June 2016 Federalist Convention - Lincoln, Nebraska (Leadership Elections)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

WELCOME TO NEBRASKA, FEDERALISTS!!!

A Party Built with Self-Sustaining Freedom!!!

Convention Delegates:
South Judicial Overlord NC Yankee - Chairman
Senator Leinad - Vice Chairman
Senator Altsomn Jay Stmarken - Party Secretary
Fmr IDS Speaker/Citizen Ben Kenobi
Fmr. Senator Goldwater
NE Governor RGN08
South Legislator Pingvin99 - South Regional Chair
Fmr. Senator JCL
Game Moderator Enduro
Secretary of State Classic Conservative
Pacific Governor TedBessell - Pacific Regional Chair
Midwest Governor Tmthforu94 - Midwest Regional Chair
Senator ClarkKent - NE Regional Chair
South Speaker Haslam2020

Using 3rd Constitution Offices since technically they are still in effect.

Schedule:
June 04th-June 06th Delegate Sign-in
June 06th-June 09th Bylaw and Platform Amendment Offer Period
June 09th-June 12th Consolidated Vote on Bylaw and Platform Amendments
June 12th-June 15th Speeches
June 20th-June 24th Leaderhip Elections
June 24th-June 28th Selecting Next Convention City

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

X South Judicial Overlord NC Yankee

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkekqVPIc2M

Song dies down and massive applause starts as Chairman Yankee approaches the microphone.

I can just listen to that all day!

applause continues

HOW ARE WE DOING OUT HERE TONIGHT?!!!!  WOW!!!

I realize more delegates are continuing to arrive. Let me ask you, should we wait for them?

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I thought so, well they can keep coming and take their seats. We have to get started, it takes a lot of work to end 16 months of Labor dominating the Executive Branch!

Crowed bursts into applause again

We have to get to work!

As many of you know Atlasia is entering a new era, and as much as anybody the Federalists have been an equal author in that future. On of our newest members, Secretary of State Classic Conservative took the lead in starting the convention and members new and old were at the forefront in the convention, demanding reform while insisting on preserving regions, preserving freedom and decentralizing power and authority back to the local level. Did we work with others, you betcha and that is the key to our strength. We have always worked well with and cooperated with others who shared our values and our vision.

Our Party believes in the the strength of the individual, and we believe in competition instead of monopoly. We believe in decentralization, not stifling concentration of power. We believe in checks on unlimited power and we believe in holding officials accountable for their actions. We believe in a game that welcomes all to participate in a constructive fashion and seeks to give the newest members an opportunity to rise up and become leaders with the full support of older, more experienced members, who are just as vital. This is in contrast to some old folks who either intentionally or unintentionally seem to want to use their experience and knowledge the make the game unplayable for newer folks.

Our country, our game is built on new people bringing in their ideas and their ambitions and powering the game's future. The Federalist Party's record on this stretches back to its founding and no one can match our committment to Atlasia's equivalent of immigration. That of welcoming both new and old members desiring to play the game on a constructive basis and opposing the actions of rogue actors who make the game unplayable for all but the select and elite few.

I appreciate the contributions Labor has made to saving the game and the coming to reality that Adam Griffin has had watching his former allies (yes, these were his allies for years in some case) turn against Atlasia and seek its permenant destruction. There was no way for the game to survive without a pro-Atlasia left. However, that doesn't change the fact that Labor has been in the White House for a ridiculous 4 terms and several times the Party as avoided facing the wrath of its voters for not once, but twice in one year plunging this country into despair, because of the political contigencies of the moment or Adam's personal appeal beyond his party.  

In this coming election, Atlasia will have a choice. Between continuing the strangehold on the administration of the country by a party who has long since gone stale, or a bold, exciting and vibrant ticket and that combines youthful energy with solid experience. One that will offer a solid plan to address our most pressing economic issues while at the same time ensuring party competition, restoring dynamism to the game and allowing for both sides of the game to renergize and reinvigorate themselves. It is only by doing so that the reforms made will prove to be a success.

It is our mission, our strategic objective, not just to passively support Leinad/Lumine, but to to unite in full force. But to bring to the fore the full strength of Libertarianism, Conservativism and Moderation. But to daily, actively and energetically engage, organize and grow our support.

I encourage all right leaning Atlasians, be they Federalist, Civic Renewal, Democratic-Republican, independent, third Party or even some Laborites to ask themselves three questions. Does monolitic control of the executive branch, best serve this game in a new era? Does continuing to elect Labor Presidents advance our shared vision for the nation and the game? Do petty squabbles and minor differences justify crippling competion for the highest office in the land just as we are writing a new chapter in Atlasia's history?

If you answered yes to even just one of these critical questions, then I urge you to join with us. State you desires, state your concerns, let us address them together and let us go forward as one united front to finally bring an end to this era of Labor domination at the executive level! It is time for new energy, it is time for new ideas, it is time for a new direction, and it is time for a real change.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

WHAT THE  IS THIS BULLsh**t?!!!!

FTFY

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Once again I predicted the future, and made a signature to address a problem days before it happened.

For those of you were gone from the game, and those of you who had yet to join. I want you to imagine for a moment what is like to be stripped of all influence and power and then have a litteral Communist etching your last words on a tomb stone and then pissing all over it and your soon to be grave.

I did not overcome the machinations of Marxists, Traitors and Radicals to deliver this party back to power, just so that it could be ripped to shreds a year later over a disagreement on a fault line, I warned about just days ago:

Everytime this has happened, players have left the game. Because from their point of view they were sick of giving it all only to have defeat snatched from the jaws of victory by one or two votes and amongst that list of leftwing voters is several names who normally vote conservative. Libertarians who hate moderates, moderates who hate libertarians, conservatives who hate both, independents who hate big tent conservative parties. Time after time after time aftet time.  I had hoped that new Atlasia would be different and we could have contersts determined by ideas not repeat of same old bs.  I say it is time for the whole right to rise up as one united front, and put an end to these bullsh**t defeats.

Congrats!

Adam laughing, getting ready to head to the bank with the WH:

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What's the last social conservative bill that actually got passed? Anywhere in Atlasia? When's the last time NC Yankee passed anything social conservative? All we see is Labor and Labor on this issue.

Its kind of had to pass anything when you have maybe 2 Senators out of 10 that agree with you on a position. Remember, for a good bit of my last period in the Senate, it was 7-3 and 8-2 Leftist. And more recent majorities had the balance held by moderate CRs.


Perhaps I should have taken the martyrdom route. And right now Oakvale would be running this game, I would be pinning nostalgically for the days of old, people like CLassic never would have joined or be sitting with a 3 year game ban for treason along with myself, people like JCL would have left and not returned and this election would be Foucaulf versus a still Laborite Talleyrand. With maybe a third party conservative getting 15% of the vote.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

That same promise applies to every Federalist, by the way. Conservative, Libertarian, moderate. I have made a point to listen to all sides ever since I became chairman. I have also worked tirelessly to elect moderates such as Goldwater, just as much as I have conservatives like JCL.

 Our unity rests in understanding the strength of us coming together around shared goals and vision as well as understanding that the perfect cannot become the enemy of the good. There are things we can do for social conservatives yes, but it must be remember that it will do no good to rub a hostile position in the face of a public or voter who is of opposite mind, for that will only make them recoil and retrench and then you lose not only that but on everything else you might be able to win them on.

We must as a party speak to the public where they are and than for where they are at odds, work to change minds and opinions outside of elections through discussion, reasoned debate and factual analysis.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

moderates such as Goldwater

Really makes you realize the irony in the name

Not really considering,

"...Conservatives of my ilk will be called Liberal" - Goldwater in the 1960's. And of course twenty years later, Republicans were threatening to disown him for just that reason.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The funny thing is, I don't even really consider myself that moderate. I just have a somewhat... Unorthodox combination of policy positions.

Which makes finding a suitable replacement for you in the House all the more difficult on that note.


So to buy me more time:

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Under the fourth constitution, I am entitled as Chairman of the affected party to appoint a replacement should one of our Party's Representatives resign. As Goldwater has resigned to move it on up on the West Side, I am therefore give this impossible task.

My preference would be to appoint someone from our newer ranks, but I am mindful of the vast amount of support that Goldwater received from moderate voters and therefore I am hessistant to appoint someone that would be a substantial change from Goldwater, but as he just noted, he does possess a rather odd mix of views making this task of "respecting his base voters" all the more difficult.


The Last thing I want to do, is spend another seven years in a legislative chamber. However, since this particular rodeo is getting underway, I find it necessary to appoint a replacement, before redistricting. The turmoil in here, the real life trajedy and a bunch of unforseen events, not to mention working four days straight has left me no time to weigh the options or even contact potential options to see if they are interested.

Therefore, I am appointing myself, North Carolina Yankee, to the position of Atlasian People's House of Representatives. This is not permenant, it is temporary, until I can find out what the hell is going on. I will not run for reelection, but I will commit to being a faithful servant of the people for however short of a stint this maybe just as I was for so many years in the Atlasian Senate under the Second and Third Constitutions. I am going to review the options and contact people and upon making a decision, I will resign and appoint them instead.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It's appalling that the Chair would appoint himself to such a position!

Get off your high horse, Adam did it.


Also, the idea that I would desire to be in the House or Senate at this juncture is crazy. I want to pursue a different course from legislative service. I do have some ideas for a few amendments, I want to get the House off to a good start, but other than that, I am not really passionate about being in the legislative branch like I was for all those years in the Senate.

Hence why I find a suitable replacement for Goldwater, I will likely resign and appoint them.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

As per my resignation last week in order to take office as Associate Justice for the Southern Region, the same seat has once again fallen vacant and therefore it has fallen upon me to appoint a replacement once again.

As stated before, my primary criteria was to adhere closely to the voters that elected the Representative Goldwater initially. That limited my options significantly, but it seemed like the proper approach to keep the House as close to representing the people as possible.

The constitution requires that I make an appointment, but it doesn't dictate that said replacement be a member of the same party. The person I have chosen has a long record of distinguished service, policy expertise on those less than sexy areas of government policy and of course fits well in terms of representing the constituency that voted in now Senator Goldwater, as he is literally one of those voters.

The person I have selected is former Senator Shua, who I hereby appoint as my successor in the People's House of Representative.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I have decided upon discussion with a few members to make some changes going forward with regards to how the conventions operate to ensure speedy completion of various tasks that seem to delay the convention.


1). We need a Bylaw and Platform Committee who can then present amendments ready made for debate. We need two major bylaw changes at this stage:

a. The process for endorsements is now completely obsolete under the fourth Constitution and needs to be rewritten in its entirety.

b. There is desire to add a position dealing with the administration of conventions to ensure that the Party Chairman doesn't have to sacrifice the convention's completion in a timely fashion to handle the exigencies of actually winning the elections. This was made worse by the multitude of elections that occurred back to back as the new constitution was implemented.

While this concern will not be the case going forward, it should be noted that future elections will be more complex in other ways therefore the establishment of a permanent convention chair separate from the Party Chairman holds merit and the bylaws should thus be amended to that effect.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Under Endorsements and Primaries

Aren't Clauses 1 and 7 duplicative? This exists in the current bylaws as well.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Should we include a section about a Presidential primary? This nearly happened in February obviously and the bylaws really don't explicitly establish anything regarding Presidential endorsements. There was a section that dealt with it, but it was removed back in 2013.


Aside from that, I think we can move to a final vote, if we are agreeable to that.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Rather minor point, but wouldn't it be fitting to have that as clause 1, with the rest renumbered accordingly?


snatches' Leinad's Pedantic hat

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Final vote then?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A final vote is now open on the above bylaw amendment (subsequent alteration included), please vote Aye or Nay.

Official Ballot:
[   ] Aye
[   ] Nay


This will be a 48 hour vote.

I have alerted Vice Chair Leinad about this vote as well.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Damn it Leinad.

I thought you ended this when we discussed it in chat the other day. Anyway, the bylaw has passed.


Potus, you said you had platform amendments, ready, no?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Has Leinad finished reviewing the text? He has been authorized to open and close votes here, so I figured he would once he had done so.



Anyway, does anyone have comments, concerns, recommendations, etc?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Same old song, same old tune. It seems like the very thing that makes it possible for me to even be on here at all, is crippling my functional abilities beyond comprehension. And it is making me depressed, because there is litterally nothing I can do anymore that I enjoy.

I am tired of my life being dominated by a job I detest, forcing any and all other things both on here and off of here to the side. I go until I pass out and I have nothing, no one and no plausible way out.

I made a critical miscalculation back in late July after my leave. I relied too heavily on a filtered overview of events provided to me on chat and not enough on the site as whole. This made me detached from events on the ground and dependent on the partial, incomplete and potentially even biased information I was receiving. When college started back up for so many people, their availability changed and mine did not (to the extent that it did made the situation worse) making it impossible for us to get on at the same time. I didn't connect the dots fast enough, but this should have pushed me back towards a realistic approach rather than trying to run things at arms length.

Two weeks ago, things came to a head, when critical decisions had to be made and lacking knowledge on the ground and lacking my usually group of consultants, I became thoroughly stressed out to an unhealthy extent. As a reasult, I missed a handful of opportunities to get on, only to find that such procrastination proved devastating since subsequent opportunities didn't materialize. It didn't help that this occured against the backdrop of another injury at work and also losing my own internet access over the past weekend and early part of this week.

Prior to about mid August, I was pursuing a more hands off approach generally both because I wanted to give Leinad the room to govern as President and didn't want to undermine him the way that Griffin so often did so with his Presidents. One big mistake was not discussing in June how that relationship between the White house and the Party would function. Soon after, it became clear that delegating leadership to Leinad was counterproductive, precisely for the reason I mistakenly desired go that route in the first place, that is the need for him to act independently for the good of the country, which sometimes created divisions. My concern was the correct one, the answer was the complete opposite of what it should have been though and that is my mistake not Leinad's.

Irregardless of that, the main problem here stemmed from my work and a string of incredibly bad luck. Keeing with that vein, I am running out of time and energy fast tonight and though I have yet to make a firm decision. I am going to declare at least tentatively for chairman as the chances of me discussing the matter, and then getting on and posting before the deadline are rather slim.   

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am hereby rescinding Leinad's authorization to administer this convention.

Nothing against Leinad, but I have come to realize that people are indeed correct and that I have been far too passive, far too laid back and far too mellow.

It is time I reintroduce this forum to the Yankee of old. The audacious son of a bitch, who never takes no for an answer and who refuses to stop until the opposition's guts are hanging from the trees. Crazy Yankee, is back!

Now for a little bit of truth.

Contrary to popular false narratives, I actually did everything in my power to avert the loss in August. I was on the Monday before (I can prove this) and the Sunday of the election (I can prove this also). Most of the less active members were contacted, and as the election came down we lost by one vote. It is true that I did have to work a six day schedule over election weekend, but I managed to be present on Sunday thanks to a work related injury (Lord works in Mysterious Ways). However, no one had any detailed counts available. Thankfully Santander did his best to provide us with a count but it was done using the wrong counting method and had to be redone at the last minute. It also didn't have down ballot preferences and therefore last minute votes were cast with a clear eye of how that vote would interact with the rest of the field. This is not Santander's fault, but more experienced member's could have filled this gap that I had made a point to reference the week prior. Lesson for the wise, power of suggestion is worthless. It is probably necessary to be more direct.

So what did I do next.

The day after (not two weeks or a month later, the next morning), I wrote an autopsy with a detailed list of things to do to avoid that result in October. Most of our active members have seen it. If anyone has not and would like to, I will fix that problem. I had the schedule all along, and we are now ahead of schedule on most every count. These schedules have also been shown to most active members. If any member would like to see this autopsy or the implementation schedule, I will make it available. That being said, there is one area that is fast coming up that will require mass involvement and that is candidates for the People's House. If you are interested in running please let me, President Leinad and Senator Tmthforu94 know as soon as possible.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am seeing the withdrawals of Senator Tmthforu94 from the Chairman race, dfwlibertylover for Vice Chair, and Enduro for Vice Chair.


The election will therefore commence immediately.


Chairman:
(  ) North Carolina Yankee

Vice Chairman:
(  ) Leinad

This election will last for 72 hours and is open to all Federalist Party Members.

As soon as this is over with I will move to adjorn this convention at reconvene at a specified city on September 30th, 2016. I realize this is not the normal process, and if anyone objects to the city they can object to the motion within a reasonable time frame (24 hours probably).

This will be the October 2016 Convention where we will hopefully nominate a winning ticket led by Senator Tmthforu94 and proceed with the the necessary mechanisms for winning this election (those few that are not already in motion as most already are).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It goes against my preference for how to conduct this, but moving forward does have its benefits.


Members have 24 hours to object.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Seeing no objections, NC Yankee and Leinad are reelected by acclimation.


After consulting with "technical staff", it has been determined that the best location for the next convention should be some place relatively close to Omaha, lest we fail to make the Friday date.


Therefore, this convention stands adjourned and we will reconvene in Kansas City, KS on Friday, September 30th, 2016.