Mexico/PEACE, Congress, and the eUSA Presidency

Day 523, 08:52 • Published in USA USA • by scrabman

Last night I watched the election results come in for the 17th eUSA Congress and I'm impressed, yet again, at the process and the dedication that so many put into running for Congress. Of course, there are many who are elated and many more who are disappointed with the results of the election ... but the results are what they are ... it's the effort that makes them worthwhile. I stopped by IRC to check on everyone for a few hours last night and to share in their stories. It was nice. I even talked with Emerick.

Now I get to look ahead for the next election ... mine. I'm running for eUSA President with my VP Moishe again ... one more time. Many wonder what it is that I do as President and so I thought I would write this article to talk about that a little. I am not trying to pat myself on the back because I thought that this was a very hard and stressful day.

First I got more than 150 PMs yesterday from everyone in the freakin' world. Every time I would hit send I'd have 2 more pop up from all sorts of folks. The messages usually fit into one of these categories: 1) I'm from _ and we are being PTOed (politically taken over) by _ ... can you help; 2) I'm from _ and we are being attacked by _ can you help; 3) did you know Portugal is going to attack and the battle in Croatia is a diversion; 4) the battle in Croatia is serious ... fight; 5) I'm a newbie and want to ask you some questions; 6) hey it's me again ... did you get a chance to help my country yet and when are you going to?; 7) I need you to do this, this, and this right now; 😎 OMG Mexico is breaking their Treaty; 9) hey ... when are you going to help my damn country; and my favorite 10) when are War Games again?

Between all the places I have to check I probably had 500 things to read or respond to yesterday. Sheesh! It was a busy day, probably the busiest since I've been President, and PEACE got off to a good start by attacking Croatia through Hungary. It took a while to get communication going but I started shouting after my Cabinet advisers told me (which was a few hours before I got the PMs from the Croatian President). I then wrote an article that clarified not to worry about an invasion that went to the Top 5 in 52 minutes and is now in the Top 5 of International articles with 370 votes! Wow, the media is amazing at times. In any event, the attack of Croatia was repelled ... thank you all!

So, just as I'm getting my people calmed down the President of Mexico decides to exercise his rights under our Treaty to start their own RW (resistance war) in Baja. This necessitates dozens more emails to people explaining the situation and how this isn't an invasion and has nothing to do with fighting in Croatia as the terms of the Treaty require that Mexico gives us back Baja if they take it by accident. Still ... OMG! So I had to deal with that too and it got a little stressful last night ... but it all worked out. My internet connection went down for a while yesterday and while I was waiting for it to come back I had to work from my tiny iPhone which is very frustrating. Luckily I had a backup so that my Presidency didn't go to hell due to technology failure.

I'm not saying that this isn't a fun job ... it is fun. But I can also see why most Presidents just fade away after their term is up. I need to report something. Last week I was on IRC to meet with the President of Portugal and before I logged off I saw Uncle Sam. I pulled him into a private chat and one of the things that I told him was that I was sorry for giving him such a hard time while he was in office. He seemed surprised but I told him that I understand now how being President makes you everyone's friend (I get 20 requests a day) and everyone's enemy and that I was sorry for giving him such a hard time. He thanked me and we chatted for a while. It was nice.

Anyway, a few last things for this wall-o-text. First, we will be starting some new War Games soon ... maybe by the weekend. I've had Harrison Richardson and Equality 7-2521 working on getting most of our allies who share MPPs with us to be of a War Games exercise with us using our border with Ireland. So you can expect to see that open up here sometime in the near future and it will shift our attention away from Baja as that Treaty is about to expire. I thank the President of Mexico for working with us and my negotiations with him should result in a peace Treaty and a 3 month non-aggression pact that will secure that Border. Further, we will end up doing more real fighting as Romania and our other allies continue to whittle away at PEACE. We have some plans we've been working on with Romania and the others that will result in some real chances to engage in battles that matter. Look for those over the next month.

Lastly, welcome to all of the new and returning Congress. I remember what it was like running in those elections. I always stay up late and try to cast my vote some place where it will matter. Last night I tried to help my friend Harrison Richardson who was running a close race with another new person in Texas. I was so caught up watching the last minute races that I realized in the last 2-3 minutes that I hadn't moved yet. So I moved and then by the time that I voted I must have been a second too late because it didn't register my vote. Shucks! That's the first time that I haven't been able to vote in a Congressional election. The last two times I helped someone to win at the end and cast for One Eye back in March (who was winning yesterday with 0 votes for a while ... the joys of being unopposed ... I had that once).

Still, many people were upset by the last minute flurry of votes and "sniping" as it has come to be called. Many complain about it's fairness much the same way people complain about it on eBay where that practice started. That has drastically changed the way that these elections have gone and it has really only popped up in the last 3 election cycles and many of the major players do it. In fact Jewitt and I were talking about that last night when he lost his election at the end. It's one of the things that makes it hard to run for Congress because it often comes down to a few votes at the end of the long day. It's one of the things that was exciting about running when I did it but it's also something that makes me not really want to return to Congress ... at least not from my home state of West Virginia where there are so few active voters ... though I have to give WV credit for coming through for my friend Hokiehigh. I received messages from many of my old constituents saying they had voted for the guy who was really from WV and had moved back from where they had been staying for War Games (because nobody starts in WV unless they are from there).

I'm glad Hokie won ... but it still shows that if any Political Party was serious about vote moving could easily sweep several states by using this sniping. Any of the top 5 parties have enough voters that they could wrap up all of the little states with a concerted effort and then rely on two-clickers for the big states. The fact that this doesn't happen tells me that the parties aren't doing it for keeps and if they did I would think the Admins would close that loophole by taking away your vote if you move on election day. For all of the people who will point fingers to any party but their own (and all parties do this I'm certain) keep in mind that if any party was working hard on this the landscape would look a lot different than a half dozen or so last minute votes that people were talking about in #Congress last night and as the clock ticked down.

In any event. I'm looking forward to this next term of another politically diverse Congress and I'm looking forward to serving another term as President if you will have me. I'm not going to throw a lot of campaign articles up this time because I'm far too busy and I've said in my previous articles what my stances are and I've achieved many of the things that I set out to achieve in those articles. So I'll hopefully see you all on the other side.

VOTE SCRABMAN / MOISHE IN MAY
VOTE SCRABMAN / MOISHE IN MAY
VOTE SCRABMAN / MOISHE IN MAY


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