Former Office of the Midwest Governor (Closed as of January 7th, 2015)

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

People leaving regions because of the results of one election is one of the major problems with Atlasia.

There's a permanent right-wing majority in the Mideast. That's not likely to change anytime soon.

Certainly not if left-wingers keep fleeing the region in protest.

I can only speak for myself, but I had been thinking about leaving regardless of the results simply because I've been in the Mideast for a while and wanted to try something new (every region seems to have its own local flavor).  Afleitch said he'd been there for nine years, one can hardly accuse him of fleeing just because an election didn't go his way.  I agree that leaving in protest is silly, but I don't think that's what most people are doing.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Governor, there have been unconfirmed reports of a large explosion in Fargo.  Can you confirm or deny these reports?  If they are correct, do authorities know the cause of the blast?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I would like to take the time to personally congratulate every winning Senate candidate in the At-Large races including two fellow Laborites Lief and SWE, the Archduke of our region Cris, and well-esteemed leaders Bacon King and Polnut. It's great to know we're about to have a Senate that's ready to really test the President's ability to work with the Labor Party.

I have no doubt Lief and SWE will be phenomenal freshmen Senators and I look forward to seeing where they stand on some of this divided legislation. I think they have great leaders to look up to and follow in their footsteps in the other 3 Labor Senators. We have Bore who has a lot of experience and leads the Senate, Windjammer whose worked on expanding our party's members and significantly helped in passing an amendment to our Constitution that will better help protect our citizens from firearms and explosives, and TNF our party chair whose stood firm in defending the Civil Rights Act which I think has the votes to pass now and thus ensure equality across our country.

Oh and with Cris set to leave for the Senate, that leaves us with the question of who will be the next Archduke. Well, here's what the Constitution says on the matter:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Our President pro tempore of the Althing is Vega, and will take over the duties as the Archduke temporarily, until we determine in the special election who the next Archduke is. I personally encourage him to run in the special election for the office, but that's ultimately his choice.

I would hope we get someone who's prepared to make continued progress in the Althing. We definitely need an Archduke willing to extend debate, and offer more pieces of legislation on the floor at one time.

The Archduke position definitely deserves voting power as well, and I have an amendment I'll be proposing later tonight to our legislation thread that will increase Althing representation by 2 members - 1 extra Most Serene Representative At-Large, and 1 - the Archduke At-Large who should have the right to take part in the debate and voting process. We've shown over these past few months that we have what it takes to have competitive elections, and I believe we're ready to expand our legislature and representation to our citizens.

Now should one of the Althing members run in the Archduke special election, that will leave open an Althing seat. Just to reiterate, we are a Labor-supporting region, and when the time comes, I'll appoint someone who best represents our region.

Says the Governor whose recall was supported by the majority of Midwesterners

Doesn't the Midwest deserve a Governor who best represents the region?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Listen, you guys gave a valiant effort to try to unseat me, and it did give me the realization that 50% of our region isn't very fond of me, but that 50% is mostly made up of inactive citizens in our region who rarely take part in our regional government. Meanwhile, I was overwhelmingly supported by our voters who have seen everything that's gone on and support my Governorship.

And you know what, you guys just need to learn to accept the results. You may not like the fact that our Constitution requires 60% to throw out an elected official, but that's the way it is.

You're not going to pressure me into resigning, so I suggest we stop this madness of attacking one another back and forth and leave the ultimate decision Midwest voters made to rest.

I think you missed my point.  I was first and foremost criticizing your implication that the Midwest is an inherently pro-Labor region and thus only Laborites can represent it well.  Yeah, it certainly leans in that direction, but at the end of the day party ID is far less important than issue positions, activity-level, etc in determining who would best represent the region.  It sounded like you were saying that by default only Laborites can represent the interests of the Midwest and I don't think any party is inherently entitled to a monopoly on any region.  The fact that a majority of Midwesterners voted to recall you and that Labor's candidate (IIRC) would've lost the election to determine your successor had the recall gone through shows that the People of the Midwest don't automatically support whoever Labor runs and sometimes they decide other parties' candidates would better represent their interests.

FTR, I can only speak for myself, but I wasn't trying to pressure you to resign (although I do think you made a mistake by not doing so).  The recall results were just the first example of Midwestern voters rebuking a Labor candidate that came to mind when I was making my post.  My beef is with the idea that party ID should be the decisive factor when deciding who can best represent a constituency.  It may be that a region tends to support a particular party's candidates, but that doesn't mean that said region should only be represented by candidates of said party.  Hopefully that clears things up a little.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The notion that the Midwest isn't an inherently-Laborite region flies out the window when considering that TNF is a five-term Senator of the region.

I never said the Midwest didn't generally lean Labor, but the idea that Laborites (or members of any other party, for that matter) are inherently the only ones capable of representing the region's interests is silly.  I should also note that Senator TNF's victories over Lumine and Cris were hardly landslides (although his initial victory over Maxwell was impressive).  Additionally, I can't help but wonder whether he'd have beaten Cris had Governor Simfan not been (IIRC, my apologies if I'm misremembering) actively encouraging a number of right-leaning voters to move to the Pacific.  I have to think some of them would've otherwise ended up in the Midwest and it'd have only taken three for Cris to win outright or maybe even two, depending on whether Midwestern ties are now broken by run-offs or by number of first preferences (although I forget which of them had more first preferences).

Furthermore, while I obviously disagree with Senator TNF on many issues and wish he weren't so quick to resort to demagogic attacks (and at times pretty OTT insults) on those he disagrees with, but I think you're selling him short if you are implying (and I'm not saying you were, I couldn't tell) that he has only won because he's a Laborite.  There are plenty of criticisms one could make about him/his record, but there's no denying that Senator TNF has been a model Senator in terms of his activity level and is one of the strongest voices for the Atlasian far-left (not to be confused with the Atlasian left or the Atlasian center-left).  While I'm not saying I agree or disagree with it; I certainly think there is a legitimate argument to be made for voting for Senator TNF even if the voter in question is to the right of him politically and/or are frustrated with his demagogic tendencies (and it's an argument that has nothing to do with his party affiliation).  Of course one could also make a legitimate argument for Laborites (especially the less far-left ones) to vote against him or at least abstain.  I really think it sells most candidates short in general to act like they only won because of their party, tbh (although there are definitely exceptions).

The backing of a big party like Labor or even the Federalists (when they actually vote) or a well-organized smaller party like TPP or the Democratic-Republicans helps and can certainly help decide a close election (especially if there is a lot of last-day strategic voting), but it is hardly enough in-and-of-itself to ensure one's election, despite what some party bigwigs might like to think.  Candidate quality and (most importantly) a candidate's relationships with other players are both far more important.  I'd argue that the most important benefit of a party in Atlasia is that a strong party can often foster a "we're in this together"-style sense of community/bond (for lack of a better word) among its active members (which both can help encourage higher turnout and make the game more fun).  From what I've seen, TPP and Labor have both done a very good job with that (as opposed to the Liberal Party never seemed to have anything of the sort).  I could be wrong, but I don't get the sense that the Federalist Party has that sort of internal dynamic at this point although I wouldn't be surprised if it did in the past.  I honestly don't know enough about the internal politics/dynamic of the Democratic-Republican party to say if their active members have a "we're in this together"-style bond/sense of community.