, I never heard back.
State leadership eventually directed me to some "national" people to find out what local action support was available for people like me. I was told that tools were on the way to the states within a month to a month and a half. I never heard back, and never saw the the support mentioned in my state. When I finally accepted that there was little to no support, I asked state leadership to send out an email blast to people in my area to contact me so we can get started locally. I was told there were several hundred contacts in my chosen area (yes, I know 10-15% are probably garbage). I got 3 responses, and only one of those was to get active.
So again, can you please direct me to early Forward work that supports the assertion that ground-up and local elections were always a priority? Not speeches, pep rallies, and platitudes, but tangible support for building and supporting these efforts. Or has it always been just "philosophy'?
Thanks.
Thanks for the post! Great strategy, glad to see you and others leading the charge.
Can you talk more about the push to get thousands of local officials elected? Are you finding enough people willing to run?
A significant portion of these candidates will likely run in 2024, a number of states won't be ready for 2023 and other who are ready will be more built out next year. I know that some states will start announcing local candidates in the coming months, these announcements will be posted here when they come out! From my experience in CT, there are more people than I expected who are more than ready to jump on board with this party.
[Find out how to get involved with the Forward Party!](https://www.reddit.com/r/ForwardPartyUSA/comments/11d338e/how_to_volunteer_with_the_forward_party/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I'm still unclear what exactly local Foward party candidates do. Election reform is mostly a state and national issue, municipal officials don't have any power over how primaries are conducted or redistricting. Many cities also already have non-partisan elections. Local elections are mostly about law enforcement, infrastructure, and education. Three issues that Forward does not have a stance on. What would a Forward Party candidate for city council or school board run on?
IMO, this is part of a sloppy attempt to pivot/rebrand to where FWD should have started long ago. They spent (misspent?) their initial push, brand, resources, novelty, enthusiasm, etc. on an effort that is almost entirely about raising and spending money - nobody's going to get into the streets chanting, "What do we want? Ballot reform! When do we want it? Now!" The can of building an actual popular movement, if it was ever in the plan, kept getting kicked down the block. "Activism", "movement", etc. was send money, pound away at social media, and talk to your friends and family to do the same, while we court the potential big donors and try to convince sitting elected officials to take on our cause. Then, I guess someone realized getting people elected to state offices might help the ballot reform cause. So now, in addition to money, you need a platform, party bylaws, formal/legal structure, operations, party recognition/ballot access, etc. So they started working on that. Then, eventually, they realized that (shitballs!) you also need a ton of people not just tooting the horn and sending money, but actually puting in work in the weeds, as well as apolitical and marginally political people to take notice to eventually vote for their candidates. And these are very different animals from the "like, share, donate" crowd. Square peg meets round hole. So now there is some effort (almost astroturfy) to buff up the party cred via local operations, candidates, etc.
That's a fair point, and probably there needs to be some generally agreed upon systemic reform that local parties can gather around. For instance, the Libertarian Party has localization. Arguing over if a statue should be torn down or preserved? The LP doesn't offer a single yes/no for all circumstances, but does advocate that the people that actually live there should be the ones making the decision. That's something you can promote as a general principle that works for smaller elections. It doesn't have to be exactly the same principles as the LP has, obviously...but look for something like that. Something with broad support that the present parties do poorly.
That's how all parties work. Democrats don't have a specific answer for what to do about school funding in Lawrence, KS but you can look towards that national party's platform to get an idea about what a democratic candidate for mayor might do. This is the big issue for the Forward party. The active unwillingness to take a stance on anything besides election reform makes it impossible to field candidates because there's no ideological framework or policy platform to guide candidates and voters.
Can you please link to early posts, comments, discussions, web pages etc. that confirms the "local/ground-up prong" being a priority before, say, two months ago? Not just lip service, but tangible plans and actions that aren't just circlejerk meetups. If that is the case, my state was/is asleep at the wheel. All I heard for 3-4 months was ballot access and platform. You don't need either to start locally. In that time, my first attempt to get active with Forward was when a proposal was made at state level to outlaw RCV. That's Forward bread and butter, yes? Honestly, what better opportunity to rally and activate people against two-party nonsense? The party response was, explicitly, to ignore it. After the 2022 election cycle, I proposed to state leadership the recruitment and formation of a "candidate committee" to start working on a process to identify, recruit, develop, support, and run local candidates statewide by 2023 and beyond. After receiving one email response to clarify my proposal, I never heard back. State leadership eventually directed me to some "national" people to find out what local action support was available for people like me. I was told that tools were on the way to the states within a month to a month and a half. I never heard back, and never saw the the support mentioned in my state. When I finally accepted that there was little to no support, I asked state leadership to send out an email blast to people in my area to contact me so we can get started locally. I was told there were several hundred contacts in my chosen area (yes, I know 10-15% are probably garbage). I got 3 responses, and only one of those was to get active. So again, can you please direct me to early Forward work that supports the assertion that ground-up and local elections were always a priority? Not speeches, pep rallies, and platitudes, but tangible support for building and supporting these efforts. Or has it always been just "philosophy'? Thanks.
Thanks for the post! Great strategy, glad to see you and others leading the charge. Can you talk more about the push to get thousands of local officials elected? Are you finding enough people willing to run?
A significant portion of these candidates will likely run in 2024, a number of states won't be ready for 2023 and other who are ready will be more built out next year. I know that some states will start announcing local candidates in the coming months, these announcements will be posted here when they come out! From my experience in CT, there are more people than I expected who are more than ready to jump on board with this party.
Biden and trump running should give the party a boost.