Tales of Congress, Part I: Elections for Congress - the aftermath
pure_evil
Short version: They're back in power. But not with ease.
First of all, I'd like to say kudos to Stanley Ibcus for developing - and Gnilraps, for publishing the Election tracker (sadly defunct, and, asking for a username and password now). Thanks to that, it was possible to monitor the elections in real time. Thanks to my laziness, though, I now can't access the data to give you the precise details. I could've at least screenshotted the darned thing.
It was very interesting to see the candidates on the list always lagging behind their opponents, only for them to snatch a last-minute re-election.
Yeah, yeah, vote buying, mobile voting groups, party members voting by order, voting buffers, you know the drill.
Now, whether or not those actions are questionable is quite another story. It's nice to see RL Americans selling and buying votes, and voting on orders from the party like the proud people of [TODO: Insert current or past communist state name here].
I sincerely hope that Joe Voteseller got enough money out of it to cover his daily losses due to taxes for a sufficiently long time, and, well, the people that followed the party orders are poorer, but proud enough that they put their man in Congress to consider it the right action on their behalf.
I, for one, am a Fed, but voted with my gut, rather than my party line. I hope I don't get expelled from the party, publicly executed and/or stoned* for that, but, that's life for ya.
Anyway, even if one can rig a horse race seeing his horse somewhat lagging doesn't necessarily mean that he'll be happy to put a slow horse in the race - and get out there on the track and push. Let's see if PP's will still support some unpopular candidates next month?
I'm going to do a somewhat longer series of articles showing the Congressmen that all overturned their loss (with one exception). What, Christmas miracles might happen - but a long time before Christmas?
Also, I'm going to go Mythbusters on your collective, albeit virtual (and slightly communist. Or is it communal?) asses.
(wait, why are you running behind that blast screen there? I still haven't gotten to changing the light bulb with TNT part.)
I'll bust the myth of the "reserve", for one, and a few more that might actually make you believe that the poor souls on the list aren't destroying the USA from within, but building a stronger military force with the taxation without representation stunt of theirs.
So, first, the right stuff:
It's good to see that Colin Lantrip and Heero Blaze are in this Congress.
Steven s unfortunately didn't make it.
So, two out of three Congressmen that cared enough to think before voting are in Congress. Let's see how much of those that "Ja Ja Ja Ja"'d their way through the proposal made it. And number one on the list is... (drum roll)
Eli Crownover**. Now, he's a really swell and cool guy***. Read his comments full of vigor and wisdom and enjoy giving him another term - and, another next month, perhaps? Eli's state of mind is all over the comments as wisdom flows unrestricted.
If con is the opposite of pro ... what is the opposite of progress?
-- Eli Crownover, Day 1,437, 05:35
Ah hah ha. That joke never ceases to crack me up, coming from a Congressman. Oh wait, is he being serious? In his case, I can't tell...
Anyway, we'll be back with more Tales of Congress next time. Which has to be before the POTUS race as the wrong stuff**** might go for POTUS as well.
* Have stones thrown at. What did you think I meant?!
** Hey, he asked for more "name recognition". 100 bucks, Eli, cough up! You've got 5 Gold there, bro. Times are hard, and, taxes are... just fine and reserve-building.
*** He's a guy, and likes to make sure people know it. I like to have 100 bucks, so it's fair to emphasize it, maybe he'll like me enough to cough up!
**** Leroy Combs not withstanding. He's the (only?) one to claim that overtaxation was a bad (though necessary) move in his congress candidacy article, the others ignored the issue altogether.
Comments
First bought by vote buyers.
Parties don't force their members to vote. It's the players' choice to vote with the party, so it is still a democratic process. Just because it's not to your liking doesn't make it wrong.
Seriously? You are complaining about people voting along party lines in AMERICA?!!?
If you want to do a bit of myth-busting I'd start at the myth of the "elite". In RL it may be bad to be on this game all day long but bitching about others for being online longer and getting more done is lamesauce.
Who says it's not to my liking, I'm loving seeing it with my own eyes (vote buying included).
(no sarcasm there, true story. I LOVE it.)
Well, the lack of a threat in regards to voting true to the party line... wait. Why are we going there? I deliberately left the whole "ZOMG they lost all day just to win in the end" as-is, without going through lengths explaining how immoral it is. I don't care for the "Everybody's doing it" argument.
I genuinely hope that the party line voters believe in doing the right thing.
No, there isn't anything 'immoral' about paying for moving costs for people and trying to persuade them to vote for you. This game isn't RL. There is no 'corruption' when trying to get votes. You either have to spend resources to try to get into congress or work with a party to get into congress, maybe even both. You play to win the game, the only 'immoral' action would be to break this game's rule, and that is by using multi's.
Again, why are we on "How the Grinch got his votes"? The best I can expect would be a grudging "Well it sucked, but if we didn't do it, party X surely would".
Case in point - they were loosing, then - mobilization - and victory. Make the mobilization harder, and hopefully the mobilizer will put a different horse in the race, one that folk stand behind like Leroy Combs. He got ahead from 0:00 and stayed there.
But what is the point of making mobilizing harder? If it's harder, you'll only make it harder on troop mobilization when we need to move to help an ally or RW a region ourselves. There isn't anything wrong with the voting practice right now, and also, Leroy's state is different. It's one of the old fortress states and has a much higher active population than another state.
So in the end, there is nothing wrong with the process and mobilization of voting. There were plenty of people who were winning a close race - mobilization - continued to win by a slim margin.
Slow much?
Let me put it simply:
I don't care about the PROCESS itself, only that next time RESULTS be different.
Different, as in, not Kemal "this is gonna hurt the work-fight-train people (emphasis on fight by me)" taxation plan supporters, but other people in Congress.
I'm sorry, the proper nickname would be Kemal "The only players that are affected are the inactive “work-train-fight” people, and the people who are too lazy to enter into salary donation contracts" Ergenekon
Mobile voters and blockers are the way the elite stays in power. What you think you are seeing is what you are, in fact, seeing.
"Mobile voters and blockers are the way the elite stays in power. What you think you are seeing is what you are, in fact, seeing." +1
i don't know how it works in other e-countries, but i know how it works here. if you want to think for yourself, running for office is just a waste of gold.