Building a New Party
It has been almost exactly one month since the new Forward Party was announced and the past days have been tremendous. Over 40,000 Americans have signed up at forwardparty.com and we raised over $300,000 from grassroots donors around the country – thank you! We now have energized volunteers in all 50 states and state leads in 32 of the 50 states, with new growth every day.
My expectations were vastly exceeded in terms of press treatment as well because we were treated as a mainstream new party – Forward is already a thing! We’ve already cleared a hurdle that most new entrants never do.
Now the real work begins.
What is a national party? It’s a few things: it’s a popular movement. It’s an organization that can impact the whole country. And, pointedly, it’s an assemblage of 50 state parties, each of which has to be incorporated and managed under a byzantine set of rules specific to that state, some of which are designed to be onerous and unfriendly.
So that’s at least 51 different orgs. That’s a lot.
Happily, we have the energy and people on hand to build them, as well as some road-tested expertise on how to get there.
This week on the podcast I interview Joel Searby, who is running Politics at Forward Party. Joel is a 17-year veteran of political consulting who, upon seeing the direction of the Republican Party in 2016, decided to help a guy named Evan McMullin run for President as an Independent. Joel is now one of the foremost experts on both building party infrastructure and independent politics.
“The rules vary wildly from state to state. In Louisiana you just have to file some paperwork for $1,000 and get 1,000 people to sign up. In a place like California you need to get either over a million signatures or almost one hundred thousand registered party members. In others you need to run a candidate who gets a certain percent of the vote. So some states we will be able to accomplish pretty easily and others we will have to build up to. We’ve identified 15 states that we think we can achieve recognition in or party status in by the end of this year. We think we can get to 35 by 2023 and shoot for all 50 thereafter.”
Is this not the most fun challenge you have seen in quite some time? It’s time to build a national party! We should have a giant celebration every time we get status in a state. Or at least a party there.
One major boost is that groups and organizations in different states have already expressed interest in helping us achieve party status in their state. We are gaining new friends all the time.
As much fun as that is, even more energy will come from candidates. Again, here we’ve had dozens of sitting elected officials as well as former candidates reach out to say that they’d like to join us. Many were involved with one party or the other before realizing that they wanted to provide something different.
“I’ve been in politics for almost twenty years and I have never seen people like we are getting. Ordinarily, the people who show up to politics are a mixed bag, with many gadflies. But here at Forward we are getting seasoned operators who have run companies or divisions or organizations. They have no agenda other than trying to build what the country needs. And I have seen waves of enthusiasm around launches – this one is sticking. We are attracting people for the long haul. I am pumped and have been drinking out of a firehose since launch,” said Joel.
I’ve been a part of various teams and movements, and the single biggest indicator of your path is the people you attract. Forward is getting GREAT people. With that as our foundation there is truly no limit to what we will accomplish. Joel is just one of them.
We would of course love your help! If you haven’t already done so, sign up at forwardparty.com and maybe donate a buck or two. Let’s heal a fractured nation and give rise to the movement that millions of Americans have been waiting for. It will be a lot of work, but what isn’t? This will be one of the greatest things most of us get to do in our lifetimes – provide a new sense of dynamism and possibility to a system that has stopped responding to people, families and communities.
So many Americans wonder what they can do to change things. Let’s give them, and ourselves, a clear answer and a different sense of the future.
Have you ever wanted to help build a national party? Well now is our chance, and not a moment too soon! And the first state to celebrate will be . . .
