Labor Party Winter 2016 Convention in Dalton, Georgia

[Blair]

Chair
1.) Blair

Vice-Chair
2.) Truman

[Clyde1998]

CHAIR
[X] Blair2015
[ ] Flo
[ ] Write-in:

VICE-CHAIR
[X] Harry S Truman
[ ] Write-in:

[Ban my account ffs!]

CHAIR
[ ] Blair2015
[ X ] Flo
[ ] Write-in:

VICE-CHAIR
[ X ] Harry S Truman
[ ] Write-in:

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Too bad Adam didn't have to sweat as much as I did when I faced my primary challenge

[NeverAgain]

Too bad Adam didn't have to sweat as much as I did when I faced my primary challenge

Not for Adam...

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

Flo
Harry Truman

[DemPGH]

CHAIR
[ X ] Blair2015
[ ] Flo
[ ] Write-in:

VICE-CHAIR
[ X ] Harry S Truman
[ ] Write-in:

[Flake]

Flo
Harry Truman

[Adam Griffin]

Blair and HST are elected Chair and Vice Chair of the Labor Party, respectively.

Boys, the convention is all yours. If you need any help on how to steer this or anything, you know where to find me.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Excellent - I thank my fellow Laborites for their confidence!

[PLA]   Does anyone have a copy of the current platform? I doubt it's in too bad of shape, but considering the massive strides we've made over the last four months, some updates on the state of the Reform Movement may be in order.

[SEN]   Currently, Labor has only one candidate running for Senate this month: Speaker Pikachu in the Northeast. I'll be speaking with Chairman Blair in the coming days to see if we can't increase our representation in the weeks left before election day.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

I am very interested to put my candidature for Senate but i think its still early for me.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

The right wing smear campaign has begun! Just hours ago, my dear friend Senator Kent released a statement endorsing Governor Leinad for president in which he lodged a series of poorly constructed and entirely untrue accusations against our President. I got a good laugh out of reading it, and I hope you will too:

Leinad... will cut excessive and inefficient regulations, lower taxes, and bring jobs back to Atlasia.

Let's examine the facts behind this premise, shall we?

1) "Excessive and inefficient regulations"
This is a decades-old buzzphrase that right wingers use to rally the base whenever they don't feel like saying anything substantial about policy. Usually, they're very careful not to specify which "inefficient" regulations they want to cut - presumably because doing so would hurt their poll numbers. Saying you oppose "inefficient regulations" is like saying you "Believe in Atlasia" - its a generic, vapid statement that makes the candidate sound reasonable while saying absolutely nothing.

2) "Lower Taxes"
I was very surprised to hear Senator Kent name low taxes as a priority for the Atlasian right, seeing as his conservative colleagues fought tooth-and-nail to defeat the middle class income tax cut that I proposed during the federal budget debates last month. Once again, the senator is attempting to substitute hollow promises for real policy action: the truth is that the only substantial effort to cut taxes for the middle class was proposed, defended, and passed by Labor senators over the objections of right-wing extremists. Kent himself uttered not so much as a word of support for my proposal, which successfully cut income taxes in half for middle class Atlasians. The message is crystal clear: the right offers empty promises and Labor offers results.

3) "Bring Jobs Back to Atlasia"
By this point, it shouldn't come as a surprise that neither Senator Kent nor the Leinad campaign has yet released their plan for combatting unemployment (no doubt it involves cutting taxes on Wall Street). Now, I could point out that the president cannot simply hand everyone a job, that the current unemployment rate is mostly the result of the instability caused by the Radical movement and the domestic unrest that occurred under the previous administration, and that the trickle down theory of economics supported by Senator Kent and his allies is a proven job killer, but for now I'll focus on one major point:
      
The Regions with the lowest unemployment rates are run by Laborites. To hear Senator Kent talk, one would think that Labor's policies have driven the economy into the ground; in fact, Regions led by left-leaning governors consistently beat their right-leaning neighbors when it comes to putting people back to work. The Mideast, which has been under Labor governance for nearly a year, has had the lowest unemployment rate of any Region for months (since my time in the Mideast Assembly last Spring). The Region with the second-best jobs numbers is the Northeast, whose current governor is - you guessed it - a Laborite. By contrast, Governor Leinad's South has an unemployment rate of 8.5%, or .2 points above the national average. If you want an administration that will fight unemployment and restore national activity, then electing a Labor Administration is the only logical action.


Following his vague promises of economic renewal, the senator then made the absurd charge that President Griffin is somehow responsible for "ignoring" trolls - a truly ridiculous claim, considering the fact that Griffin's Administration is responsible for strangling the anti-Atlasian Radical movement pretty much single handedly. As evidence for this alleged offense, Senator Kent cited the nomination of former Senator Talleyrand for SoFE, despite the fact that Griffin outlined a strict no-nonsense agreement as a condition for Talleyrand's appointment and despite the fact that a majority of Federalist Senators, including Kent, did not feel strongly enough about the issue at the time to vote against Talleyrand's confirmation. Simply put, this charge is a desperate, post-factual narrative more concerned with boosting the right's electoral chances than with ideological consistency.

Deeply Disturbing^TM indeed.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Support your local Labor candidates by pasting these spiffy campaign banners in your signature:

[Pragmatic Conservative]

[SEN] I nominate Flo as Labor nominee for the Southren Senate.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

I support this.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

If Flo is interested, I'd love to see him take a stab at this.

[Flake]

I don't think I'd have the time to serve well as a Senator, thanks for the positive thoughts though!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I urge my fellow Laborites to lend their support and their votes to Legislator Steelers, who entered the race for Southern Senator this morning. There are now three Laborites running for Senate in February: Pikachu in the Northeast, Steelers in the South, and Darthebearnc in the Mideast (more than any other party).

[Türkisblau]

I motion for the Labor Party to endorse Senator Ebowed for reelection.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I motion for the Labor Party to endorse Senator Ebowed for reelection.

From the Bylaws:

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[/]

I wish to seek the Labor Party's endorsement for my run for ME Senate.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I wish to seek the Labor Party's endorsement for my run for ME Senate.

I believe that, as a member of Labor, you are endorsed automatically.

[/]

I wish to seek the Labor Party's endorsement for my run for ME Senate.

I believe that, as a member of Labor, you are endorsed automatically.

Oh. Heh.

[Blair]

Thanks to everyone who voted for me as Chair; as I let several people know last week I had several RL commitments but I'm fully back on track. It's a great honour to take over the convention, and push towards a Labor Victory this February

Naturally the party will have to wait for Senator Ebowed to turn up, and ask for our endorsement before we can formerly do so. It's great that we've got 3 candidates so far for the Regional elections, and I'm confident of our chances in 3 regions.  I'd also like to thank Vice Chair Truman for energetic role in helping the Conference, and praise him for his commitment to the Party. He's a true champion for the party.

My first unilateral move as party chair is to give the conference an official song; this is from the brilliant film PRIDE that celebrates the power of solidarity, and community.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

MORE DISPATCHES FROM FEDERALISTLAND

A few hours ago, the Leinad Campaign released the following statement:

Look, I like Duke, I have no reason not to. I understand and appreciate his contributions to Atlasian history--specifically Southern history. I appointed him to the ConCon and I don't regret that. But I'm afraid he's barely been active over the last four months. This isn't an attack, it's a fact.

I'm actually fairly surprised to see Leinad peddling this kind of nonsense, but regardless of my expectations, this attack (because, let's be clear, calling your political opponents "barely active" is an attack) is neither honest nor fair. The fact of the matter is that the vice president is legally barred from doing much of anything under the current Constitution. It used to be that the VP had a fairly prominent role as President of the Senate, working alongside the Speaker (then called the "PPT") to keep the legislature up and running. During this period, Atlasia was graced by a series of active vice presidents, from DemPGH to Cincinnatus to Duke himself (who previously served as VP under President Marokai). Then, not quite two years ago, a series of misguided "reforms" stripped the vice president of most of his power. These reformers, for reasons I do not pretend to understand, decided it would be best if all the VP ever did was break ties in the Senate and preside over confirmation hearings. As a result, the last few vice presidents have been close to invisible - not because they were lazy or inept, but because they were not allowed to do anything.

In short, these charges are grossly unfair to Duke, whose ability to take part in the governing process has been constrained by the foolish acts of previous Senates and presidents. These problems have crippled every vice president in the last two years and will not go away if Cris replaces Duke in March.  Complaining that the VP is inactive is like complaining that your car doesn't move after you take the wheels off: it's disingenuous and completely misses the point. In the future, I hope that we will see more in the way of real policy from the Federalists and fewer attempts to distort reality in service of their own ambition.