The Forward Party wants to fix American politics. Their existence challenges that goal.
Ultimately, what Whitman and Yang are trying to articulate isn’t a competitive third political party but a return to a decorum of policy-making that doesn’t hang on the fringes.
A new political party is set to launch in the United States, giving voters the opportunity to stop “voting for the lesser of two evils” and rip away the status quo of an American electoral system built around two parties—Republicans and Democrats.
But the new party, known as the Forward Party, hasn’t exactly demonstrated their feasibility as a serious competitor in American elections.
What is now known as the Forward Party began in October 2021 as a Political Action Committee (PAC), created by former long-shot presidential hopeful Andrew Yang in the aftermath of his embarrassing campaign to replace Bill de Blasio as New York Mayor.
But rather than running their own roster of candidates, it appears the Forward Party is instead endorsing candidates from the two major U.S. political parties, as well as independent candidates, that support the mission statement of the party.
But as of Monday, all six candidates endorsed by Forward have either lost their primaries or withdrawn from their respective races altogether. One candidate, Larry Sharpe, was disqualified from running after failing to meet the eligibility requirements to appear on the ballot for Governor of New York.
According to the party, Forward aims to have candidates on the ballot in at least 30 states by 2023 and ballot access across all 50 states in time for the 2024 presidential election.
A recent tweet from Forward noted that they’re “steering away from the extremes from the left and the right to find common ground.” The same day, Andrew Yang tweeted in support of former President Donald Trump after Mar-a-Lago, also known as Trump’s home, was raided by FBI agents. (Yes, they even opened his safe.)
The pandering is desperate, but then again, it’s coming from the same guy who used a 2019 presidential nomination debate stage to announce that $10,000 in campaign donations would be given away—sweepstakes-style—to ten lucky Americans.
Being 100 per cent on one side of an issue ‘just B.S., frankly’: Forward Party co-chair
Running on the slogan of “More Unites Us Than Divides Us,” Forward believes the current “top-down, one-size-fits-all” major party platforms are both “rigid” and “outdated.” While the assertion itself seems reasonable, it’s used to justify the fact that Forward has just three priorities to “serve as the springboard for policy-making” within their party.
Whitman, the only woman to ever serve as Governor of New Jersey before going on to serve under the George W. Bush Administration, remained a Republican until earlier this year, when she became co-chair of the Forward Party.
In an interview with The Blueprint, Whitman called efforts to return the Republican Party back to the center of the political spectrum a “hopeless task,” summing up her party with one simple message: “We need centrists… people who are going to be willing to work together to solve problems.”
Whitman wants American voters to think that the Forward Party isn’t just playing spoiler to the two-party system. But the party’s mandate, according to Whitman, is to endorse moderate candidates rather than those who are conservative or progressive.
“So many people immediately assume that we’re just looking at the presidency. We’re not,” she says. “We would not do anything that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get back in the White House. None of us would support that.”
For Whitman, the Forward Party brings together voters who care about three basic factors: economic security, individual freedom, and the defense of American democracy.
Referring to the Forward Party as a “comfortable home,” Whitman was unable to pinpoint how her party can win over voters on the country’s most polarizing issues, like abortion and gun control. When asked about how the Forward Party can win over skeptical voters from marginalized communities, all Whitman had to say centered on “outreach” and “listening” — two strategies that are hardly novel or groundbreaking in American politics.
Asked about how a centrist third-party could bring voters back “from the extremes,” Whitman took a page from one of Marianne Williamson’s spiritual self-help books and chalked the solution up to “offering people a comfortable place where they can come together and have conversations without being criticized.”
Whitman called the idea that a party has to be "100 per cent" on one side of an issue "just B.S., frankly," pointing out that refusing to take a stance on important topics hasn’t cost Republicans in the long run.
"There really isn't a Republican Party. When they did not adopt a platform in 2020, they basically said, "We have no central core philosophy. We're whatever Donald Trump tells us we are.’ And that, to me, that's not a party. That's a cult. And that's a dangerous thing for this country."
‘We’re going after her right now’: Whitman on Liz Cheney
Where does the Forward Party go from here? According to Whitman, executives are set to go on a listening tour beginning in September in an effort to determine what kind of "common sense consensus" voters want to see in the party’s campaign platform. The party hopes to have a platform in place by next summer, when Forward will host its first convention.
“It's not going to be the kind of platform that the two major parties have now, which get down to the nitty gritty of delineating where you have to be on every issue,” she said, noting the idea might sound “airy fairy” to some people.
When asked about the kinds of positions the Forward Party is ready to take to show Americans this new political party is doing something different, Whitman answered simply, “We’re not.”
Whitman is hopeful that Liz Cheney, who recently lost her primary for re-election by a landslide for investigating the January 6th insurrection, will become either a high-ranking member of the Forward Party, or even a leader.
“We’re going after her right now,” she said.
Ultimately, what Whitman and Yang are trying to articulate isn’t a competitive third political party but a return to a decorum of policy-making that doesn’t hang on the fringes. The false equivalencies of the “far-left vs. the far-right” only serve to help Republicans, whether the Forward Party wants to admit it or not.