Mahmoud's Loser Newspaper

Hi everyone, I'm Mahmoud Ibn Abdullah, and I'm running for Spectrum Party President! This is my manifesto, and I kindly ask that you read or skim through it before going to the polls!

Introduction:

My candidature will be based around a rejection of the notion that we have to be a "left- or right-wing" party, or that we need to make a choice that will alienate most of the party in order to survive. The Party survived for many months as the centrist RFA, and I want to go a step further and completely de-partisanize the party, at least with regards to Real-Life left-right politics.

The fact of the matter is that most elements of real life politics don't work here, so we shouldn't be basing our policies around them. I want this party to be open to anyone with good ideas, and open to any policies that might work in-game, regardless of whether they appear to be "left-wing" or "right-wing" ideas. We need to get our party active and I think that actually having party members help decide our policies through debate will help out with that a lot.

That being said, I'm not suggesting turning the party into a hippie lovefest or anything. Obviously party discipline must be maintained, and occasionally the Party President will have to dictate some decisions from the top down; after all, that's why you elect a president in the first place. Once a consensus agreement has been reached, the rest of the party MUST abide by it or else we'll never live up to our potential. Also, if anyone out there is sympathetic to The Unity Party, let me state that I will not seek any alliances with them unless it clearly benefits our party. They (and PCP) are the worst offenders when it comes to creating red tape laws that can't be enforced in-game, and as the near-hegemons of the eUK political system, they are our top target for capturing seats in Congress.

Now for the shocker, which I've been keeping under my hat until now- If elected, I intend to bring back the Radical Freethinkers Alliance! The name, the logo, everything. Our branding as Spectrum has failed, with most people having no idea what we're all about, or thinking we're some kind of Lady Gaga fan-club.



The RFA is an established, respectable name in eUK politics and I intend to return us to its glory days.


Is this what you want to be the face of your party?

Party Cabinet:

I'll be flexible with this, but I want to have a team of people to coordinate different aspects of the party. That being said, I'm doing away with teams in favor of a collaborative approach to policy, advertisement, and recruitment that allows any member to work on any project at any time. The coordinator's jobs will be to keep things organized so that's its not total anarchy, and to pick the best ideas out. I've only got a few positions assigned so far, provided that they accept the job of course.

Vice Party President: GGRyan
Whichever job he wants: RRS
Party Whip: One of our Congressmen. They'll make sure our MPs are voting as a bloc in Commons.
Tech Coordinator:
Media/Art Coordinator: Andy Millward
Newspaper Editor:
Recruitment Coordinator:
Fun Coordinator: possibly Tomaz; his job would be to come up with fun things that might increase activity on the forums

I can add more if someone has a good idea for a position.

Offsite Forums:

I've got to say that right now the Party is incredibly inactive, especially for election time. Even the FDP had more going on during the last Party President election, which is very sad. While adding more moderators will get more people into the usergroup (I'm stealing that from you, Andy ) we need something going on to keep them active once they get here. That's the main goal for my "Open Party" policy detailed below. We need to get people participating in every aspect of the party if we expect to be active.

Party Policy:

1) Rule of Fun- While we obviously can't be running joke campaigns like Digby, we need to do everything we can to make this game fun, because it is a game, even if some people seem to forget that.

2) Open Party Policy- instead of having a closed Media and Comms Room, I have an open forum for people to submit and modify content, though there will be a Media Director to keep things organized and sort out the quality submissions. I might even talk to the forum admins and make a publicly-viewable section for our party so that people can see what we're all about.

3) Coalitions- I want to attempt to reach out to the Social Democrat Party and pull them away from the TUP-PCP coalition so we don't have to fight against the entire eUK "Left" all the time. I don't know how that shall be accomplished, but I will certainly make the effort.

4) Elections- For the next Congress elections, I will seek a vote-sharing coalition with other "opposition" parties similar to the TUP-PCP coalition.

5) Recruitment- I'd like to ask a few people to volunteer to watch Congress and Public discussion and identify members of other parties who might be possibly Spectrum/RFA recruits.

6) Party Programs- I want to create Party companies to employ our members, and I'll devote my resources invested in the Vanguard Corporations to this end. Hopefully, these companies will make some money for us on the side as well.

7) National Policy- Finally, I want us as a Party to be willing to compromise on national issues such as the House of Lords, and to pursue the possibility of setting up state-run export companies to attempt to bring more capital into the eUK. Heck, if someone can convince me that they're economically viable, I'd even support Government Communes.

In addition, I'd like to see the military set up a wing for Congressmen and Party President who can't leave the eUK to fight, so that we can make our own guns and fight from home when we can. I know a number of Congressmen are already supplied, but this would be organizing the process and making it an official part of the Military.

Recruitment:

Recruitment will work largely as it does now, with a few changes. I will only run someone as an official candidate if they've been recruiting, and I myself promise to recruit much more than I currently am. I also want to strengthen the volunteer mentorship program we apparently have to help bring ingame party members onto the forums.

Goals:

By the end of my term I want us to be the 3rd largest Party, and to have at least 5 Congressmen, hopefully more. I want to see weekly articles, and I want us to be proactive and to go on the offensive against the stupidity the other parties have a habit of propagating.

To sum up, I want to turn us into a Party of debate, of creativity, and most importantly, of activity, and I intend to accomplish this in part through once again becoming the Radical Freethinkers Alliance. I will consider any and all ideas and I encourage everyone to think of ways to make our party better! Together we can move forward and transcend traditional politics!

Mr. Wonderful,
Mahmoud Ibn Abdullah