Reuters reports, Former Republicans and Democrats form new third U.S. political party:
Dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials announced on Wednesday a new national political third party to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America’s dysfunctional two-party system.
The new party, called Forward [Logo, right] and whose creation was first reported by Reuters, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters.
Party leaders will hold a series of events in two dozen cities this autumn to roll out its platform and attract support. They will host an official launch in Houston on Sept. 24 and the party’s first national convention in a major U.S. city next summer.
Note: If you really want to be a viable third party you first have to register enough voters under your party banner to qualify for the ballot in all 50 states, and you have to actually run candidates for office under your party banner in all 50 states. This takes a national and state party organizations, a team of lawyers, and a fundraising arm to raise boatloads of money to make this happen.
If this is just another vehicle for someone to run for president claiming to be a third party candidate, when the cadidate is actually just an individual running for president (like George Wallace, John Anderson, Ross Perot and Ralph Nader), it is NOT an actual third party, but just a potential spoiler candidate running for president.
This sounds more like another vanity run for president by Andrew Yang, with possibly David Jolly as his running mate.
The new party is being formed by a merger of three political groups that have emerged in recent years as a reaction to America’s increasingly polarized and gridlocked political system. The leaders cited a Gallup poll last year showing a record two-thirds of Americans believe a third party is needed.
The merger involves the Renew America Movement, formed in 2021 by dozens of former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump; the Forward Party, founded by Yang, who left the Democratic Party in 2021 and became an independent; and the Serve America Movement, a group of Democrats, Republicans and independents whose executive director is former Republican congressman David Jolly.
Two pillars of the new party’s platform are to “reinvigorate a fair, flourishing economy” and to “give Americans more choices in elections, more confidence in a government that works, and more say in our future.”
This is just pablum.
The party, which is centrist [= corporate], has no specific policies yet. It will say at its Thursday launch: “How will we solve the big issues facing America? Not Left. Not Right. Forward.”
More pablum.
Historically, third parties have failed to thrive in America’s two-party system. Occasionally they can impact a presidential election. Analysts say the Green Party’s Ralph Nader siphoned off enough votes from Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000 to help Republican George W. Bush win the White House.
And George Wallace siphoned off enough votes to help Richard Nixon win a razor-close election over Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Ross Perot siphoned off enough votes to help Bill Clinton win by a plurality in both 1992 and 1996.
It is unclear how the new Forward party might impact either party’s electoral prospects in such a deeply polarized country. Political analysts are skeptical it can succeed.
Public reaction on Twitter was swift. Many Democrats on the social media platform expressed fear that the new party will siphon more votes away from Democrats, rather than Republicans, and end up helping Republicans in close races.
Forward aims to gain party registration and ballot access in 30 states by the end of 2023 and in all 50 states by late 2024, in time for the 2024 presidential and congressional elections. It aims to field candidates for local races, such as school boards and city councils, in state houses, the U.S. Congress and all the way up to the presidency.
Bold talk. No one has successfully done this for a very long time. Of course, if they are a centrist = corporate political party, they could attract enough corporate funding to make a run at it.
`THE FUNDAMENTALS HAVE CHANGED`
In an interview, Yang said the party will start with a budget of about $5 million. It has donors lined up and a grassroots membership between the three merged groups numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
“We are starting in a very strong financial position. Financial support will not be a problem,” Yang said.
Another person involved in the creation of Forward, Miles Taylor [“Anonymous”] – a former Homeland Security official in the Trump administration – said the idea was to give voters “a viable, credible national third party.”
OK, now this is starting to sound like a vehicle for the “Never Trumpers” who appear as commentators on MSNBC. Shouldn’t they have to disclose their affiliation when they appear on TV? Conflict of interest.
Taylor acknowledged that third parties had failed in the past, but said: “The fundamentals have changed. When other third party movements have emerged in the past it’s largely been inside a system where the American people aren’t asking for an alternative. The difference here is we are seeing an historic number of Americans saying they want one.”
Stu Rothenberg, a veteran non-partisan political analyst, said it was easy to talk about establishing a third party but almost impossible to do so.
“The two major political parties start out with huge advantages, including 50 state parties built over decades,” he said.
Rothenberg pointed out that third party presidential candidates like John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 flamed out, failing to build a true third party that became a factor in national politics.
So did George Wallace and Ralph Nader. Although the current iteration of the Republican Party more closely resembles Wallace’s American Independent Party than it does the traditional Republican Party.
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Jonathan Bernstein writes, “US Third Parties Aren’t Always Pointless”, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-29/election-2024-third-parties-aren-t-always-pointless?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=220729&utm_campaign=author_18529680
As third-party launches go, it’s rare to have one with as little intuitive appeal as that of the Forward Party, Andrew Yang’s latest attempt to draw attention to himself. Yang is joined by former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and by David Jolly, who was a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Florida for two terms. Whitman and Jolly were moderate Republicans whose party no longer has any use for moderates; Yang ran for president in 2020 and then for mayor of New York City last year without making much of a mark. In addition to a lack of star power, the new party also features no issue agenda.
It’s hard to figure out just who exactly the voter pool for this effort might be.
[N]one of the noteworthy third-party efforts of the 20th century generated viable political parties, and Yang, Whitman and Jolly aren’t likely to establish anything lasting even if they find a popular candidate to run in 2024.
[As] for the Forward Party? My favorite part of its rollout was the complaint that Democrats and Republicans are too extreme on questions of gun safety. Its claim that the “far left” wants to “confiscate all guns” overlooks the fact that most Democratic elected officials actually don’t, and have supported far more moderate policies. Nor do Republicans line up uniformly behind what Yang, Whitman and Jolly call the “far right’s insistence on eliminating gun laws.” Congress just passed, and Biden just signed, a compromise gun bill. That hardly proves that a new party isn’t needed. But one might think the advocates could at least cite actual examples of irreconcilable extremism.
“No Labels 2, The Sequel Nobody Asked For”.
We need more than two parties, the GQP is mentally unsound and dangerous, and the Dems are inexplicably unable to get key legislation passed in a country that leans left, aka mostly useless.
Bernie’s right, it’s going to take a movement to fix this country, this ain’t that, this is just a bunch of CEO’s and their political lackey’s who want to get invited on cable news, sell books, and be invited to all the best parties.
Good catch on this being another Joe Lieberman’s “No Labels” group of Wall Street lobbyists calling themselves “centrists.”
Channeling Emily Litella: Why would anyone dream up a political organization called No Lapels to just to boost Jim Jordan and his shirtsleeves? It’s No Labels? Never mind!
Seriously though, another Wall Street front group masquerading as “sensible centrists” is just what this country needs. Centrists to the right of Nixon. Lieberman and the rest of his ilk need to crawl back under their well appointed rocks never to emerge again.
OT: Get your mail in ballots completed & mailed. Sent mine in to Pima County Recorder’s Office on the 11th & when I checked on the 15th signature had been verified.
Of course School Boards are non-partisan in Arizona, despite efforts by certain legislators who hate hard working public school employees, and who want to inject insane partisanship into school boards. Sonny Borrelli, why do you hate public schools in Lake Havasu City?