what we\u2019re looking for<\/a>, such as: Are they respectful of the rule of law? Are they building from the bottom up more than top down? Are they a person that\u2019s really going to represent our perspective on the future of politics?<\/p>\nIt\u2019s not that we look at the Democrats and Republicans and say, you\u2019re bad, you\u2019re bad or you\u2019re good, you\u2019re good. It\u2019s more of trying to find the best solutions from wherever they come from. So if Republicans have great solutions or Democrats have great solutions, we want to use them and take them to the fore. And if there\u2019s a great candidate, we look at the candidate\u2019s qualities and ask: Is this someone that will serve the people in the best way possible, regardless of the label?<\/p>\n
That is a really important thing right now. If you look at both the national level and in Pennsylvania, there\u2019s relative dysfunctionality in both of them. That\u2019s why we don\u2019t have a budget passed at the national level. And that\u2019s why Pennsylvania is the only state in our country that still has not passed a budget. We can\u2019t find commonality and common ground in what each side says. If we can find the best pieces from the Republican side, the best pieces from the Democrat side, let\u2019s call it what it is: serving the people. And that\u2019s the most important thing.<\/p>\n
Forward is a national party, but has endorsed candidates in mostly local races. Why is that important?<\/p>\n
People tend to look at politics from a national perspective. But the reality is, our local government is really what impacts people\u2019s lives. If you think about City Council, they\u2019re the ones that make the decisions about if you\u2019re going to have clean streets, if your garbage is going to be collected on time, if there\u2019s going to be a curfew, whatever it may be.<\/p>\n
In Philadelphia, even a two party system is non-existent here. I think people should have a choice. And that choice can be Democrat, Republican, or something like us. Voters should have some opportunity to vote for someone who is going to represent their interests.<\/p>\n
Dugan has tried to thread a needle \u2014 he lost the Democratic primary, will be on the ballot as a Republican, but won\u2019t call himself a Republican. By endorsing him, the Forward Party deliberately chose him over Larry Krasner, who defeated Dugan in the primary. Why?<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s a good example of what the Forward Party is trying to do. People are trying to tag Pat as a Republican. The reality is, he got about 6,000 Republican votes, and he got more than 53,000 Democratic votes. So there are definitely people from the Democratic side that wanted him, and some people who are Republican. The Republicans didn\u2019t even run a candidate because it\u2019s such a Democratic town.<\/p>\n
When a candidate has to fight for their seat, they know they need to go around, knock on doors, listen and hear from their constituents. If nobody\u2019s challenging them, they\u2019re not going to do that. \u2014 Robert Grabale<\/p>\n
When we look at Pat\u2019s record of what he\u2019s done in the last 20 years as a judge, he\u2019s looking to bring folks from both sides of the aisle together to potentially win that seat. I love what Pat says: If you had to put a letter next to his name, it would be P for Philadelphia. The fact that he left 20 years in a pretty safe job as a judge to come out and do this says a lot about the values and how important it is to him for Philadelphia to be a safe community. People want to see justice served. They want to see if someone does something wrong, they are held accountable. But Pat also has been involved in restorative justice programs. Those are two hats you can wear at the same time \u2014 you can want to hold criminal activity accountable, and at the same time, want to see those people once they\u2019ve served go back into public life and rebuild their lives.<\/p>\n
As you\u2019ve pointed out, Democrats have such an overwhelming majority among voters in Philadelphia that it\u2019s hard for Republicans on the ballot to pull ahead. Do you think Forward\u2019s endorsement of Dugan will make a difference?<\/p>\n
We are still new, and here in PA we have the beginning of an infrastructure which has helped candidates like Eric Settle build infrastructure, get volunteers, build the fundraising platforms. We can do some on the ground work \u2014 tabling, canvassing, door knocking.<\/p>\n
And giving people a choice re-engages them in the election. This is the biggest boost to the election since May. People were calling this a sleepy election, and all of a sudden, it\u2019s less sleepy, right? Let\u2019s say turnout gets notched up to 18 percent or 20 percent or 25 percent, and people are starting to exercise their democratic right to vote. I think that\u2019s meaningful for all of us, no matter who wins.<\/p>\n
So you think having Forward Party in the mix can increase turnout?<\/p>\n
Yeah. We\u2019re talking about democracy going in the dark. And here\u2019s our opportunity to exercise our democratic rights, and only 16 percent of us do it. The Forward Party is working towards an open primary<\/a> system [where voters elect candidates in the primary, regardless of party]. We are stuck in a two labels process. If you were a Republican voter who loved Pat Dugan before the primary, you couldn\u2019t vote for him because of the way the system is set up.<\/p>\nLook at the number of uncontested elections in PA and in this city \u2014 it\u2019s insane. Having a choice makes better candidates, makes better public servants. I happen to live in District 175 and we have a good public servant, MaryLouise Isaacson, who does a fine job. But that office has been occupied by more or less the same representation for 20 years, because she took over from Mike O\u2019Neill, and was Mike O\u2019Neill\u2019s chief of staff. I think she\u2019s been primaried just once. Whether it\u2019s a Republican or a Forward Party person or whomever, to be in there, raising questions about whether she\u2019s representing everyone in the district is valuable.<\/p>\n
Right, they don\u2019t have to make their case to the public if they have no challenger.<\/p>\n
When a candidate has to fight for their seat, they know they need to go around, knock on doors, listen and hear from their constituents. If nobody\u2019s challenging them, they\u2019re not going to do that. They\u2019ll keep doing what they do, which may be fine, but it\u2019s not going to force them to go back and say, How do I defend my record? How do I remain accountable to people if I\u2019m not going out and fighting for it?<\/p>\n
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the Forward Party volunteer interviewed here. It is Robert Grabel.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761112149_172_nl_bolt600-copy.jpg\"\/)
MORE ON THE 2025 ELECTION<\/p>\n
District Attorney candidate, former Municipal Court Judge, Patrick Dugan (blue suit); Marcel Pratt (dark grey-blue suit), former City Solicitor, current Managing Partner at Ballard Spahr; Alexandria MacMaster (green blazer), former Montgomery County ADA, current Partner at Laffey Bucci D’Andrea Reich; Ryan; and moderated by Christie Ileto (maroon jacket and dress), 6ABC Action News Team. Photo by Albert Yee for The Philadelphia Citizen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is how local elections in Philadelphia usually go: For about five months in the winter and spring,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[613,624,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-10932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-2025-election","tag-district-attorney","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}