2000 New England General Election
To say things were going badly for Howard Dean and the Veteran Conservatives would be an understatement. The economic crash of 1999 and the embargo on fishing, logging and mining passed by several radical environmental members of the Federal Republican party forced the economy into a recession. Many people looked to the apparent inaction that Prime Minister Dean had been blamed for and pushed eagerly for either a new prime minister with a victory by the Vermont Republicans in the form of Charles W. Mulaney Jr or a slap on the wrist in the form of a less ruling party members taking their seats in Boston next parliamentarian year. While Dean promised to keep the sinking ship on a steady course, there were challenges by former veteran conservative and celebrated Cuban War hero Wesley Clark, who vowed to alter course heavily in a right leaning position.
Meanwhile, populist democratic candidate and billionaire Lincoln Chaffee enthused the needed boost of cash in his political base and declared to run 30 candidates in the general election as an alternative to the special interest groups and corruption that plagued Boston at the time. He founded the Yankee Democrats party and promised to bring an end to deadlock in the halls of the electoral chamber.
The issues were mostly centered around each party's apparent operations and plans to stop the economic "bleeding" of the country's economy, which was still suffering from the '99 crash. The Federal Republicans The Vermont Republicans pushed for Vermonter Economic policies to be implemented on a nationwide scale. These would involve slashing import tariffs, lowering taxes, increasing military spending and declare a vanquishing of the welfare state, which they argued was sucking up large portions of the nation's economic prosperity. The Federal Republicans wanted to lower taxes to a bare minimum to keep the government from going bankrupt or from having to borrow from international banks or the
Minutemen Financial, the largest state owned bank in the nation. The Vermont Republicans even went so far as to advocate the immediate dissolution of the bank in favor of smaller local chapters of the bank, transferring all their gold reserves into less valuable New English Dollars to promote inflation and cheaper goods over the country. This plan brought criticism from the second largest party in parliament, the Union Democrats, who wanted to maintain the state owned bank to prevent "financial chaos" within the nation and the globe. Liberal Freedom suggested to maintain the status quo within the banks while focusing heavily on the social issues, promising to work with other parties to pass legislation that would improve worker's working conditions, increase welfare, abolish the poverty lottery assistance program, which was a large raffle held yearly to assist 23,000 new englanders out of poverty with high interest government loans. This last point was hated because of the relatively small quantity of the population it was assisting and because of the limited impact the lottery had on the nation.
The Yankee Democrats promised the more radical of solutions. Their policy planks rallied against Minutemen Financial, offering to eliminate the pervasive threat of piracy around the waters of New England and to open up diplomatic talks with the Midwestern People's Republic and the Empire of New York and Pennsylvania, both ruled by longstanding dictators Mary A. Herbert and Carl A. Spaatz Jr respectively. They wanted to slowly take economic stations that were originally imposed during the government of Prescott Bush (1940-1944). However, all political parties agreed to stick by tough sanctions that were imposed due to human rights abuses taking place in the Federal Democratic Republic of Maryland, ruled by the
"Smiling Strongman" Uncle Sam's Servant and Presidential Dictator Joe Biden, in power since 1976.
Memorable Lines throughout the Campaign
"Now, Prime Minister, Are you suggesting that your approval of a bill for a new vet hospital was in any way influenced by the large monetary donation of 340,000 given by Cynthia Nixon in California toward the coffers of the Veteran Conservative Party?"
"No. That was not my intention. I was merely going to thank Nixon for her never ending support for the nation's veterans of many wars. However, I do intend to bring up the donation and question her about why New England wine is better than those Californian grapes."
*laughter*
~ Member of Parliament Bernie Sanders (Liberal-Freedom) and Prime Minister Howard Dean during Parliamentarian Question Time on August 4th, 2000.
"Prime Minister, did you take bribes during your time as MP for Hampden?"
"I did not take a single New English Dollar, the only money I took as my time was the fifteen cents they agreed to pay me after I was on strike."
"So you were part of the 81 protests during your time as MP? and you were using taxpayer dollars and your own time to protest an unfair law passed by your predecessor?"
"That is correct in a way. I was part of the protests, but I was in no way utilizing the taxpayer and voter's monetary resources during my activities outside of office. That's not a crime."
~ Member of Parliament Chris Shays and Prime Minister Howard Dean during the first debate on September 4th,2000.
"My opponent's crimes and felonies are outrageous! He reportedly paid off several journalists with hush payments to prevent stories of him badmouthing military officials, picking his nose during 4th grade and reportedly burning government documents during his time as MP!"
"I would like to make notice that those documents weren't burnt, they were thrown away by mistake."
"Do you remember what was on those documents?"
"No I would not remember off the top of my he-"
"Do you remember? Prime Minister?"
"No, I've already told you no. End of discussion, let's move onto tax reform, now your plan..."
~ Member of Parliament Chip Mulaney and Prime Minister Howard Dean during the second debate on September 11th,2000.
The results of the voting allowed the people's voices and votes to be both heard and counted, as Veteran Conservative lost 293 seats, losing their majority and forcing them to coalition with a hodgepodge of political parties that also had seats in Parliament. Vermont Republican leadership offered a coalition in opposition to the Federal Republicans. After a quick phone call and the meeting of top party leadership, both parties agreed to form a coalition government. However, there were still not enough seats for them to officially take control of Parliament. After bitter words were exchanged by Clark and Dean on the phone, a sweeter contact came from Chris Shays and Dean, officially forming a ruling coalition between Veteran Conservative-Vermont Republican and Unionist-Democrat. Clark thought it would've been his year for the Prime Minister position and the sweet, sweet government control. While Federal Republican had indeed been the largest party to gain seats that night, with 318 more than when they had started, they still fell short of the 647 seats needed to take back Parliament. Despite hopes of a coalition with Vermont Republicans, those plans fell through when the ruling coalition was announced on television.
Needless to say, Howard Dean kept his job, albeit by a hair's margin, and now enraged his opposition, opposition that would do everything in their power to ensure this would be his last term as prime minister.
2000 North Dakotan Imperial Election
Prime Minister John Hoeven had led the Frontier Party to a bare bones majority government with the assistance of the Rancher Party and Conrad Burns. However, there had been tensions that were begining to simmer between John Thurne and Hoeven, who sacked the Ministers of Education and Deputy Minister of Agricultural Integrity, who had previously been held by Westward Expansion to gift wrap both positions to the Frontier Party. Thurne vowed revenge for Fitzpatrick and O.J Simpson's firings in putting pressure on several Frontier party and Rancher MP's by running better candidates to turn those districts competitive in the election.
Upon the approval of King Barrasso I (1972-present) Parliament was dissolved and the election season commenced. The Frontier Party decided to go with a strategy of promising to keep the ruling coalition together, and so actively held many rallies and events jointly with the Rancher party. The Moderate conservative Frontier and the slightly more right leaning Ranchers seemed to have a winning strategy, with many liking their message of responsible firearm ownership, increased tariffs on manufacturing good and a strengthened armed forces. They promised to lower taxes, and keep the nation on a course of prosperity. However, this all changed when the first waves of the economic crash of 1998 crept into the nation's boarders. This pushed James E. Geringer, who had previously served as an MP and was indecisive about entering politics, to throw his hat into the ring with the Guns and God party, promoting far right solutions to the problems of the nation. His strategy was to gain a small amount of seats and grow his party's influence throughout the country, starting with his native state and then stretching outwards.
His planks were bluntly simple:
1. Promote a religious symbolism within the boarders of the country and push for a desecuralism of the nation's schools, wanting to have priests begin the pledge, hire only Protestant believing teachers and to ban the teaching of evolution within the classrooms of the nation.
2. Ensure that the right of firearms is not tampered with and promote a fear within other parties that the Frontier party would acquiesce to the removal of firearms from people's homes to promote government tyranny over the country.
Memorable Lines from the debate
"Do firearms and religious extremism not make for a wonderful combination, I'm sure Geringer would back my ass up on this. You're wanting to fund a Dakotan version of the Army of God! What's next, you want us to go on crusades marching through Chicago against those godless communists to our east while converting the populace?"
"I most certainly see my great and noble mission to be nothing less than to preserve the rights of our grandfathers in the operation of firearms and to push for a religious hegemony throughout the state. for too darn long the Government has lost the god in it's name."
"I hate to break it to you, but there was never any god in government, it doesn't work because there is no d in government."
~ John Hoeven, James E. Geringer and John Thune during an informal radio debate.
The Results of the election caused panic within the ranks of the Frontier Party, as twenty of their seats and six of the Frontier party's seats were eaten up by the three old guard parties and the one baby faced political movement of Gods and Guns, who gained 2 representatives and nearly 600,000 votes. Despite the advice of his own party leadership, Hoeven went against their wishes to simply reform the coalition with Rancher, reportedly opening fire on several rancher politicians that approached his ranch in Bismark, though no-one was injured in the incident. The Rancher party then broke off all ties with the Frontier party, leaving Hoeven to scramble for allies in Manifest Destiny and the radical Guns and God party to form a working coalition government. On October 27th, eight minutes before the King's deadline to form a government,
His Majesty's most blessed,exploitative and sacredly armed coalition was hobbled out with Frontier-Manifest Destiny- Guns and God, leaving Rancher, Westward Expansion and the tiny Native Rights to form
His Majesty's most cattle driven, expansive and indigenous opposition in Parliament.
Politics makes strange beds, and politicians make even stranger bedfellows.
2000 Confederate States of America Election
The Last House of Counties election saw a slim majority for the Whig Party over the Democratic party, yet the Whigs decided to go together with their more in common cousins of the Confederate party, which came in third regarding seat count. While the Democratic party felt maddened by this switch in supposed party loyalty, the Whigs felt uneasy in this result. They were worried that county house members would jump ship and defect at the prospect of government changes, so they proposed a government shutdown right before the election, though this was rejected by party leadership as a bad move before a legislative election.
The Head of the Democratic Party pushed hard for a referendum on the abolition of slavery. As did the heads and central party leadership of the Whigs, backing the Confederates into a corner of the looming threat of a shutdown unless the chains were released on the 9 million African american prisoners enslaved. The 1998 economic crisis soon yanked the slavery issue to the back burner, forcing many voters to not worry about how they would get someone to fix their oven, but rather get by on their inflating monetary notes of Dixe Dollars, which were becoming worse and worse thanks to the ill thought out monetary policies by the Minister of the Economy Sonny Perdue (D-GA), who had been sacked but not officially fired until the day before the election. City-Senator of Richmond Douglas Wilder (C-VA), one of the loudest voices for his removal, got the job thanks to investment in Martin's local oil company near the gulf of mexico. During this election, there were large protests against Martin's supposed corrupt influences, which brought on even larger counter-protests all in Richmond on the eve of the election, resulting the Richmond Riots of 2000, which saw 480.5 million Dixie Dollars worth of damage, 9,205 arrests, 75 deaths, 504 injuries and a total of 54,967 homes & 6,338 businesses vandalized out of the 60,000 homes and 7,000 business that were in the downtown area of Richmond during the riot.
2001 CSA constitutional referendum
Despite the distraction provided by the Economic crisis on the slavery issue, several thousand petitions to local governors and the Prime Minister forced him to call for a referendum to get approval for a recently passed but blocked by the Senate bill that would outlaw slavery. If a majority of the state governments (6/10) and at least a 10% plurality over the opposition's vote was reached, then the referendum would be signed as a legally binding mandate of the people and bypass the senate to grant the Prime Minister the right to bring it into law.
Proponents of the bill wished for the government to be brought into the 21st century gracefully, if not kicking and screaming all the way to the emancipated workforce. There were several reasonable issues that were brought up by the No" campaign, such as what to do with the largely freed workforce. The "Yes" campaign brought up the added tax revenue that millions of freed colors would do for the nation, and proposed a method of segregation that was equal to the conditions that the white population had in the south.
The day of the referendum arrived, and early results looked promising, as several areas that had already polled Yes coming in huge numbers out to the polls, with the first state called for the Yes campaign being Tennessee. However, a No state was called soon after, with Alabama landing in that column. One by One the states were called. However, results for Mississippi were found to be on a hair's thread, with the ballots narrow getting closer. At one point, the Yes campaign was leading by just 405 votes, only to go back to the No campaign by 139, and then it went back to the Yes campaign by 27, then swung back for the final time in the No campaign by just 6 votes.
On January 10th, 2001, Prime Minister Steve Martin, who only haphazardly backed a Yes campaign because of the political pressure on his party, brought out the concession speech on behalf of the Yes campaign addressed at the 'No' one. Despite rumors and calls for Martin to resign from his office which he had held as Prime Minister since 1990, Martin neglected to leave the part in in the meat of his speech, merely putting a passing defiance murmur that
"The incumbent leadership finds that a new head of state would be unwise at this time, as such the incumbent prime minister shall maintain his role with the support of his governing coalition of parties in the House of Counties."
NASH-03
Held from June 1st, 2003 to June 8th, 2003, the annual meeting of North American State Heads (NASH) was the last one to take place in California until the Sacramento meeting in 2013. The 2002 meeting took place in Herbert's Revolutionary People's Vacation Home near the Ohio SR and Kentucky SR boarder. This meeting was notable for being the first one that newly sworn in president Billy Mays, the victor of the 2002 Californian snap election, attended. It was also notable for being the last one that Prime Minister John Hoeven would attend. Other attendees were longstanding members Barry M. Goldwater, who had attended every NASH since 1990, and Mary Alice Herbert, who had attended every NASH since 1980. The Meeting place was decided by the Committee of NASH Localisation Diplomacy and International Outreach, or LDIO.
Emphasis was placed upon a plan for lower tariffs and the begining of an economic union between all separate nations, the idea coming from Prime Minister Dean, who wanted to eventually tie the culturally different countries together with a shared currency. He proposed the Deanller, though this was rejected for being a stupid name for a shared currency. After several ideas floated around in their heads, such as the Mayes Money, the Goldwater goldcoin, the Bush buck, the Herbert Hotpocket, and the Continental SpaatzMark,nothing came from this idea and the issue was dropped, much to Dean's humiliation.
During the meeting, Uncle Sam's Servant and Presidential Dictator Joe Biden was pressured to institute democratic reforms within his nation's totalitarian boarders, to which he refused, but acquiesced to a proposed tourist board to visit some of the historic capital buildings and the many statues dedicated to Americana Worship and to explore the cult of personality developed over the years around Biden. Progress was also made against Mary Herbert, who revealed a simmering power struggle within her nation over who would succeed her as Chairwoman of the Revolutionary Politburo Standing Committee, the highest organ of party power and the
de facto head of state. It was revealed that several members on the Politburo, of which there were 9 ( 1 from each S.R) were wanting to push a young member of the party from Illinois S.R named Barrack Obama to the position, though he was backed by a multitude of political factions within the Great Lakes Communist Party (GLCU). During this, several state visits between the continental leaders were brought up and approved, with the most notable being Joe Biden's first visit to California since 1977.
Other notable achievements of this meeting between heads of state was the agreement of a renegotiated trade deal with California, Arizona and New Mexico, with all three signatures of Billy Mays, Barry Goldwater and Gary Johnson being finalized on the document after two days of negotiation and the sending of the proposed renegotiated treaty to their respective legislative assemblies,where approval would be needed before it would take effect.