1912 Conventions

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Alfred F. Jones
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	1912 Conventions « on: June 12, 2014, 02:16:19 PM »
	« edited: June 12, 2014, 05:15:08 PM by Senator Alfred F. Jones »

After a minor scandal where he was seen giving the finger to the outgoing President Debs, Joseph G. Cannon finally became President of the United States in his own right, and while this boded well for the stock market, it did not do the same for the left. Cannon re-removed the Reed Brigade, this time replacing it with a group of southern "enforcer" he liked to call the Knights of the South, and other than a brief scandal in which two of them were placed on paid leave for participating in a lynching, those uppity Farmers-Labors have decided it's just not worth it to protest any more. They did, however, fight almost violently against Cannon's attempt to repeal literally all of President Donnelly's union protections and abolish collective bargaining forever and ever (not a constitutional amendment, but you know what I mean), defeating it in the House after a narrow passage in the Senate that required some rather forceful arm-twisting by Senate Majority Leader and reluctant servant Henry Cabot Lodge, who once remarked that "by God, if only that man were to be shot in the street we'd have a real President, but as it stands I am honor-bound to execute his will." Indeed, it has been said that the Senate under Cannon was "an endless war of wills between Lodge on one side and [Minority Leader and FLPer] Berger and [the other minority leader] La Follette on the other." Cannon was able to repeal all restrictions on child labor, though, so the mining industry is quite happy about that. His term would, much like Debs's and to a certain extent Donnelly's, however, be overshadowed by what his opponents called a "debacle" and his supporters called a "step in the right direction": the reconquista (as it were) of Hispaniola and Cuba. Just look at him there with his sh**t-eating grin and his shiny new "Atlantis Territory." Who the does he think he is? Ignatius Donnelly?

It was this last action that proved to be Cannon's downfall (at least for that term), as his "little Caribbean cruise" was performed without the consent or even the knowledge of Congress, and quite a few people were very, very angry with this. And so it came to pass that Joseph Cannon faced a trial before the United States Senate (the impeachment resolution easily passed the House), and was only saved by a bit more of the particular brand of persuasion that came to be known as the "Lodge Treatment", swinging several moderate Unionists back into the Cannon fold and acquitting the President by just one vote. Effectually a lame duck after this, with the Unionists soundly defeated in the rather ill-timed midterms (occurring at the height of his unpopularity), Cannon devoted the remainder of his term to angry rants and sweeping statements about capitalism. However, his wild ride's not over yet.

President Cannon is being challenged (again) by the less confrontational (though, I must repeat, equally economically conservative) Henry Cabot Lodge, who plans to lay off the potential unconstitutionality and suchlike, and Theodore Roosevelt, who is seizing his chance to turn the Union Party back in a progressive direction before he consigns himself eternally to the BMP, but it is expected that Cannon will have the full support of the conservative and establishment wings, especially since Roosevelt is widely viewed in the party as a traitor.

On the FLP's side is Debs's natural successor (the former President resisted calls to run for a second term but did not rule out the possibility in the future), William Jennings Bryan, who wants to make some interesting changes to the constitution (namely votes for women and national Prohibition), as well as the age-old PA/FLP causes of nationalization of railroads and oil. However, some in the party are miffed at his anti-immigrant, anti-civil rights positions, which he has taken in an attempt to bring the Populists back into the fold and get the team back together. His main challenger appears to be one of the few Southern FLPers left, Alabama's Oscar Underwood. Underwood is pushing for the equally age-old PA/FLP causes of a national income tax (so many amendments, so little time), a federal minimum wage, and a total ban on child labor, as well as the restoration and expansion of the Reed Brigade - he has been the most vocally anti-Klan of almost any major elected official, ironic given his homeland. The relatively little-known (but witty) Thomas Marshall of Indiana is also running on a Hughes-esque anti-corruption platform (drawing some ire from his party, which controls several of the most notorious political machines), supports the banning of that hip new practice all the young'uns are talking about ("eugenics", was it called? Something like that), and, not to be outdone by his opponents, has proposed an entirely new constitutional convention. Finally, there is wannabe dark horse Duncan U. Fletcher of Florida, who wants to preserve forests and smash the banks or something like that (there's always a conservationist, isn't there?) and is a bit racist.

The frontrunner for the BMP (or Bull-Meese, as this reporter likes to call them) is obviously the fiery, filibuster-happy "Fighting Bob" La Follette. A standard-bearer of progressivism often described as closer to Debs than Roosevelt, he hates trusts with a passion and, like Bryan (and to an extent Underwood), supports women's suffrage and increased child labor protections. Speaker Champ Clark is running mainly on a racist platform, apparently intending to make inroads with the Populists. Some dude named Herbert S. Hadley is running on the theme of "guys my name would be a good name for a President or maybe a Mormon prophet" and is basically a carbon copy of Roosevelt, up to the point that he has stated his intent to drop out if Roosevelt wins the Union nomination. Albert B. Cummins and Judson Harmon are running, but their names were handed to this reporter two minutes ago on a slip of paper the back of which appeared to be smeared with a mysterious sauce, so they probably don't have any positions beyond "go people corporations" and the usual left-wing stuff.

Now we get to the unsavory bunch of individuals calling themselves the Populists, who have decided that maybe supporting lynching of Jews and Catholics and blacks isn't the best way to go about things and that maybe they should shift to economic issues. Bryan is also running here, and it is for this reason he has gone to the right on immigration and civil rights, as is Woodrow Wilson, who prides himself on being the only Populist elected north of the Mason-Dixon line; though he is a committed racist, he wants the party to focus more on economic reform efforts and that sort of stuff. Minority Leader Carter D. (the D is for "Discrimination! Why, that is exactly what we propose.")* Glass is also running, focusing on the banks and their evil ~~Jew~~ corporate overlords, but he also supports a poll tax on black people - hey, you win some, you lose some. Also James Reed is here and he really, really does not like Jews.

*Note: Carter Glass did not actually have a middle name.

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