I'll give you the bullet point/abridged version for now because I'm hungry and haven't eaten all day b/c of work. It'll be edited a bit later...maybe. Btw, remember to include your VP choices (unless you are a Unionist, in which case, we're operating on the honor system).
- Calvin Coolidge continued his predecessors proud tradition of never giving a state of the union address
- The Farmer-Labor Party and the Populists merged to form the Worker's Party after the "Disaster of '20"
- Economically, Coolidge is essentially the same as IRL, except he also tried and failed to get a constitutional amendment repealing the income tax passed. Coolidge quickly withdrew the U.S. from the League of Nations causing the whole thing to fall apart. RIP Europe!
- Because Louisiana didn't secede in Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo, New Orleans has replaced Atlanta as the most prosperous city in the South. Coolidge has proven a solid if somewhat risk averse supporter of civil rights and worked with former President Underwood in the latter's failed attempt to get anti-lynching legislation through Congress. Reconstruction has once again gone surprisingly well and only Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas have yet to be readmitted to the Union.
- Coolidge and the Unionists enacted prohibition and harsh immigration restrictions in order to get Southern and Western WPers to agree to vote for his income tax cuts and not to bitch about reconstruction any more than necessary to get re-elected (which is still quite a bit in the case of the former
). Hooray for organized crime!
- Overall, Coolidge is regarded by most Americans as a rather successful if boring chief executive. There was never any teapot dome scandal and Vice-President Warren Harding died in office. Coolidge is unopposed at the Unionist Convention. The real race is for Vice-President after Harding died, since Coolidge only picked former Vice-President John Weeks of MA as a place-holder and wanted to create some excitement on the convention floor so people wouldn't make him give a speech
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Unionist Vice-Presidential Candidates:
New York Senator James W. Wadsworth is from the crucial state of New York, a small government man, the definition of economic right-winger, but he also opposes Coolidge's reconstruction policies as "radical big government interventionism" and worrying phrases like "state's rights" have a way of slipping into his speeches on civil rights. There is arch-racist Indiana Senator James E. Watson who would help in the crucial swing states in the upper South like Virginia and Tennessee while bringing Midwestern appeal. On the flip-side, he was a proud Klansman back in the day. There is Budget Director Charles Dawes of Illinois who hates Indians and has all the charm and warmth of Joseph Cannon (i.e. everyone hates him because he's an unlikable prick). Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover is extremely pro-big business, the choice of the party bosses, and is reasonably popular, but the West is also a WP stronghold so would he really help that much? Missouri Governor Arthur Hyde is from the right part of the country, overall a solid economic conservative, and provides ideological balance. Then again, he also supports women's suffrage, environmentalism, the income tax and yucky stuff like that. Lastly, there is Coolidge's personal choice: Former Iowa Senator William Kenyon. However, he is considered a UINO by most other Unionists and is probably far too economically progressive to win the Vice-Presidential nomination.
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The Worker's Party:
The Worker's Party has many options. Naturally, Senator Carter Glass is running again (he makes a better Harold Stassen than Harold Stassen
). Now on to the serious candidates! The convention is currently deadlocked between the two frontrunners: Former President Oscar Underwood is running again, this time on a platform focusing on creating an inheritance tax, raising the income tax, universal healthcare, repealing prohibition, and banning lynching. The other frontrunner is MD Governor Albert Ritchie and he is running on fighting corruption, giving women the vote, and repealing prohibition, but he's always going off about state's rights and we all know what that means... Everyone else is a dark horse hoping the delegates decide "screw it, let's just pick neither of the front-runners and GTFO of here."
Nebraska Governor Charles W. Bryan is all like "Look at me, I'm Stephen Baldwin to my brother's Alec Baldwin. Wait, that wasn't what I meant
" Arkansas Senator Joseph T. Robinson is basically "look at me, I'm a racist Southerner who doesn't go around saying stupid sh**t, also I'm an interventionist on foreign policy and support prohibition." Former Ohio Governor James Cox is running because surely the party that nominated Eugene Debs three times will go with the Moderate Hero
Indiana Senator Samuel Ralston wants universal healthcare and has promised to deport all those awful Catholics back to Catholistan or wherever they came from. Oklahoma Senator Robert L. Owen is running because f*** child labor, that's why! Virginia Senator Matthew A. Neely is running on D.C. statehood and shockingly supports civil rights. Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler supports full equal rights for blacks, women, and indians, loves unions, and has promised to drop out if the Bull-Moose Party nominates LaFollette. Lastly, Michigan Senator Woolbridge Ferris wants to create a Department of Education (yes,
that really was the issue he based his single-issue presidential campaign on in 1924).
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Bull-Meese:
There is California Senator Hiram Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Robert LaFollette...again. Former Illinois Governor Frank Lowden wants to see if his party will nominate him now that he doesn't hold elected office anymore. Massachusetts Senator David I. Walsh is running on "muh isolationism" and "muh economic progressivism." He is also quite fond of comparing Unionists to Klansman and Bolsheviks
Iowa Senator Smith L. Brookhart really wants to bust the trusts and doesn't realize he's the new Albert Cummins. New York Governor Alfred E. Smith is running on economic conservatism, repealing prohibition, and repealing Coolidge's immigration restrictions. General "Black Jack" Pershing is easily the greatest hero of the second Civil War, but he's been disturbingly vague about what he actually believes and is rumored to have both Unionist and WP sympathies
Lastly, Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinochet supports prohibition and is running mainly on conservationism.
26 options, it is your choose...
Poll
