The More Things Change...

I thought the U4Prez Constitution was unnecessary, because the new servers and software and fuzzy dice and everything else Eric Gurr shelled out $25K for was supposed to be the panacea to solve each and every problem we candidates ever raised a stink over. Never another problem with voting or results or oversight or anything we were all complaining about all year long. I vividly remember, just last week, people coming up to me and saying the new wizardry would take care of all the little things I was getting so pissy over.

Why, then, did I wake up this morning, and the run-off schedule is virtually identical to the one from last week?

I shit you not. It's right there on the homepage for all to see. Compare it to last week's schedule.

Here are the only differences between the two. You ready? Tuesday, it's Polakoff instead of TheWiz running against Icababe, and Faust instead of Sparks420 against Lucky on Wednesday.

That's it!

Now, some would say, Olivia, it's a statistical anomly, a coincidence. Let's talk about this "coincidence".

Ten of the twelve candidates are the same from last week to this. TEN OF TWELVE. 83% of the candidates get a redo. All through last year, I think I was up in a run-off, in primaries or otherwise, three times in five months. That was with old-fashioned moderator bullshit. Now that they have the software to really fuck things up, they can no shuttle in virtually the exact same candidates every single week. To hell with the 2000-odd other candidates who would like a chance to compete. The computer, by whatever means, picked pretty much the exact same list of candidates from the week before.

Wait, there's more. Not only are they pretty much the same candidates, in four of the six pairings, it's the EXACT SAME PAIRING AS LAST WEEK! No flipping, no JKurth vs. KT2020 instead of KT2020 vs. JKurth. No mixing and matching. The exact same matchups, and even freakier, on the exact same days of the week! Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, you're voting for the same candidates in the same order.

Since when did Election Day become Groundhog Day?

In the past, if something like this happened, favoritism would be screeched from the rooftops. Or at least I would screech it, it's become apparent that many candidates accept apathy and incompetence as a way of life at U4Prez. I might even say a fix was in. I may yet. But not toay. Today, since everyone has been touting the infallibility of the new software, I'll simply say you've all put your faith in the wrong god. You wanted something that would solve all our problems, and apparently it's just created another problem.

Olivia, what's your problem, if you don't like it here, why don't you just leave? I just might. I came back, partly in the hopes that the new server, the new look, the new $25,000 wonder, was indeed an attempt to solve the very things that plagued U4Prez all last year. I was impressed by its new style, and I'm figuring it out slowly but surely, and I'm sure many looking to manipulate the new system are slowly but surely doing their thing. But if I came back, for THIS, for the love of Christ, please tell me what's changed.

I expect the moderators will trot out the same tired deadpan explanation, that they're working the kinks out, that it's something we need to be patient with. Haven't we heard this kind of thing since U4Prez started? Where is the evidence there's a new sense of urgency in Eric Fucking Gurr?

Isn't this evidence that the Constitution, still in the drafting process and slowing down for the moderators to catch up, has merit? Unless you accept mediocrity on a daily basis, why does one simply let the moderators off the hook for their own ineptitude? Instead of it being their mistake, it's now their $25,000 mistake.

Olivia, it's Gurr's site, it's his business. I'm not faulting the man for trying, he probably spent the rest of his mother's mortgage on this new contraption, I'm sure he's shitting bricks. Unlike those who apathetically say Gurr will solve his own problems and Olivia Shut Up, Gurr himself has all his eggs, not only in U4Prez, but this wondermachine that was supposed to take all the worry out of picking candidates for runoffs and elections and ensuring their legitimacy.

When last week's run-off schedule is basically regurgitated and called this week's schedule, I balk at the idea of legitimacy.

But hey, that's what you guys, you who attacked the Constitution the hardest, this is apparently what you want, another year of THIS.

And it's especially strange, the two yutzes who yelled the loudest and blew the most smoke up everyone collective ass--BigDaddy and Copulate--seem to benefit from there being no Constitution, no oversight, no candidate regulation. Having lost last week, it seems they get a chance the very next week to try it all over again. I wouldn't say it's a fix, and I say this because you two are expecting me to say as much. Ten candidates benefit from a fix? All I'm saying concerning you two blowhards is, you sure did get a gimme, I would thank my lucky stars and whatever golden calf I prayed to and slink away as quietly as you could. You are benefitting from Gurr's mediocrity, as expensive as the pricetag on that mediocrity now is. For $25,000, you guys who want things to stay exactly as they are, and for all to have faith in a box that will apparently just pick the same candidates over and over, you better be on your knees, thanking Gurr for his incompetence.

And before you two start on the OLIVIA IS A MAN rant, mind you, whenever someone stands up to you two, you start in with adhominems, with dodging, with deflection, and with anything else you have to try to take the spotlight off of you. You both scurried to the shadows like rats when I confronted you both on some very vulgar things you said about me, on the air, on Thanksgiving Eve, on Friday Night Fights, at around the 89-minute mark. When Faustus was putting the Constitution grievance concerning the candidates somehow seizing Gurr's private property to rest, BigDaddy starts questioning the validity of Faustus's presidency, making insinuations of fraud. It's called deflection, and it's a sign of surrender when one is in over his head in an argument.

You two are wrong on everything else, why wouldn't you also be wrong about this?

Now, would a Constitution have solved this? I don't know, it's still in the drafting stage. It's whatever we would make of it. Would a Constitution have given the candidates a little more access to the run-off process? Possibly. I don't know. What I do know is, after all these months of putting up with this, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. The definition of stupidity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. For Gurr and the moderators to say over and over and over again they have the answer, yet some new fuck-up occurs as soon as we turn around, at some point we candidates need to use our own power to force a change. If not with peer pressure, then with boycotts. If not with the ballot, then with nonviolent disobedience. If not with petitions, then with resignations.

The only defense for these shenanigans is that the ten who are back earned their spots. I peek in, I'm not sure what great strides MatthewJ made to secure another spot, same day of the week, against Erock yet again. Other than talking trash about people on a talk show, I fail to see how Copulate, Demo, and BigDaddy did anything to further the U4Prez cause. I certainly don't buy that the new crop of candidates is so incredibly weak that it's impossible to break the elite's hold on the run-offs. What I'm more likely to believe is, if we buy the argument that the ten earned it, everyone else did not, and there is no room for someone improving themselves if the elite have taken up all the spots and can keep themselves there indefinitely. I don't buy the idea that there are only ten candidates making such sufficient strides as to give them a do-over, and 2000-odd candidates have no idea what they're doing.

Despite the belief that Gurr could turn this place into a porn site if he merely wanted to cash in, Gurr knows he has a million-dollar idea, and now is not the time for his newest trinket to go berzerk. More than anyone, I am addicted to this place and want it to succeed. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired of always doubting the moderators and having little faith in Gurr to do the right thing. U4Prez is turning int a game of Whack-A-Mole, you push the mole down one hole, he pops up in another, and you chase to that hole, he pops up in another.

I, for one, will not vote this week. And I strongly encourage every candidate who feels the same with me to not vote for any of the run-off candidates this week, not so much in protest of mediocrity, but because we already voted for these ten. We've been there, we've done that. There has not been enough significant change in U4Prez for anyone to think the outcome between Austin08 and Copulate will be any different.

The only way the incompetence of Eric Gurr can continue to rear its ugly head is if we candidates continue to complain at best and do nothing at worst.

I still support the Constitution, and this is evidence to me that the moderators, left up to themselves, can't screw in a lightbulb, no matter how expensive the devices are that they buy to make it so. With or without it, I will always champion the candidates and their ability to create change through their own determination. THAT'S what democracy is all about.