Join the new world

28 April 2010, Day 890 of the New World. Congressional elections are behind us, and I must say that this month was a month to remember. Not only did it have some interesting twists on the national stage (admins removing votes cast by banned accounts), but it was personally among my most memorable. Even though I am in Congress for the seventh time now, this was only the third time my entry into Congress was contested. For perspective, here is my complete Congressional election history in eRepublik:

Missouri, April 2010

Rheinlander von Phalz – APF –24
Cloyd Wallis – Fed (USCP) – 20
Marley Storm – UIP (Blocker) – 1
Bradley Reala – Lib (Blocker) – 0
Tristan Myza – SEES (Blocker) – 0


Michigan, February 2010

Rheinlander von Phalz – AAP – 13
Pilsbury Dohboi – Lib (Blocker) – 2
Emmanuel Cruise – Fed (Blocker) – 1
SkewQ – USWP (Blocker) – 0
Buckshot Dome – DemRep (Blocker) – 0


Michigan, January 2010

Rheinlander von Phalz – Fed (AAP) – 2


Michigan, December 2009

Rheinlander von Phalz – AAP – 4


Arizona, November 2009

Rheinlander von Phalz – Lib (AAP) – 8


Arizona, October 2009

Rheinlander von Phalz – AAP – 27
Emperor Rick – CvP – 17
mcgivey – USWP – 8
Zartemax – Lib (Blocker) – 0


Arizona, September 2009

Rheinlander von Phalz – AAP – 13
Emperor Rick – CvP – 9
12monkeys – UIP – 3
Franklin Delano Roosevelt – USWP – 1


Not only did I have an opponent this month, but as I mentioned in my last article, in which he and I ended the race early to direct remaining voters to North Carolina to stop a potential political takeover, he was one of the toughest opponents in any region. Had Cloyd Wallis run in any wasteland region other than Missouri, he almost certainly would have won. It would be like taking the NCAA championship bracket, but instead of having round one be the number one seed versus the number sixteen seed, having the number one seed face the number two seed.

I want to thank Cloyd for being a class act throughout the whole race, even when we settled its result. Astra Kat G also deserves some credit for getting us talking. To get an idea of how many voters came to Missouri, I took a snapshot of the election results at 1800 eRep time and mapped them for practice. North Carolina and Minnesota were being treated as PTO targets, but notice which other region stands out? Yeah, we needed to get that brawl under control.



Thank you to the 24 people who came out in support of me. None of these votes were APF mobile voters. Additional thanks go to Jaden Steeltoes, michaelmw, PrudeJ630, and Mono Future, who not only pledged their vote but were able to change the candidate they supported from me to Dennis McVicker after Missouri’s race was settled. It took a real competition to encourage me to do some serious campaigning and make new friends, and for that I am grateful. I hope those people who accepted my many friendship requests will see fit to subscribe to my newspaper as well!

So, the Congressional map. Will I do it again?

There were a few reasons I stopped making them. I was in Congress and knew a lot about the people elected at one point. I was present in most of the major political party IRC channels and read all the platforms. All of them, even the ones outside of AAP. Sifting through that many candidates and Congressmen month after month can cause burnout.

The articles tend to take a lot of time to make. If we’ve just elected a great Congress, I am motivated to commit that time. During my Congressional career, I saw the quality of Congress climb drastically. Unfortunately, it slipped again. On top of that, I was busy leading this Congress which wasn’t full of as many highly-motivated and well-informed representatives at prior ones as its Speaker of the House. Much of what a Speaker has to do happens shortly after Congressional election day, which is the same time I gather my data and make my maps. I also spent a lot of time teaching newbie Congressmen how to be in Congress – things a candidate from my party would have had to know before we agreed to run him – further sapping my time and motivation.

Making the Congressional maps, or at least some of them, conflicts with two of my views: Region doesn’t matter, and country before party (or quality Congressmen from your party before quantity). Although all the parties seem to want to get more Congressional seats for themselves and see this as a good thing, it rarely matters. I’ve never seen a party successfully use its Congressional representation as a recruiting tool. Although not depicted on my beginning-of-term maps, it is much more important that as many seats as possible are filled by competent leaders rather than party X controls this many seats and party Y controls this many. (After being elected to Congress, party “control” of a Congressman is miniscule anyway.) Although regions mostly don’t matter, I sometimes like to act like they do because I am a fan of irony. This is why, say, Herrn Sterling was an appropriate representative for Vermont, or that it was funny that a far-left party had firm control in the Deep South, or that an independent caucus could be formed from freshmen Congressmen representing the Southwest.

Parties are a bigger issue than regionalism. Every month since January, we have had to face the threat of political takeover. We no longer use blockers reactively to our own two-clickers but proactively against foreign elements. The first time we felt this threat, it did not take long for the country to come together. I think back to this article from the United Independents Party and remember that night. Now once again we had PTO threats (North Carolina and Minnesota being the major ones, it appears) and once again we were able to put aside party differences to meet the challenge.

Or were we? I know that APF and SEES quickly changed their must-win regions to North Carolina and Minnesota. Why, then, does our political sphere continue to fail so badly? Rather than congratulating each other on defending America, contributing votes to an anti-PTO effort has become another partisan play. These people are not interested in defending America, just advancing their own interests. It is like someone who drives a Hybrid but not because he cares about emissions – he just wants to feel superior to everyone else. I understood that AAP, USWP, and the political sphere I left for a month had baggage attached to it going back before I was e-born. Now, though, we have two new parties leading the way. Can we please get it right this time? I don’t want this country to continue to fail.

So now I’m here with most of the data I need compiled. Is the slight cultural benefit to the eUS worth encouraging politicos, though? Are we at all interested that we defeated the PTO this month, or do we just care about our fights with ourselves? Leave a comment and let me know what you think, because it will likely influence whether or not I do this again.