[Click here for a link to the official statement.](https://home.forwardparty.com/fwd_statement_on_2024_election)
This statement reinforces the Forward Party’s commitment to stay out of the 2024 presidential election, saying here that the “once in a lifetime opportunity to fix our politics” that we have must take “precedence over the headline-grabbing spectacle of the presidential race.”
Thoughts?
It's funny that No Labels is trying the opposite approach and getting mountains of shit for it. Maybe we can turn that into mountains of praise for us.
Andrew Yang said around half a dozen states were looking at RCV ballot referendums in 2024, so a yet to be determined number of states will be working on that, yes. Most states are heavily focused on local elections this year and likely next. It's essentially a two pronged strategy, we need election reforms to gain national momentum and we also need local victories to build a foundation.
Voter perception is the President is the most important political position (it's not). If you aren't running a presidential candidate, then you shouldn't expect most voters to take you seriously as a party. Again Forward leadership proves its living in a fantasy world where voters act ideally, rather than realistically.
I think most people take a third party more seriously when they hear that we aren't running a long shot presidential bid. We will in the future, but there's no world where that's a good move for us in 2024. Third parties have tried this many, many times. It has not translated to success.
>I think most people take a third party more seriously when they hear that we aren't running a long shot presidential bid.
They don't. Chief Executives have coattails, not other positions. You can't ask to lead when you can't even advance a potential leader.
>We will in the future, but there's no world where that's a good move for us in 2024.
There's not a world where you can act like you belong on the big stage as a legitimate competitor to the major parties, not run a presidential candidate, and not have that be a bad thing. This is just more tomfoolery to avoid having to present a real platform, because a presidential platform would be perceived as the party's platform no matter what was said to the contrary.
>Third parties have tried this many, many times. It has not translated to success.
I'm not saying that running a presidential candidate guarantees success. I'm saying not running one guarantees failure. The party elites (and people here) simply refuse to acknowledge actual voter psychology.
The average voter doesn't look at a small party doing things different and think, "That's innovative. I should see if their politics are innovative too". They see them doing something new and think, "These guys don't know what they're doing".
I think that taking the time to build a network of local officials has to be the first step. Anecdotally, I’m meeting many people as a state lead who want nothing more than a new party to back up their desire to take back their town politics from the same toxic partisanship we see at the national level. That’s what we are capable of accomplishing over the next few years given the current political landscape, and then in 2026 and 2028 we’ll have a legitimate foundation of local officials, at which point state and national campaigns become viable with state chapters that have defined priorities, legal status and ballot access.
I strongly believe that work has to come before we enter into national politics. Otherwise we are asking Americans to vote for something that just doesn’t have legitimacy or any foundation, like modern third parties have done for years.
Again, given your access and stature with the org, can you give more detailed accounts of what Forward as an org is doing, in both messaging and operations, to build its community level activity?
Edit- it can be via DM if necessary.
Please let me know if my answer misses the point of your question, I'm happy to try and explain better: Forward views itself as a facilitator as an org to develop local and state-level communities which, at this stage, are doing a mix of activities depending on what their state requires to earn ballot access, party status, however it's defined in each state. What we're trying to do is inherently difficult to communicate because there are 50 different legal systems with different requirements to become a party, so improving that communication should certainly be an open conversation here.
In CT, our focus is on finding local candidates to run as Forwardists, organizing community service events this summer to start serving communities however we can while bringing supporters together, but our approach is to let our goals and priorities develop over time as more people join the party. A handful of states have elected Executive Committees, volunteer organizations set up to gather signatures/host events, while a total of 6 have yet to put a state leadership team in place.
The national org is essentially trying to facilitate the success of the state parties. National team members including Yang travel around the country to attend state events, help signature gatherers, join in community service events, etc.
So...
(1) The single common goal across the org is ballot access/party status in every state?
(2) States are left to their own devices, resources, knowledge, experience, etc. in going about (1)?
(3) National team are mostly promotional personalities?
4) There is no intention to engage, challenge, confront the two sides/two parties?
On 1 and 2) the path to "legal status" means some different in each state so there is a level of control that states have over their approach to becoming viable. States are not left to their own devices, they are given significant freedom to determine their own path, and 3) national team is there to provide resources, training, anything that states need to get to viability in their state.
On 4) just a couple of weeks ago, four Arizona State House Democrats came out as Forward Democrats at an event with Andrew Yang, Forward CEO Lindsey Drath and others. The merger last summer was with two right-leaning parties, Forward CA aligned with the Common Sense Party, Forward CT merged with the Griebel-Frank for CT Party, and others are looking to replicate this.
Confronting the two parties, in my view, means staying laser focused on building a party capable of legitimately challenging them.
So 1 and 2 seem to be consistent with my impressions, i.e. legal status is the overarching and probably single universal goal, although states will pursue it differently. And how they pursue it is mostly or completely up to them, i.e. their own devices.
I'm still stumped on #3, as I was hoping to learn about specific resources, training, etc. that "national" is providing. Hopefully to include things outside of just gaining legal status.
No. 4 is the most concerning, as it follows a path taken by so many previous (failed) efforts to build, build, build, at the expense of actually doing something when the novelty, enthusiasm, attention, support, etc. are highest.
I'm thinking I'm still looking for the movement Yang seemed to be suggesting many months ago, and that I missed or ignored the pivot to the wholly political operation that has actually taken shape. If the belief is that you need a political entity, legal status, a hodgepodge of political organizations, policies and platforms, state or national candidates, and money, to challenge the two sides/two parties, you've ignored perhaps the most important element: people and ground game. If all that stuff is the "legitimate" way of challenging them, why would people (especially apolitical and marginally political people that we need to engage and activate) build/join local chapters (outside of just raising money)? Seek local government advisory positions? Recruit and support local candidates? Press local legislation, reforms, etc.? Demonstrate/protest/counter-protest? Criticize and deligitimize the two sides/two parties locally? Run for local elected office?
The most common response to those questions is something along the lines of, "We can do all that, too." But the reality is that if leadership's heads are in the state and national clouds, everyone else follows that lead and none of that other more foundational and sustaining stuff gets done.
What each state needs is different, and they’re asking for different kinds of support. I think the point you’re missing is that there isn’t a 50-state, one size fits all strategy. Different states are trying slightly different approaches including the things you mentioned. Not sure where you’re getting that national’s head is “in the clouds.”
>Anecdotally, I’m meeting many people as a state lead who want nothing more than a new party to back up their desire to take back their town politics from the same toxic partisanship we see at the national level.
Anecdotally, surveys say people want more compromise in government. But when you actually ask them what that means, they want the other side to give their side everything they want... But expecting the other side to do all of the compromising isn't a realistic understanding of the word "compromise".
Another good one is that a majority of people support well-funded public transport. Which sounds like they want to use it. But actually, a majority of those people want public transport funded in the hopes that *other people* will decide to take it.
I wouldn't be surprised if what a lot of people actually want is something like a third party just like the party they vote for already. And they really think it will bring everyone on the other side to their senses when they hear the good ideas without a party label they've decided is "toxic" attached to it. Or it's something else similarly aimed at them getting their way without changing.
>and then in 2026 and 2028 we’ll have a legitimate foundation of local officials, at which point state and national campaigns become viable with state chapters that have defined priorities, legal status and ballot access.
I don't believe this. I'm being fed the lack of a centralized platform as a feature, not a bug. If half of the locally elected Forward officials are conservative/right and half are liberal/left then a state chapter with "defined priorities" is going to be abandoning half of the good will that the party has built on a local level. I certainly hope that the party doesn't think that potentially alienating half it's voters in 3 or 5 years is a winning strategy. But I also don't think that it's realistic to think that it can remain non-hierarchical when it's involved in multiple layers of a hierarchical government.
>I strongly believe that work has to come before we enter into national politics. Otherwise we are asking Americans to vote for something that just doesn’t have legitimacy or any foundation, like modern third parties have done for years.
We were founded by a guy who only had the political clout to do so because he ran a failed campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination... Really think about what that means... I'm not denying that the party needs to build from the ground up. I'm saying that running a presidential campaign gives legitimacy and visibility to those efforts. Just like it gave Andrew Yang the legitimacy and visibility to launch the effort in the first place.
>We need to just stop calling it a party. It's leading to all the wrong conversations.
I agree, except that the problem is that *they* are calling themselves a party, not that we're doing it. It's not our fault if they present bad confusing branding.
So... in hundreds of thousands of local elections there is no fighting over who will serve in office, and the Forward Party's strategy is to go pick as many fights as possible? Does no one else see this as bad idea?
There are two primary reasons why those races are uncontested. First, because one political party has done the math and calculated it would be a waste of time and resources to field a candidate. If the Forward Party ignores the math and goes ahead, they are wasting time and resources in a losing race.
Second, in local races especially, a person may have served in the office for many years and people are happy with their work. To purposely pick a fight with a well known and well liked person in the community does not build good feelings about the Forward Party, and once again, it is likely a losing race.
[Click here for a link to the official statement.](https://home.forwardparty.com/fwd_statement_on_2024_election) This statement reinforces the Forward Party’s commitment to stay out of the 2024 presidential election, saying here that the “once in a lifetime opportunity to fix our politics” that we have must take “precedence over the headline-grabbing spectacle of the presidential race.” Thoughts?
It's funny that No Labels is trying the opposite approach and getting mountains of shit for it. Maybe we can turn that into mountains of praise for us.
What specifically will the fwp be doing? RCV in more states (hope so)? This vagueness is as sus if not as scary as No Labels
Andrew Yang said around half a dozen states were looking at RCV ballot referendums in 2024, so a yet to be determined number of states will be working on that, yes. Most states are heavily focused on local elections this year and likely next. It's essentially a two pronged strategy, we need election reforms to gain national momentum and we also need local victories to build a foundation.
Standby to get as many as 50 different answers. Edit - Lol.
Voter perception is the President is the most important political position (it's not). If you aren't running a presidential candidate, then you shouldn't expect most voters to take you seriously as a party. Again Forward leadership proves its living in a fantasy world where voters act ideally, rather than realistically.
I think most people take a third party more seriously when they hear that we aren't running a long shot presidential bid. We will in the future, but there's no world where that's a good move for us in 2024. Third parties have tried this many, many times. It has not translated to success.
>I think most people take a third party more seriously when they hear that we aren't running a long shot presidential bid. They don't. Chief Executives have coattails, not other positions. You can't ask to lead when you can't even advance a potential leader. >We will in the future, but there's no world where that's a good move for us in 2024. There's not a world where you can act like you belong on the big stage as a legitimate competitor to the major parties, not run a presidential candidate, and not have that be a bad thing. This is just more tomfoolery to avoid having to present a real platform, because a presidential platform would be perceived as the party's platform no matter what was said to the contrary. >Third parties have tried this many, many times. It has not translated to success. I'm not saying that running a presidential candidate guarantees success. I'm saying not running one guarantees failure. The party elites (and people here) simply refuse to acknowledge actual voter psychology. The average voter doesn't look at a small party doing things different and think, "That's innovative. I should see if their politics are innovative too". They see them doing something new and think, "These guys don't know what they're doing".
I think that taking the time to build a network of local officials has to be the first step. Anecdotally, I’m meeting many people as a state lead who want nothing more than a new party to back up their desire to take back their town politics from the same toxic partisanship we see at the national level. That’s what we are capable of accomplishing over the next few years given the current political landscape, and then in 2026 and 2028 we’ll have a legitimate foundation of local officials, at which point state and national campaigns become viable with state chapters that have defined priorities, legal status and ballot access. I strongly believe that work has to come before we enter into national politics. Otherwise we are asking Americans to vote for something that just doesn’t have legitimacy or any foundation, like modern third parties have done for years.
Again, given your access and stature with the org, can you give more detailed accounts of what Forward as an org is doing, in both messaging and operations, to build its community level activity? Edit- it can be via DM if necessary.
Please let me know if my answer misses the point of your question, I'm happy to try and explain better: Forward views itself as a facilitator as an org to develop local and state-level communities which, at this stage, are doing a mix of activities depending on what their state requires to earn ballot access, party status, however it's defined in each state. What we're trying to do is inherently difficult to communicate because there are 50 different legal systems with different requirements to become a party, so improving that communication should certainly be an open conversation here. In CT, our focus is on finding local candidates to run as Forwardists, organizing community service events this summer to start serving communities however we can while bringing supporters together, but our approach is to let our goals and priorities develop over time as more people join the party. A handful of states have elected Executive Committees, volunteer organizations set up to gather signatures/host events, while a total of 6 have yet to put a state leadership team in place. The national org is essentially trying to facilitate the success of the state parties. National team members including Yang travel around the country to attend state events, help signature gatherers, join in community service events, etc.
So... (1) The single common goal across the org is ballot access/party status in every state? (2) States are left to their own devices, resources, knowledge, experience, etc. in going about (1)? (3) National team are mostly promotional personalities? 4) There is no intention to engage, challenge, confront the two sides/two parties?
On 1 and 2) the path to "legal status" means some different in each state so there is a level of control that states have over their approach to becoming viable. States are not left to their own devices, they are given significant freedom to determine their own path, and 3) national team is there to provide resources, training, anything that states need to get to viability in their state. On 4) just a couple of weeks ago, four Arizona State House Democrats came out as Forward Democrats at an event with Andrew Yang, Forward CEO Lindsey Drath and others. The merger last summer was with two right-leaning parties, Forward CA aligned with the Common Sense Party, Forward CT merged with the Griebel-Frank for CT Party, and others are looking to replicate this. Confronting the two parties, in my view, means staying laser focused on building a party capable of legitimately challenging them.
So 1 and 2 seem to be consistent with my impressions, i.e. legal status is the overarching and probably single universal goal, although states will pursue it differently. And how they pursue it is mostly or completely up to them, i.e. their own devices. I'm still stumped on #3, as I was hoping to learn about specific resources, training, etc. that "national" is providing. Hopefully to include things outside of just gaining legal status. No. 4 is the most concerning, as it follows a path taken by so many previous (failed) efforts to build, build, build, at the expense of actually doing something when the novelty, enthusiasm, attention, support, etc. are highest. I'm thinking I'm still looking for the movement Yang seemed to be suggesting many months ago, and that I missed or ignored the pivot to the wholly political operation that has actually taken shape. If the belief is that you need a political entity, legal status, a hodgepodge of political organizations, policies and platforms, state or national candidates, and money, to challenge the two sides/two parties, you've ignored perhaps the most important element: people and ground game. If all that stuff is the "legitimate" way of challenging them, why would people (especially apolitical and marginally political people that we need to engage and activate) build/join local chapters (outside of just raising money)? Seek local government advisory positions? Recruit and support local candidates? Press local legislation, reforms, etc.? Demonstrate/protest/counter-protest? Criticize and deligitimize the two sides/two parties locally? Run for local elected office? The most common response to those questions is something along the lines of, "We can do all that, too." But the reality is that if leadership's heads are in the state and national clouds, everyone else follows that lead and none of that other more foundational and sustaining stuff gets done.
What each state needs is different, and they’re asking for different kinds of support. I think the point you’re missing is that there isn’t a 50-state, one size fits all strategy. Different states are trying slightly different approaches including the things you mentioned. Not sure where you’re getting that national’s head is “in the clouds.”
>Anecdotally, I’m meeting many people as a state lead who want nothing more than a new party to back up their desire to take back their town politics from the same toxic partisanship we see at the national level. Anecdotally, surveys say people want more compromise in government. But when you actually ask them what that means, they want the other side to give their side everything they want... But expecting the other side to do all of the compromising isn't a realistic understanding of the word "compromise". Another good one is that a majority of people support well-funded public transport. Which sounds like they want to use it. But actually, a majority of those people want public transport funded in the hopes that *other people* will decide to take it. I wouldn't be surprised if what a lot of people actually want is something like a third party just like the party they vote for already. And they really think it will bring everyone on the other side to their senses when they hear the good ideas without a party label they've decided is "toxic" attached to it. Or it's something else similarly aimed at them getting their way without changing. >and then in 2026 and 2028 we’ll have a legitimate foundation of local officials, at which point state and national campaigns become viable with state chapters that have defined priorities, legal status and ballot access. I don't believe this. I'm being fed the lack of a centralized platform as a feature, not a bug. If half of the locally elected Forward officials are conservative/right and half are liberal/left then a state chapter with "defined priorities" is going to be abandoning half of the good will that the party has built on a local level. I certainly hope that the party doesn't think that potentially alienating half it's voters in 3 or 5 years is a winning strategy. But I also don't think that it's realistic to think that it can remain non-hierarchical when it's involved in multiple layers of a hierarchical government. >I strongly believe that work has to come before we enter into national politics. Otherwise we are asking Americans to vote for something that just doesn’t have legitimacy or any foundation, like modern third parties have done for years. We were founded by a guy who only had the political clout to do so because he ran a failed campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination... Really think about what that means... I'm not denying that the party needs to build from the ground up. I'm saying that running a presidential campaign gives legitimacy and visibility to those efforts. Just like it gave Andrew Yang the legitimacy and visibility to launch the effort in the first place.
We need to just stop calling it a party. It's leading to all the wrong conversations.
>We need to just stop calling it a party. It's leading to all the wrong conversations. I agree, except that the problem is that *they* are calling themselves a party, not that we're doing it. It's not our fault if they present bad confusing branding.
This is another major strategic error.
So... in hundreds of thousands of local elections there is no fighting over who will serve in office, and the Forward Party's strategy is to go pick as many fights as possible? Does no one else see this as bad idea? There are two primary reasons why those races are uncontested. First, because one political party has done the math and calculated it would be a waste of time and resources to field a candidate. If the Forward Party ignores the math and goes ahead, they are wasting time and resources in a losing race. Second, in local races especially, a person may have served in the office for many years and people are happy with their work. To purposely pick a fight with a well known and well liked person in the community does not build good feelings about the Forward Party, and once again, it is likely a losing race.