WEEK IN REVIEW IV (Aug. 26 - Sept. 1, 2007)

I've heard rumblings about Demopublic stepping down as Independent Leader, which is a shame. The Independents still can't catch a break. I think it was RSobien who said the Independents don't need a leader, they need someone who gives them the best chance of winning, who makes sure their interests are protected, and who will fight rigorously to gain them exposure and their rightful place alongside the Republicans and Democrats. Demopublic certainly was someone I deemed able to do exactly this. This isn't gladhanding, this comes from working with her, knowing of her abilites.

BigDaddy has apparently declared himself Independent and is seeking the Indyleader position. I know the Independents aren't nearly as stupid as the Hard Right, especially BigDaddy, makes them out to be. To have a candidate change parties two days before party leadership elections occur so he can run is certainly his entitlement, just as it's his entitlement to lose horribly.

My biggest complaint about Hillary Clinton is that she's a carpetbagger. She saw Patrick Moynihan seeking to retire from his Senate seat in New York, so she jumped to establish residency there, accept Moynihan's endorsement, and sail to a victory. I would have a very tough time ever voting for her because of this. She is an opportunist.

I wasn't a big Barack Obama supporter in 2004, but I was very opinionated when it came to the Republicans putting up Alan Keyes, from Maryland, to run for the US Senate seat in Illinois. Where these candidates stood, at that time, I really didn't care. The fact that the NRC thought so little of Illinois Republicans that they needed to go outside the state to find a Republican--a BLACK Republican at that, wanting to balance out Obama's skin color--was gross enough. But the audacity that they would think the voters of Illinois would vote against their local interests for the sake of party victory was basically calling them stupid. Keyes was trounced, and I was happy that Illinois said NO to carpetbagging.

The Independents will do the same, because they're not nearly as stupid as BigDaddy and the Hard Right think they are.

I don't think Independents should vote for just anyone to keep BigDaddy out. They should talk amongst themselves and come up with a degree of solidarity on this one, before the election happens. They should pick someone who has been with the "party" (it's still frustrating calling Independents a party, but that's U4Prez, what can you do?) for a good long while. I don't think anyone had a real problem with TheWiz being the interim party leader or Demopublic winning the election, they'd both come from different parties months before taking the helm. They worked with Independents. They rose through the ranks. They defined for themselves what it was to be an Independent, and they could do so because they had the experience of being so.

BigDaddy is an opportunist who hopes the loudest and most obnoxious voice will win. Never mind that he believes Independents like CoryF and Icababe and RSobien are too stupid to run a party they've been a party of since last spring. Never mind his lone reputation is to be the rabid bloodhound the Hard Right loves to unleash and tear into their opponents. Never mind that he champions the two-party system and will do so with his very last breath. Let's forget for a moment that he has no experience as an Independent in the first place, yet has the gall to think he can tell other Independents what to think and campaign on.

The real problem with BigDaddy is that he deeply trusts in the stupidity of the Independents, that he will be voted in, even though he is against everything Independents stand for.

Prove him wrong!

I get notes once in a while from candidates who want me to return to U4Prez as a candidate. They see the grayness that clouds the sky therein, they remember better days, they know there are problems at U4Prez, and they ask me if this is just a game I'm playing. Even Kempite and Mduminiak, that Gruesome Twosome, even the Hard Right and all their satellite candidates, they want me back so they can come after me with renewed zeal, to prove I was a fraud, a loser, a weakling who could talk tough but could not take the heat when it really came to it.

There is currently a petition, started by Maditude, to get me to come back to U4Prez. You can find it at http://www.petitiononline.com/mad90107/petition.html.

Let me speak on this before I answer about me coming back. I underestimated my influence on U4Prez. As I left in early August, I knew I was a contender, or at least as much of a contender that the fix would allow for. My physical pull on U4Prez was felt when I write my first two articles on this blog, leading to the demotion of Eric Gurr to moderator, lending instant credibility to the accusations of favoritism that many have thought of and confided in me, but would never say out loud. I honestly thought the blog would burn itself out, but there were more readers this week than ever. I was even counting on the Hard Right ignoring this blog altogether, believing what I was telling was just a bunch of mean-spirited lies. Quite the contrary, they still can't keep my name out of their mouths, whether it's in their talk shows, in their browbeatings they consider debate on U4Prez itself, in comments on this blog, in a growing amount of videos, or in recorded pillow talk on a couch in some hotel in Western Pennsylvania. Some like me, others dislike me, but one thing is for sure, no one can shut up about me.

This petition breaks my heart, because I don't deserve this level of respect and even love. I am a disgruntled former candidate who doesn't know enough to leave. I have waged a war with elements of what I refer to as the Hard Right since the day I came here. I've been known for my temper as much as for my ideas, for my sarcasm as much as for my humor, and for my lack of morality as much as for my abundance of enthusiasm.

The petition tells me you get it, that what I'm doing is not just me playing psychobitch, yelling my head off in the wilderness. Whether it gets five for five hundred signatures, that's not important to me. What matters to me is that you get the point.

I don't want to tell you such things are wasted.

But I need to stick to my guns on this. It's been six weeks, and you still can't delete a fucking photo? Gurr allegedly spent $25,ooo on a new votecount program, which I believe is throwing money at a problem that could have been solved with ethics instead of cash. I really don't know if the fix is still in, if Gurr as a moderator can still pull things the way he wishes to. He tried to cash his lottery ticket in way too soon, he wanted this to be a reality TV show, and who knows, it might be. But he saw this too much as his meal ticket and not enough as what it's professed to be--a microcosm of democracy. If elections here are more suspect than they are in Iraq, how in the world can anyone boast about the democracy we enjoy here? No one thinks the system for vote counts is kosher, at best I hear candidates saying it has flaws but whatever, at worst you have me screaming bloody murder.

This isn't a personal feud between me and Eric Freakin Gurr. This whole war is about what U4Prez stands for. If the candidates want to settle for mediocrity, where partisan gangs from both the right and left play their little freeper games like they do on every other message board on the Internet, where elections can't be trusted and some don't really care, you will get the U4Prez you deserve. But if you want U4Prez to return to its former glory, if you want the shadow of doubt to be removed from elections, if you want candidates to be able to prosper instead of fear the hooligans, if you want the place to grow instead of reading every other day about another popular candidate quitting, then you're going to have to fight for it.

Some say freedom isn't free, and I agree. It's priceless! And we need to return to the idea of U4Prez being a working democracy in and of itself. The vote count system needs to be transparent and consistent, not whatever the mods want to make it into. It should be deemed as the most precious and flawless jewel is the collection. It should be sacred, untainted, and on display for all to witness how it works.

I will not seek to be reinstated at U4Prez until after the general election. This election cycle has become far too polluted. The petition, though, will be very helpful in getting me back to U4Prez thereafter, and I would like to try again in 2008. If the signees can get the powers that be to agree with it, I would love to come back, most likely in December 2007, and try for the 2008 presidency.

Upon such reinstatement, I would call on President Kempite (or whoever else wins the presidency, I don't see how my argument on the fix could ever change) to call on all previous party leaders and primary winners to convene and author a U4Prez Constitution, whereby the candidates agree on the basic functions of U4Prez, instead of letting the moderators just do whatever they like. Such a move would give the candidates more power than the moderators. The candidates are what U4Prez is about, not Eric Gurr, and not the moderators. We should lay out our own voting system, and educate the moderators on how we want it implimented, not the other way around. From the general election in early November to January 1, 2008, there should be enough time to put together such a Constitution and have it ratified. Such a thing, however, cannot be discussed until we have a President. Hence, the President should be someone who can actually preside, not just the most popular, not the one who can browbeat his opponents the best or call names the best. The President will have real responsibility to U4Prez, and how he handles this responsiblity will determine if he will be re-elected. I don't recommend a detailed and broad governmental infrastructure, but I would recommend we all start thinking about what a President here really does, if he needs a Vice President or cabinet heads. All such suggestions should pertain to the functioning of U4Prez. In essence, after the general election, we should take the time to solve the problems of U4Prez OURSELVES, and not leave it to the moderators. We will establish what powers the president has and doesn't have.

But that's way down the road. Just stick that thought in your pocket for the time being. I would like to be part of such a Convention, if reinstated after the general election.

However, I will never turn down a write-in vote, and at this year's general election, if the parties produce three nominees you simply cannot stomach, I would be honored if you were to vote for me. I still hold a torch for the Independents, but there are plenty of candidates from all parties that I would love to assist and endorse. At the end of the day, however, if the process produces three nominees you cannot support, like I always say, don't vote for the lesser of two evils, or in this case, possibly three evils. I would welcome you throwing your vote away by voting for and thinking of me.

Until then, I will continue to do what I've been doing, namely, fighting the good fight against the forces of evil, and having fun doing it. I will continue to hold the moderators' feet to the fire. I will report the goings-on at U4Prez as I see them occurring, and I invite your input, critical or complimentary. Together, we can make U4Prez into whatever we want it to be. We can be limited only by our creativity, or we can be weighed down by boundaries of our own pettiness. We can fight for a sincere infrastructure, or we can be apathetic and let it continue to crumble.

And don't vote for BigDaddy, he's a carpetbagger and a jerk.