Hail, Columbia! (The Election of 1792)

[Cranberry]

President Hidalgo's ascension brought a number of issues back to the daylight that had been carefully avoided under the stewardship of the beloved Franklin. The vast expanse and huge differences within the juvenile nation were proving to show first fissures within the system, and huge political talent was to be needed to maneuvre the nation into a common future.

Miguel Hidalgo had a rough start - he was a Spaniard Catholic, different from the majority in the northern and eastern provinces, and the provisional meeting point of congress at Philadelphia was far away from his home grounds in Mexico. Nevertheless, Hidalgo enjoyed the support of many allies from his time in Congress, and could play on the alliances President Franklin cleverly crafted for his sucessor. The first period of Hidalgo's presidency thus saw more a continuation of Franklin's ideas and policies than anything else.

Hidalgo however was keen to put his own stamp on the nation, now that it was his time to do so. An architect of the new system himself, he was keen on keeping the careful balance between the individual provinces and the central state. He lobbied Congress to pass laws easening intrastate commerce, established a federal postal system and gave out funds to better connect the nation's big centres by land. He gained the respect of protestants, a group that had seen him rather with discontempt before, when he massively lobbied against a bill that the Assemblea of Yucatan, the southernmost province, was considering to pass, which attempted to dissuate non-Catholics from settling there. Finally, Hidalgo saw the passage of legislation that created a new national capital, on a federally owned territory, on the east bank of Mobile Bay within West Florida, which was dubbed "Franklin", following the first president's death in 1790 - a consensus solution halfway between the interests of Spaniards and Francophones in the south, and English Protestants in the north.

When the election of 1792 approached, no doubt remained that the President would run for reelection. Challenging him are John Johnson, Governor of the Province of Niagara (formerly Upper Canada), and William Maclay, Senator for Pennsylvania. While Hidalgo has formed his Continental Party into a largely united group, Federalists and Democrats are loose groups, held together more by disdain for the government and each other.

The admission of the new provinces of Tennessee, West Florida and Nuevo Leon, formed out of southern portions of Texas, has increased the size of the Electoral Council to 52 members, and the needed majority to 27.



President Miguel Hidalgo of Mexico [Continental]

The President is running for reelection on a platform on continuing the sucessful policies of the last years, aiming to decrease tensions between different groups wherever they arise. His hotbeds of support remain the Catholic southwest and the province of Quebec, but he has increased his popularity mainly everywhere but in the slaveholding southeast.



Governor John Johnson of Niagara[Federalist]

The Federalist banner has become the standard option for former "loyalists" - supporters of the English and Spanish crowns in the struggles for independence - and people supporting a stronger central government in opposition to power to the individual provinces. Their strongholds are the North outside Quebec - Niagara, Acadia and New England, as well as the old upper class of the middle provinces.



William Maclay of Pennsylvania [Democratic]

More a ragtag band than a political party, the Democrats are the choice of the frontier farmers and pitchfork-and-torches folk, always weary of anything "coming from above" and any central government supposedly run by Catholic and Jewish interests. They have found unlikely supporters in Southeastern slaveholders, in a time when abolitionist movements grow in the north and south west, and a centralist solving of the issue seems to become more likely.

[Intell]

Continuing with Hildago.

[Goldwater]

I see no reason why Hidalgo shouldn't be reelected.

[TDAS04]

Hidalgo

[Cranberry]

Still a bit more than 24 hours to go here.

[Mr. Smith]

hildalgo

[Cranberry]

The Election of 1792
   

Miguel Hidalgo [Continental-Mexico]— 37 Electors
John Johnson [Federalist-Niagara]— 8 Electors
William Maclay [Democratic-Pennsylvania]— 7 Electors

[Zioneer]

Wow, Hidalgo absolutely demolished Johnson and Maclay. That's just brutal.