Join the new world



Before I begin:

I want to thank everyone from both inside and outside We The People who voted, commented and endorsed our announcement article (including current President Orca, past President Azazel, SFP PP hopeful J.A Lake, BSP PP Arrden and incoming Federalist PP Melissa Rose). The goal of what we’re trying to do here is use our Party to better the entire eAmerican community. While we may disagree with our colleagues from time to time, the fight against complacency is a common struggle that I believe every player in this game has. If I’m given the opportunity come the 15th, I look forward to working with everyone, no matter their Party or MU, in the fight for our community.





During a campaign we talk of our ideals. Yes, winning an election is a great accomplishment and relief. But the election is not the real challenge. The real challenge is what we do when our ideals hit governance, if we are given a mandate by you, the voters. That is the founding focus of WTP’s populist, ingame primary system - strong campaigns don’t only weed out less involved candidates : they also mean more voters are aware of what is promised to them.



Insurgency outlined the guiding principle of the mandate I am seeking - If elected, I want this party to be an agent of change in our country. It will embrace our values of inclusion and fairness, using them to fight against the complacency that plagues our community. Battle Plans (Part 1), outlines what concrete actions and goals the Cabinet and I will be taking.



I must warn you: This article is long and largely details oriented. This is a full-on platform, not an ordinary campaign article.




The Cabinet Pledge:

Getting results starts with how the team is structured. 

Every member of the Cabinet has agreed to spend, on average, 30 minutes a day on their goals. I’m a big believer in “playing properly”. We all have real lives to attend to, all of which are vastly more important than a game. This often causes players to work in spurts - instead of getting a little bit done everyday, they get a lot done one day, nothing the next…etc. Spurts don’t work in a game where a mandate is 30 days long, and an election (Congress, PP, PoTUS) every 10. They’re also the main reason for burnout - in many cases it’s not that they work too hard, it’s that they don’t work smart. The game should aid your life as a whole - if it ceases to do that, you need to step back. I’m happy everyone can make this commitment. 



However, if any of us can no longer make that 30 minute commitment we will step back from our position. It is impossible to raise talent if people are in their positions because of familiarity, rather than skill. An Insurgency against Complacency is impossible if we ourselves embrace Complacency.

Finally, there will be a PPDB everyday without fail. We will be using the Vice Party President role to Chief of Staff the Cabinet, rather than the largely ceremonial role it has held in the past. Currently we’re looking at ways to provide short, brief updates on PPDB content/usage to the Party ingame through specific media updates or shouts. More on this to come.



The Communications Pledge:

There will be a PM notice for every signup, primary and nomination. If anyone doesn’t want to receive these notices anymore, they will be allowed to opt out of the messaging list.
Comms is best kept straight forward - nothing too flashy is planned for this Department.



The Retention Pledge:

Retention is to make people feel welcome in our community. The first step to that is to welcome newfriends on the shoutfeed, offering them advice, friend-requests and a way to become involved. We’ll also be maintaining the forum. Possibly, we’ll be setting up a game there similar to the old “The Hill” game, but only if maintenance is straight forward - I do not intend to work any Director more than the 30 minutes daily that they have committeed. Further, Retention will be helping Oblige with the whalefare program in any way shape or form.



Retention will also be keeping track of how our media performs relative to the national media. We don’t have a “Media Director” for our team because we believe all Directors should be writing - writing with purpose rather than writing for the sake of writing. Media is seen to us as one of the 4 weakpoints of our game - the others being parties, congress, and division.



So while we will be keeping track of our own media performance, we are going to be looking at ways to encourage media for non-partisan purposes as well. Think national dailies.



The Recruitment Pledge:

We’re in a bit of a weird position right now. As in, we’re the 2nd largest party in the nation. We can lay much of this at the feet of Whalefare for attracting so many people to the party, in addition to the other mass recruitment techniques that go on.



While Retention will be expected to keep track of our overall media performance and all Departments will be responsible for producing media, Recruitment will be in the business of putting out pre-written stump pieces to attract people to the party. Constant Content.



Further, as the game is much smaller than it once was an added focus will be put onto targetted, “high-value” recruitment. That is, the Recruitment Director will be expected to reach out to people who are up and coming in eRep (Usually in media or government) and show them what we’re trying to do here in WTP and how they could get involved.

The 
Political Pledge:

As of late we’ve had three symptoms of a larger problem (unengagement) coming up in WTP.

#1- Low Congress turnout

#2- Low Primary participation

#3- Record low signups for Congress.



Our solution to these things: pushing. The way to solve unengagement is to push out your message and be receptive to what people say about it. We have a damn good message - We want to fight complacency and go back to our roots of fairness and inclusion. We need to push that in a way that people feel they need to be involved, or better the message.




I will single out low Congress turnout, though. For much of our party’s history we have secured either 4th of 5th place finishes in the Congress elections. Rarely ever 3rd, and 2nd only once. Our commitment for this Congress: 100 votes, an increase of 25. That should be just enough for us to secure a 3rd place finish, the first for our party in over a year.



To do this we will be bringing back Tanks4Voting, running a more public Congress campaign promoting our values of fairness and inclusion and new methods to have people commit to show up on the 25th. Then, using the momentum from the 25th, we go forward to…



Congress Pledge:

As I was saying at the start of this ridiculously long article, campaigning is important: However, a good campaign doesn’t equal good governance. A problem we have seen in Congress is that it is holed up on the Forums. Our goal will be to highlight what our delegation does, here ingame where it matters. We’re setting the bar for at least two Congress updates during our term.



Further, Congress is divisive. While our delegation does operate on free votes, we have always set the standard that our Congressmen make their point free of ad hom and divisiveness - that will remain in place for the next Congress, as it has for the current one.



Finally, our delegation will work with Political to create a platform of sorts our Congress peoples can agree to.



The question for our community is: How do we make Congress relevant ingame again? I guarantee you that we will present a WTP answer to this in time for elections, while maintaining the principle of free votes for our Congress representatives.



We have our principles, platform, and team - what we now need is a mandate. For that, we’re going to need every single vote, comment and shout we can get tomorrow. Really - the vote is being held ingame and there are 12 candidates. I’ll be posting in-party feed tomorrow to get us started but from there, it’s in the hands of our WTP community. If there’s any questions you may have, feel free to send me a PM and I’ll gladly answer anything in the the platform or otherwise.



Happy Valentines Day everyone,



Hale