1928 Primaries (user search)

H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY
Alfred F. Jones
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	1928 Primaries « on: August 04, 2014, 02:49:33 PM »
	« edited: August 06, 2014, 12:58:47 PM by Senator Alfred F. Jones »

Righto, folks, here we are. Coolidge's second term has been marked by far less success than his first, with none of those hellishly right-wing economic reforms or that surprisingly peaceful Reconstruction (except for that part when Theodore Bilbo was shot, but that's another story for another day). He has managed to do some things though, most notably full end of Reconstruction and the closure of Ellis Island - the latter enraged quite a bit of the Populist base, especially soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Morris Hillquit, but everyone else was pretty much fine and dandy. The Roaring Twenties are chugging along at a rapid pace, but while most of the world is celebrating the Spirit of St. Louis, certain other individuals are preoccupied with a certain other sort of spirits in the next state over (hint: one of them is that nice Italian fellow Al Capone). Nothing new to report, really, just the same as the last four years.

While many expected the still-triumphant President Coolidge to run for reelection, he was put into a general funk (to put it lightly) upon the death of his son and refused to do so, stating that "if it is God's will that I be miserable, I shall request a favor of him that I be miserable in Massachusetts," and endorsing arch-conservative Nicholas Longworth, son-in-law of former ex-Unionist Theodore Roosevelt, brother-in-law of Rhose Island rising star and alleged carpetbagger Quentin Roosevelt, and cousin-in-law of former Navy Secretary Franklin Roosevelt. He's been called "the most horridly right-wing frontrunner since Joseph Cannon" and he's damn well proud of it, though at least he's not such an unbearable asshole to literally everyone (indeed, Coolidge's eulogy for Uncle Joe consisted entirely of "He was the President a few times", though this was similar to the treatment he gave to President Debs: "He was in between that other guy's administrations. God, I'm so ing tired of all this funeral sh**t."). The other frontrunner is failed VP nominee of yesteryear and former Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover (the "former" part is because Coolidge fired him in 1927 because "that man has offered me every day unsolicited advice for the past six years, all of it bad"), who is sort of progressive-ish but is still tight with big business, much like another failed VP nominee I could name. Everyone else is a one-off "look at me I have one quirky trait" dude: Charles Curtis is a Native American, James Eli Watson is batsh**t crazy and wants to sterilize the poor, Clement Calhoun Young is literally (and I do mean literally) the only progressive Unionist left, and you all know about Henry Ford, who won't let libel suits stop him from running full-page advertisements of how sexy he is and how President Ford wouldn't take no sh**t from no one.

For the WP, we have clear frontrunner VP BKW, who has the unions, the blacks, the Native Americans, and the former President (Underwood's only one left besides Marion Butler, you see, and most of the party pretends the latter never existed) behind him. His campaign slogan is "Reforms, Reforms As Far As The Eye Can See," and he damn well intends to live up to that: universal health care, women's suffrage, the inheritance tax, a Civil Rights Act (whatever that is), and maybe a few nationalizations if he gets a lot of votes. The other candidates are all racists (except Duncan Fletcher, who is attempting to bridge the gap between the parties and doesn't realize that the WP and BMP aren't going to merge unless it's the other way around because seniority), but special mention goes to James Thomas Heflin, whose only notable accomplishment in Congress has been the murder of a black man in broad daylight.

For the Bull-Meese, we've got crazy character Al Smith, who is hoping the voters don't realize he delivered them one of their worst performances ever and maintains that he did not have sex with that Pope, Pius XI. His main challenger is eternal runner-up Hiram Johnson, who is attempting to pull rank seeing as he's the only Bull-Moose ever to become Vice President and is still progressive as ever. Dueling with him for Fighting Bob's legacy (both figuratively and, on one memorable occasion, literally) is Senator George Norris, who responded to Johnson's rank pull by saying that he filled William Jennings Bryan's old Senate Seat and that basically makes him the Vice President and please love him. Billy Borah and D. Ignatius Walsh are having an isolationist pissing contest in the corner of the convention hall, but there's an added twist in that Walsh got a bit weird after losing in 1924 (first to Smith and then to both Wheeler and Hoover - for a brief time he changed his name to Walsher, but then decided that was stupid); he has taken a turn for the conservative lately and many are wondering if he's even in the right party, but at least he's not Duncan Fletcher. What the is Duncan Fletcher doing here? What's he doing anywhere? He's like 90 or something. Frank Orren Lowden is running against prohibition or some sh**t like that, but his name recognition is so little that most Illinoisans can't distinguish between him and that homeless guy on Barker Boulevard.

Well, there you have it. I'm sort of hoping on the inside that we keep up the cycle of four Unionist victories (Tilden-Clay-Cleveland and Root-Coolidge-Someone (Longworth? Ford?), a legendary left-wing President (Donnelly and someone else (Wheeler? Long? La Guardia?)), and an era of divided elections (Butler-Barker-Reed-Cannon-Debs-Cannon-Underwood and Warren-Randolph-Rustin-Rockefeller-Chisholm?), but I honestly have no idea what will happen.

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H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY
Alfred F. Jones
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Posts: 15,127

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