Waiting for the Forward Party
"Voting booths in Cleveland Heights" by Tim Evanson is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Questions
With election season upon us, member Daniel Nardini wonders about our newest third party’s disappearing act.
All of the "Vote for [insert name here]" signs are up, and all of the "Vote for Abortion" or "Vote for Gun Rights" signs can be seen on people's lawns here. Since I live in a largely Republican area, there are far more signs for the Republican candidate for governor of Illinois, Darren Bailey, which greatly outnumber those few for the Democratic candidate, J.B. Pritzker.
Strangely enough, there are a few (very few!) signs endorsing candidates for the Libertarian Party.
The election cycle for local, state and U.S. congressional officials is upon us, leading up to Election Day this November 8. As usual, all of the vicious mudslinging which goes along with it is ever depressingly present. It seems almost as if the most important issue is for one party or the other to win rather than voting on the actual issues themselves. And the Republican and Democratic parties have become so partisan that there is no sane debate or conversation on just about any issue.
Noticeably absent in the whole thing is the Forward Party. For one year now, I have heard all kinds of media statements claiming the Forward Party will help to change the landscape of America. The Forward Party, we’re told, is a centrist party that will offer Americans a real third party alternative to the current two ruling parties. No longer will people have to be either Democrat or Republican. Now they will have a chance of being Forward Party.
So the hype goes. And yes, as I guessed, there has been push back from both the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats have said that the Forward Party will take away votes from Democratic candidates. The Republicans liken the Forward Party to a "new left party."
Of course, many people who want to have nothing to do with the Democrats or Republicans (increasingly the demographic who are being called "independents") wonder what the ideological bent of the Forward Party is. In many ways that ideological bent, in my view, is still being formed. After all, the party was only launched a year ago. Not even the two ruling parties knew what they were all about in the first years of their existence.
The big concern for me is, where is the Forward Party? Yes, there is no question the Forward Party is still forming and has yet to reach many parts of the country. And they are, even as I write this, using the latest technology to recruit people.
Yet, low-tech methods such as using Forward Party personnel to go out into the communities to talk about the party and seek recruits is something I have not seen in my area. I have seen no signs, no posters or billboards, or any literature from the Forward Party in stores. I have seen no physical presence of the Forward Party.
Perhaps they have a physical presence in the more urban areas. That is all nice and good, but to become a true third party and a mass party the Forward Party must start to be seen everywhere. This includes out-of-the-way places as well as the big metropolitan areas of the United States.
Even though both the Democratic and Republican parties started out in the 19th Century (long before most methods of mass communication ever existed), both of these two parties reached into every local community, every state, and into every region of this country by use of party representatives, newspapers, the telegraph, and even by word of mouth so people knew. The Forward Party needs to do the same. The Forward Party, to be a true alternative party, has to reach the people no matter where they are.
We can only see what happens, but I hope we are not having a “Waiting for Godot” moment. As I see all of the signs of who to vote for, I wonder — which ruling party will win big in this mid-term election?
Daniel Nardini spent 22 years as a newspaper correspondent for Lawndale News and The Fulton Journal. He has published six books, including his eyewitness account of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, The Day China Cried. He is listed as an Illinois author in the Illinois Center for the Book.
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