Yesterday, I attended the Gainesville, Florida area's first Forward Party meet-up. I didn't record it or even taken any notes, so these are just next-morning impressions.
Attendance: About ten people.
Composition of attendees: About 60% male / 40% female. Based on overt claims and indicative statements, probably 40% current or former Republican, 30% current or former Democrat, 30% (including me) third party or "independent." Also about 30% (including me) "full-time politico" (me, the Forward Party's national political director, and a local Republican political consultant). At least 20%, maybe more, veterans.
The pleasant surprise, from my point of view, was that nobody there was hell-bent on making sure the Forward Party is all about their pet policy issue.
With one -- completely sane, I think -- exception, the consensus seemed to be that the party should be about solving the problem of turning the US into a true multi-party democracy that might be better fit to address all those other issues.
Ranked-choice voting (I approve).
Independent redistricting commissions as opposed to redistricting being done whichever "major party" happens to dominate the legislature (I approve, but I'd go further to algorithmic redistricting based entirely on population density from a random starting geographic location).
Non-partisan "open" primaries (I disapprove, because with ranked-choice voting no primaries are needed at all -- if a party wants to endorse a candidate, let it do so by convention or hold its own internal, non-government-financed "primary," and have a jungle election with all legally/constitutionally qualified candidates eligible to receive votes).
The exception was one guy who thought the party should have at least five specific and popular deliverables. He cited the 1990s "Contract With America" as an example of a party making big gains by offering an explicit set of proposals. He also name-checked Ross Perot and his focus on balanced budgets. I can't say I entirely disagree, but I think those "election reform" points above are the deliverables the party should focus on. Attempting to expand that will turn into a fight over whose ideological laundry list becomes the platform, with everyone else leaving and the thing dying.
There was also a seeming consensus that decentralization is a good thing, and that both "major" parties like it when it produces the policies they want and try to suppress it when it doesn't.
The in-the-know Forward guy was pretty clear that 1) Andrew Yang does not intend to run for president in 2024 and 2) there may not even be a Forward presidential ticked in 2024. The current priorities are getting state parties recognized/registered by state governments and getting them set up for ballot access ASAP.
Overall, I was favorably impressed.
That doesn't mean I'm optimistic that the Forward Party will succeed where previous third parties have failed (I'm not).
It also doesn't mean that I think the existing system can or should be saved from its impending complete dissolution (I don't).
But in the absence of an ideologically libertarian political party to hang out with and do stuff with while we await the inevitable collapse, there are far worse ways for me to feed my addiction to politics than to help pitch some non-anti-libertarian reforms that, if adopted, would probably make things a little better for a little while.
If things remain on the current track, I may be one of the people you see e.g. staffing a booth at a festival in a Forward t-shirt, helping administer what I expect will be Forward's version of the World's Smallest Political Quiz -- an event-specific demonstration of ranked-choice voting to show how it works (e.g. at a food truck rally, "rank the food trucks" ballots, and then a demonstration of how they're counted and a winner determined.
Of course, I strongly suspect that ideologues -- non-libertarian ideologues -- will get control of the thing, especially if it starts showing any potential, at which point I'll presumably be moving along. But I guess we'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment