Election Post Mortem

The election is over, 2007 has mercifully come to an end, and we have someone new we can burn in effigy when times at U4Prez get rough. While Eric Gurr certainly has done his share to garner criticism, the democratic process, however legitimate it might be around here, produced a President.

I congratulate Faustus37, better known to Idahoans as W. Lane Startin, better known to Evie as Daddy, for being the first President chosen by the candidates of U4Prez.

Okay, that’s long enough of a honeymoon. You can officially start ripping on him.

Voting for Faustus for President at U4Prez is sort of like voting for Winnie the Pooh for President of the Hundred Acre Wood. After he won Democratic primary #3, it was evident he was the man to beat. And let’s face it, Independents and Republicans, he was able to accomplish what the rest of us couldn’t—he got his entire party behind him.

While I don’t consider a victory of six to nine votes, depending on who you listen to, a decisive mandate, I do feel Faustus is probably the best choice for U4Prez at this juncture. This place needs someone who can start right away, and he hasn’t screwed around, already putting together a Cabinet and taking an active part of the Constitution we at Kiss & Tell had previously discussed.

Faustus’s win did not come without its share of controversy. Many candidates were screaming foul about how votes were gathered, not just concerning Faustus, but in the other camps as well. Like virtually every other election in U4Prez history, this one will be questioned long after the fact.

All this, you already know. You didn’t come here to read about events you participated in and already know backward and forward. You came to see how I would torture the facts, twist events to fit my warped view of the world, and butcher history for my own delight.

And away I go.

Musicman deserved every one of those 42 votes he got, and not a single one more. Whether my previous comment about how a vote for Music is a vote coming from your rectum had anything to do with his poor showing, I don’t know, but I have no problem taking an inkling of credit for it. Music was the victim of a thoroughly divided GOP, and while Mduminiak did the very noble thing in taking the blame for the Republicans’ pathetic showing in the election, I think he quit about three months too late. Musicman was thrown under the bus for Mduminiak’s ineptitude, much of which has been recorded elsewhere on this blog.

Mduminiak can’t say Olivia didn’t warn him. I was saying as early as July, the Steering Committee was a bad idea, but NOOOOOO, Monkeyboy was going to divide his party, no matter what anyone told him. He installed his own flunkies and more or less turned the entire U4Prez GOP into his personal Liberty Caucus, the same way Kempite put the LC together in the first place: throw in a few moderates and liberals as tokens to make it look broad based, but make absolutely sure the extreme right wins out, by any means necessary.

I know it’s the politically expeditious thing to do, to tell the rest of us all is well, Olivia is just making shit up, but when you have high-profile Republicans like Copulate and HAK beating down the Steering Committee’s door to get in, and lackeys like Goffdale and Friday acting like they actually know something, something’s not quite in sync with reality. The very fact that Mduminiak set up his own buddies in this committee screamed cronyism, and considering the real GOP has been riddled by one awful appointment by Bush after another after another, and we have to watch in awe their complete ineptitude when things like a hurricane drenches New Orleans, I’m not how anyone can think anything but another disaster could occur. Mduminiak remained obstinate, denying the very truth that his party was fracturing; it’s not news that Mduminiak, Kempite and the Hard Right wanted to steer the GOP even further to the right, and they fully expected the slightly more moderate elements of the party, like Copulate and HAK and Efferiss, to follow blindly in partisan loyalty.

This piss poor decision bore its fruit in the Republican Convention and the multiple runoffs. There is a potential for things to turn ugly anytime Copulate gets in the middle of it, and this was no exception. Musicman might have won the nomination, but instead it being a uniting victory, it was a stumbling escape from a war of attrition. Musicman survived instead of conquered, and by the skin of his teeth, by the looks of it.

For his part, Musicman could have done a better job of uniting the party after his “victory”, but instead of picking a running mate that could have done that, he picked his friend, Ghost. At one point this summer, I thought Ghost and Musicman were one and the same, for one always did what the other did, one was the other’s shadow. As much as I can appreciate the loyalty (I said previously I would have picked DonnyWiz to be my VeePee if I were in such a position), considering a GOP in ruins, he could have done better by picking a better mate. This is where thinking only of yourself hurts an entire party. Despite months of Mduminiak’s gross negligence and ignorance of how dangerous that negligence was, Music could have repaired some of the damage done by an egotistical party leader and a brutal convention. Instead, he thought only of himself. Which is why he deserved 42 votes but not 43.

For the Republicans, 2007 proved one thing, and unless they solve this one problem in 2008, the same thing will happen. And that thing is, don’t fuck with Copulate! All throughout the year, Copulate was a thorn in the Hard Right’s side, questioning any sort of authority with his customary variety of caustic sarcasm and relentless nagging. He was a high-profile candidate that no hardcore conservative could stand, and because the self-proclaimed powers of the GOP wanted to go further right, Copulate was deemed an outsider, a nuisance. Next year’s leadership would do itself a favor in keeping Copulate in the loop, if for no other reason but the old adage of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. Left to his own devices, Copulate will fuck the GOP up again in 2008. Instead of engaging him in constant bickering, instead of letting him turn molehills into mountains, instead of letting minor incidents become front-page news, I strongly encourage you to play nice with him, find a way to include him into your schemes. You definitely want him on your side instead of against you. He is a warrior. Enlist him before you allow him to feel like an outsider. He made more of a difference in determining the president as a one-primary-win candidate than the party leader and the longtime Golden Boy Kempite. If there are any dirty-tricks or rumors of dirty-tricks, he will be all over it and biting hard. The best offense, in this case, is a good defense, and if you can’t beat Copulate, let him join you.

Two of the three major candidates employed late-registering candidates to boost their numbers. There isn’t anything illegal about it, some would even call it ethical. Not me. Among others, I noticed the stream of newbies coming in on the last night of the election. While I can appreciate someone working within the rules to find an advantage, the whole thing just reeks. Many are questioning the validity of this election, which figures, every election has been tainted, why should the big one be any different?

The rosy comments Gurr put on the homepage concerning this last year being a banner year, I hope no one bought that trash. Just like Friday and Goffdale trying to convince everyone Olivia is full of shit and the GOP is just fine, Gurr has no choice in the matter. He had to put on his brave face and lie. In such a speech, of course he isn’t going to mention how the moderators—him being one among equals—fell asleep behind the wheel on several occasions, screwing several candidates out of their positions in run-offs and primaries. He’s not going to tell you he had his favorites, and I can say this because I was one, and Kempite was another. He’s not going to tell you his wanting to buddy-up with his favorites, and his desire to play on U4Prez and partake the talk show circuit, not really caring how it looked to new candidates trying to get a toehold, while the creator was laughing it up with his handpicked president to be. He’s not going to tell you how this very blog got the attention of his corporate masters, forcing them to jerk his chain back and knocking him down to glorified-moderator status. He’s not going to tell you how every election can now be scrutinized and seen as frauds. He’s not going to tell you how his own pick for President was guilty of manipulating votes, proving every word ever uttered on this blog concerning corruption and the fix. And in what should have been U4Prez’s finest moment, he’s not going to tell you how the general election was tainted by the questionable ethics displayed with new candidate registration. Gurr’s optimistic comments were complete horseshit, and anyone who’s been at U4Prez for any significant amount of time knows it was horseshit.

But we can do something about 2007. We can learn from it and never let it happen again.

The Constitution is the perfect place to ferret out all the problems we’ve seen this past year, and correct them, once and for all. Gurr either won’t do it or can’t do it, so we’re going to do it.

In what is already turning into the biggest multipartisan project in U4Prez history, ideas for a Constitution are being brainstormed by many candidates. Even those who have previously opposed the writing of a Constitution (BigDaddy, Copulate, and Mduminiak, to name three) have contributed their thoughts to it. This is reason to celebrate, because this is a recognition that U4Prez does have problems, and it’s not just a handful of disgruntles candidates complaining. We can’t solve these problems unless we know they exist, and unless we’re honest about them, any solution will be in vain.

President Faustus supports the project, and he has named Olivia as Chairperson of the Constitution Committee. I will be talking more about this on U4Prez, on the U4Prez Constitution Caucus. We’ve already had at least one world-class brainstorming session, and in a little over a week, we should have rough draft #2 up for dissection and criticism and committee rewrites.

2008 does not have to be a repeat of 2007. Virtually every candidate has, at one time or another, expressed dissatisfaction with U4Prez. By working together in the spirit of camaraderie, the candidates can create a means by which the many problems with U4Prez, especially those concerning the moderators and our interface with them, can be resolved, and an infrastructure can be put up to solve any other upcoming crisis. Up until this pivotal point in the history of U4Prez, we were at the mercy of the creator and his moderators, who collectively proved to be inept, corrupt, favoring, negligent, and at times, outright dangerous and not giving a damn. As of this writing, we no longer have to be victimized by their carelessness, their dumb little games, their corruption, and their fuck-ups. As of right now, we no longer can blame the moderators for all the problems we’ve had to deal with. We can empower ourselves. We can ensure the moderators abide by a certain protocol, and if not, we can have a system to alleviate any effects of their negligence.

The election is over. We lived through it, just barely, but we did it. 2007 was a year of figuring out what U4Prez is and what we could do with it. We no longer have anyone but ourselves to blame if 2008 goes the same way. We certainly have the brains and the creativity to make it so; all we need is the will.

Nobody Does It Better

When I returned to U4Prez this week, after a nearly three-month hiatus (six weeks of which included exile from this blog), one of the first to greet me back was Faustus. Faustus is probably the most professional candidate at U4Prez, himself running for the office of Governor in Idaho for 2010. He is a polished speaker, having clearly defined positions on all issues, and has no problem speaking his mind. Unlike most of us, though, he is smart enough to keep out of the fracas when the partisan bullshit starts to fan out. He never has a harsh word for anyone, and I don’t think anyone has a harsh word for him.

Faustus, quite expectedly, breezed through 2007, winning three of the monthly primary positions for the Democratic Party. With Elected_Al resigning his position, Think08 taking a long and unexpected leave in the summer, and Bluproject willing to present himself as Kempite’s whipping boy, it became even easier for Faustus to push through to the convention and win the nomination. Do not perceive this, however, as a case of the Democrats imploding this year. Quite the contrary. Most Democrats have come to respect Faustus deeply, and it is very easy to support someone who is as polite, thoughtful, intelligent, and professional as Faustus. When he left U4Prez, Elected_Al made it a point to endorse Faustus on his own profile, perhaps to consolidate the Democratic base, but most likely to show support for a candidate who genuinely deserves the highest of praises.

Why, then, am I endorsing MejicoJohn?



Those of you who have been following the Olivia soap opera since March, you should already know why.

I can’t remember the conversation I was having, who I was having it with, but I remember saying about three weeks into my campaign, I would not be surprised at all if MejicoJohn won the whole thing. MejicoJohn gets it. When many of us were running ourselves ragged, taking U4Prez way too seriously, MejicoJohn would chime in with a new video, or say something that made us all crack up.

Even as a newbie, I realized John was campaigning differently. He wasn’t putting together polished, fanciful videos, he wasn’t putting the finishing touches on his platform or challenging others to a duel or a debate. Rather, he was having a good time, something we all, including myself, should have been doing all along. Every time I see John, I picture him in his room in Nuevo Laredo, beer bottles and cigarette butts all around his keyboard, laughing his tail off at the dumb things the rest of us do. He is unique to U4Prez—there are liberals and conservatives galore, and Dems and Reps and Indies are all over the place, but there is only one MejicoJohn. For every Hawk, there are a hundred just like him on U4Prez, not quite so high-profile, but still stewing in his own juices, playing partisan bullshit games, denigrating U4Prez for his own amusement. You can say the same about me, or many others.

While others are trying to dissect tort reform and pollution policy and stem-cell research to their finer components, John has flat out said his desire is to be King of North America, to run the country under a pseudo-dictatorship, where he basically ends all the dumbshit once and for all, all the corruption in Washington, all the deficit spending, all the wars-for-profit, and sets us back on a Constitutional course. There are no fine details to hash out with John, nothing to negotiate. He has no desire for longterm aggrandizement, he is no Fidel Castro seeking to liberate his countrymen and then hold himself in power for the next fifty years. He is blunt, decisive, and has the kind of simple feel for the tone of the American public many believed George W. Bush had in 2000.

John is no Dubya, far from it. I liken him to George Washington. I am dead serious about this. Washington in the Cincinnatus argument, where, once he won the War for Independence, when clamored by many to take over and use his strength of character and leadership to mold the new America in his own image, he simply returned to his farm in Virginia. And again, once elected President under the new Constitution, after two terms, he could have ran for a third and stayed in power for the rest of his life; instead, he served, and then he went home. Throughout all of human history, with rare exceptions, every leader of a revolution has ultimately betrayed the ideals they fought for, and the populations they claimed to liberate, for the sake of power. MejicoJohn, like George Washington, is an exception to history, an anomly, a fly in the ointment.

Did you like me comparing John to Washington? Here’s another for you. In his Republic, Plato daydreamed the perfect political system being run by a “benevolent despot”, one who was raised as part of a ruling elite to do nothing more than run a government. He was not to be rewarded handsomely, for to Plato, power was a burden, and certainly not something to profit from. MejicoJohn is U4Prez’s benevolent despot, the kind of singular leader that can take a nation, shake it clean, and set it back on course, all the while sipping a beer and eating hot peppers straight from the jar.

One aspect I’ve always appreciated from John is his self-deprecating humor. The first one he laughs at is himself. His videos are genuinely funny, not by bullying opponents or making fun of anyone, but because he looks like he is really enjoying clowning with us. Who else has his own anti-campaign, the NOMJOHN campaign? Many of us have enemies who make no bones about it, and some have even come up with anti-campaigns for the elite. I’ve seen my share of anti-Olivia campaigns, Kempite’s seen anti-Kempite campaigns. But no one would dare talk himself down like John does.

As for me personally, I have supported MejicoJohn for a long time, and in terms of time and energy, I do feel I assisted him a little. We came to know one another, and in our talks, we rarely talked politics. We always talked about our personal lives. That’s something I’ve learned can’t be easily done with sincerity. While many of us talk about our jobs and families in a general way, John put his life out there for all of us to watch and enjoy. When John was having problems concerning his father and moving to Nuevo Laredo, I think we all held him in our hearts, hoping for the best.

The third video I made was devoted to MejicoJohn, even though it was titled “Antipartisan Pledge #9”.



When I became Independent Leader this summer, I took a video I was working on and turned it into a campaign promo for the Independents on the whole. MejicoJohn’s face was among the dozen-or-so Independents on that video.



I used the Independent Leader profile as a sort of billboard for promoting Independent candidates, and any Indy with a video was on there. MejicoJohn had nearly forty short videos all over YouTube, and I always put one of them on there that summed up his political beliefs.

Then, on that fateful day in July, the fifth, when the moderator fell asleep at the wheel and almost screwed MejicoJohn out of his place in the primaries, I raised holy hell to get the situation rectified and gave up my own position in that primary in protest. With the moderator asleep at the wheel and John in the midst of moving and dealing with his family and not being about to come online at all, let alone campaign, I felt like I had to act. For those of you who felt I was grandstanding, how important is it now that I did that, how necessary was it for me to not let an Independent get screwed out of his position? How many Republicans or Democrats similarly got screwed, and are sitting on the outside now, voting for President instead of being voted for? This is where I indeed will pat myself on the back a little bit, because MejicoJohn did emerge from that Independent Convention as our nominee, and had he lost his chance to compete in the June primary, the whole history of U4Prez would now be different. No offense at all to Icababe or CoryF or Maditude, had it been them screwed by moderator apathy, I am sure I would acted the same as I did with John. But it remains that it indeed was John that was in that position, victimized by moderator ineptitude, for a moment gone from the race. That may have been his only real shot, considering how Independents up until that time never even had a primary of their own.

And now he is on the verge of being President. Yes, I take a good amount of personal satisfaction in that.

While I do believe Faustus is the best out of all of us in terms of political polish and professionalism, I can’t desert my Independents, I put far too much of myself into out “party”. And I put a lot of personal capital into MejicoJohn, not only in terms of promoting him and getting him back in the running, but in terms of our shared experience at U4Prez. My dear friend and Photoshop extraordinaire Donny Wiz made a series of pictures of us together, and while they were made in fun and jest, they were also personal. They meant something to John and me.



When I left U4Prez in August, MejicoJohn was one of many who unfairly received heat for my exile and blog. On one memorable night, on Kempite’s talk show, John was put in the position of defending me, something I wouldn’t want anyone close to me to ever have to do. He gave the Hard Right no issues of importance, nothing they could use, no ammunition. I am sorry they put him in that position, having to defend me, when he had no idea what was going on. And yet, there he was.

In the future, I hope to continue to work with Faustus and MejicoJohn to improve the U4Prez experience. My head says to vote for Faustus, because he is indeed the best. My heart, though, says to vote for MejicoJohn, because I have put so much of myself into him, and because I think we do have a respect, admiration, and, dare I say it, love for one another that makes no sense in reality, but perfect sense here. That’s not to say I’ll start posting John Averitt memorials whenever my ratings start going down, but it means, so long as we are a part of U4Prez, he will always have a special place in my heart.



Hence, I am putting my heart above my head.

I am voting for MejicoJohn, and while I would like others to do the same thing, I would be just as thrilled to see Faustus win.

One last thing—as happy as I am that a true Hard Right candidate did not make it to the general election, Musicman is in their sphere of influence. I will work with him should he be voted in President, but it won’t be pretty. I called Musicman a pussy on plenty of occasions, mostly because he is a decidedly partisan candidate who decided to sign the Antipartisan Pledge, yet started to cry like a little girl whenever I called him on it. I don’t care what he did and does in the real world, on U4Prez, he is a whiner, a NeoCon, and a perfect lackey for the Hard Right cabal. He shows no signs of leadership, deciding to try to shout me down when I was defending John’s place in the June primary. How does that look now, Musicman actively seeking to squash John’s chances of fairly staying in the primaries, now they’re both in the general election. I realize the Republican Convention became a battle of attrition, but I don’t know how anyone could vote for someone as whining, as hypocritical, and as opposed to someone standing up for what’s right.

If you vote with your head, vote for Faustus.

If you vote with your heart, vote for MejicoJohn.

And if you vote with your ass, vote for Musicman.

I will vote with my heart. How are you going to vote?

Three is STILL the Magic Number

I was reading a few moments ago about how CoryF and Icababe have wrapped up the last two primary spots for the Independent Party. Somewhere, there is a list of qualifiers for the Convention, and I would put that list up proudly against those representing the U4Prez Democrats and Republicans.

I ran my campaign as pretty much a single-issue campaign, to end the two-party system, to destroy the myth of Republocratic dominance, and to bring more parties, more candidates, and more philosophies into the Washington mix. Each in their own way, I believe that not only the Independent primary winners, but the vast majority of Independents themselves believe in this, to one degree or another. They might be conservative or liberal, it doesn't matter, they are disgusted with politics-as-usual, and they are willing to take the risk of a campaign run alone, without a true party machine behind them, than compromise their principles for the sake of popularity.

Just like America itself, we are Independent.

It is this spirit we share that binds us, and has kept us bound as the strongest party at U4Prez. It is the appreciation we have for one another, no matter where on the political spectrum we might fall, that has kept the Independent Party vibrant and positive. And despite the countless many times we have seen others try to drive wedges between us, we realize its just another variation of the partisan gameplaying we all got sick of years ago, and we recognized it for what it is.

That is why Independents didn't have a problem voting for a liberal like me in June to be leader, or a conservative like Icababe most recently. In the end, our bond goes beyond the weak labels the Republocrats like to divvy up everyone under. I got along fine with strong conservatives like CoryF, because we share the same singular belief that nothing we want to do will come to fruition if we don't first clean house, rid Washington of the two monopolizing parties, and come up with some real answers for real people.

Independents get that, and that is why I have no problem giving my complete support to Icababe and encourage all Independents to not only join with him in solidarity, but to also participate in his committee to build a better party. This isn't the sort of Steering Committee Mduminiak installed with the Republicans, which was little more than an elitist collection of his bestest buddies to decide for the rest of the GOP world. Icababe wants everyone to join in. There should be far more than the four or five names on the committee list. While I realize every candidate is running her own campaign her own way, it still wouldn't hurt to chime in.

I have always had a respectful relationship with Icababe, and I appreciate his want to get as much input from the other Independents. He deserves the same sort of commitment from the rest of you. When he creates a committee any Independent can join, I would like to think there would be many who would jump to help. Likewise, I see he has created a chat page in which Independents can discuss issues and strategy. In respect, I haven't tried to peek in, but I truly hope it's being utilized.

The Independent Party has to move forward, and I recall a few comments Icababe made concerning me, and I agree with him. The Party cannot move ahead, and cannot perfect itself, if the conversation constantly returns to the past. It is unfair to everyone to continue to bring my name up every time Independent Party Leadership is discussed. No party leader will ever get a fair shake if he is constantly compared to Olivia, even in a congradulatory way. The party has a convention coming up in a couple of weeks, it will not properly be prepared to take full advantage of the attention it will receive if the focus remains on a former candidate who is not active on U4Prez itself and can only influence things from the outside looking in.

What's more, many use my name in a petty fashion, trying to use my name as a wedge. Just as some would previously try to drive a wedge between me and the conservative Independents, they again seek to use my name to play partisan games. These are the very same games Independents detest in the first place. Such games are expected out of the Republicans and Democrats. Don't sink to their level. Don't give into this bullshit. Recognize it for what it is, and root it out.

However you saw my stay as party leader, as a good thing or a bad thing, in the end it is over, and if the Party is to be at its best, it must look and move forward. I appreciate all the positive feedback, and I note all the sarcasm and hurtful things said my way. But so long as the talk remains on what Olivia did or didn't do, you're not giving Icababe a chance at all, and the Indys will remain stuck in Summer 2007 instead of looking forward with their sights on the general election.

I believe the Independents have a legitimate shot in winning the whole thing. Kempite's campaign is in flames, so if there was ever a "fix", Eric Gurr would be pretty stupid to maintain it at this moment. Look at the final roster when it comes out. If we're looking for someone with name recognition, MejicoJohn is as strong a candidate in terms of sheer popularity as there is at U4Prez. I believe we have the truest and most sincere conservative at U4Prez, namely CoryF, which, if the Independents backed him, he could legitimately defeat Mduminiak, a candidate who has had virtually every break go his way, who is grossly over-exposed, and who is just as into playing partisan bullshit games as he is to chime the conservative chime. You have Maditude, probably the closest thing to a champion of the Libertarian Party U4Prez has, someone who has quite quietly put together a solid campaign, and again, he has not engaged in gameplaying and partisanship. Icababe is proving himself to be a strong leader for the Independents.

Once there is a list put out as to who will represent the Independents up to the general election, I will be on my toes to support them all as best as I can, but also to prop up whoever ends up representing the Indys in the general election.

Whatever cancers there are in the Independent Party, root them out now, before we get down to brass tacks. I do believe our diversity is what makes the Indys successful, being able to set aside our ideologies, without compromising them for a moment, for the sake of a greater good. Ask yourself, when you see Independents engaging in partisan hackery, if they are representing the best the party has to offer.

Everyone knows my displeasure with BigDaddy, and with Mduminiak capitulating and Kempite impaled and twitching, he is the biggest partisan gameplaying hack on U4Prez. He came to the Indy Party, thinking Independents would be stupid enough to elect him leader, even though he goes against everything Independents stand for. He continues to show his true colors, calling anyone left of him a socialist, trying to drive wedges between the left and the right within the Independents, trying to use my name to show division within ranks, as if continued contact with me were something sordid, as if appreciating my tactics as leader were tantamount to treason. THIS is why we all became Independents, because we were tired of the two main parties bickering with one another, pointing fingers, calling names, driving wedges, and more-or-less dummying down American politics. BigDaddy has been one of the bigest partisan bullshit artists since he came to U4Prez. He has said it for himself, partisanship is so engrained into American politics, it might as well be in the Constitution. He proves this belief every day. I have always urged you, and will continue to urge you, to shun him, to make it clear his petty gameplaying is not what being an Indepedent is about, and that he can go back to the Republicans if he wishes to continue his shenanigans.

At the end of the day, I always lay my trust in the intelligence and the commitment Independents share. No matter the odds, we've managed to construct a "party" that is truly all-inclusive, liberals and conservatives uniting under the belief that the status-quo will kill America, and the cure is to unravel the total domination the Republocrats hold in modern American government. If we can win at U4Prez, maybe we can do it in 2008 for real! We have a destiny as a party. It can be done. We have the candidates, we have the smarts, the commitment, the issue, the leadership, the unity. The Indys have it all. It's just a matter of putting it all together and sprinting to the finish line.

In these final weeks until the general election, I hope to have a few "gifts" for the Independent Party, something to pick their spirits up. I am your biggest cheerleader, your number-one fan. You can do it!

Love Always, Olivia. XXX

Dissecting a BigDaddy GOTCHA

Last weekend, we watched arguably the biggest name, the largest ego, certainly the biggest hypocrite at U4Prez get caught, committing one of the worst sins one can commit when talking about respect to democracy. Kempite was proven to have manipulates votes, which proves how "serious" a candidate he truly is.

Unfortunately for some, U4Prez is little more than a grand game of GOTCHA, and if that is the case, Copulate has pulled down the biggest bird by bringing Kempite's scheme to the attention of Eric Gurr.

Realizing that's all he has to offer, realizing there aren't too many other names as big as Kempite's to pull down, and realizing the Hard Right made him who he was, BigDaddy is going after me with renewed vigor.

Which is fine, so long as we all realize who his is and what he stands for. Political discussions, I've seen he has the ability to hold a discussion on a smarmy adolescent level, yet he is capable. That's not his passion, his reason for being. Promoting a conservative agenda is what he does when he has nothing better to do, and even that can only be promoted by him through calling anyone who disagrees with him a socialist.

His true passion is to play GOTCHA, and were he not able to do this, he probably would have left U4Prez a long time ago.

I've mentioned his antics playing hero for gay rights for deciding to browbeat Copulate's remarks in a PM to Kempite, yet never quite getting around to browbeating Kempite for doing the same thing to Bluproject. Which tells me his belief system is selective at best, hypocritical at worst, and when it comes to deciding where BigDaddy really stands concerning the issues facing the homosexual community, I fail to see how anyone could do anything but laugh wholeheartedly at him. Bullying one fagbasher and letting his fagbashing master off the hook doesn't sound like someone who is morally principled. Sounds more like bullshit partisanship to me.

As for me, he's tried to make things stick with me in the past. And like I said, whatever, you can't blame a leech for being a leech, he is what he is. My name is dotted all over his GOTCHA list, as if my name on such a list somehow ruins me, as if I were a communist merely for showing up on some McCarthy-era blacklist. Not that anything he claims he's "got" me for amasses to much, the only place where it might matter is in his own warped mind.

For instance, I voted for Michael Badnarik in 2004 for President. Not George Bush, not John Kerry. I voted Libertarian. Apparently, BigDaddy believes, for whatever reason, my vote somehow has no merit, which I still laugh at the ludicrous logic that somehow goes into such a thought. He claims to have voted for Badnarik in 2004 as well, and apparently he is insulted that I would vote for him, and since he believes he is the sole protector of all things conservative, my vote for Badnarik is somehow not good enough for him, hence it counts as a GOTCHA. In his bigoted and thoroughly partisan mind, how in the world could a liberal vote for a conservative? Such a notion apparently makes his soul shake in his rotting torso, because he is so deeply immersed in partisan bullshit that he cannot fathom such a thing to be possible.

I grew up in Arizona, the so-called birthplace of the modern conservative movement. There is no person in the history of Arizona more beloved than Barry Goldwater, the father of modern conservatism, and whether you are on the right or left politically, no one has an ill word to speak concerning Goldwater. He is everything that is good and honest in conservatism, and in an era dominated by neo-conservatives who take up the cloak of conservatism to merely get themselves elected, then go to Washington and spend like drunk sailors and snub their constituents for the sake of payola, Goldwater becomes more and more revered, and were he in his prime today, dare I say it, his policies would be deemed liberal, or as BigDaddy would call such things, socialist.

I liked Michael Badnarik from the first time I heard him on the radio, as championed by Charles Goyette. In a day when the two big parties are trying to drive wedges between one another and trying to disclude others from being in their camps, Badnarik argued that there is a place for both the left and the right with the Libertarians; if you are a conservative, you should try the Libertarians because they preach fiscal responsibility, and if you are a liberal, you should try the Libertarians because they champion civil liberties. From this introduction, I took the angst I felt for my fellow Democrats, and started to really shop around, considering other parties, seeing what they have to offer. If Badnarik was representative of the best of the Libertarian Party, maybe he and his party deserve more attention than they get.

During the 2004 election cycle, many were disgruntled with having to choose between Dumb and Dumber, and though 99% of American voters still voted for these two putzes, I do think, were there more exposure given to the other candidates, perhaps such disparity wouldn't continue. Unfortunately, the Republicans and Democrats have engrained themselves so deeply into the election and legislative processes, that they have colluded to not allow other candidates or parties to partake in presidential debates. When you realize that such debates are funded by taxpayer monies, you come to the conclusion that such collusion is not only illegal, it is dangerous to the integrity of American democracy.

Michael Badnarik and David Cobb, the Green Party nominee, believed in this so strongly that, on the day of the debate in St. Louis, they found a judge who agreed with them and would write them a court order to take to the debate in order to arrest party officials for collusion. The judge realized what I just told you, that the Dems and the Reps were breaking the law and working together to do so. Badnarik and Cobb went straight to the debate, wove their way through the crowd, and when they came to the barricades, the police ignored the court order and told the two, should they try to crash the party, they would be arrested. They looked at each other and broke the police line, to which they were immediately arrested.

In an era where everyone is scared of losing their jobs over the slightest hiccup, such an act should have stood out like a sore thumb. This is an age of covering your own ass, and these two could have gone to the press and made a big stink of the whole thing. Instead, they did what they felt was their duty as Americans and sought to deliver the court order. It's that kind of civil disobedience that distinguishes American democracy from every other political ideology in history, the idea that an individual or a small group can band together and expose the inherent evil of a given law by standing up to it. This is why we remember names like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau. Not that Badnarik and Cobb should be considered as great of men as Gandhi, but at a time when everyone is out to get their piece of the pie and protect it at all cost, it's refreshing to see someone actually take a stand against corruption and collusion, even if it puts their careers in jeopardy, their reputations at risk, and their persons in potential harm. While many gripe over the two big parties working with one another to keep alternative voices out of the mix, such an act of defiance should be seen as a rallying cry, and such men deserve to be seen as heroes.

Hence, I voted for Badnarik.

Apparently, such lofty thoughts for Badnarik mean nothing to BigDaddy. According to him, this isn't good enough. I am a liberal, Badnarik's a conservative, my vote for him must be wicked and twisted in some way. In BigDaddy's own words, there is nothing in Badnarik's platform that I would agree with, therefore my vote for him is worthless. This is BigDaddy's version of democracy, where you can only vote for your own kind, you can only vote for someone on the basis of agreement in core issues, and such concepts as leadership are not things to consider.

And I still don't understand it. You would think this could be something we could agree with, something we have in common. I'm glad BigDaddy voted for Badnarik. But for the life of me, I don't understand where he thinks my vote is somehow lesser than his. I would have thought, a liberal voting Libertarian, that would be a rallying point for him, to show there are reasons why a liberal could and should vote for conservatives. If he were truly a champion for all things conservative, you would think he'd think this nothing but positive.

But BigDaddy is not a positive person. He is petty. He puts partisan gameplaying over principle. Everything I just told you on why I voted for Badnarik, I told BigDaddy already, and apparently, this wasn't good enough for him. Again, I am a liberal, voting for a conservative, I must have some deep shady reason for doing so. As such, this becomes a GOTCHA in BigDaddy's mind.

I would like to believe, in these partisan games and petty party bullshit games that have ripped through American politics and have become more brutal with every passing cycle, the intent is to get more to vote your way. Deep down, I would like to think, when Mduminiak bashes a liberal, he's doing it because he is trying to show conservatism superior to liberalism, not simply because he is political bigot who is aroused by browbeating liberals and calling then names. While this belief is slowly eroding, I still would like to think, at the end of the day, partisan hacks are really trying to get their guys elected and are merely going over the top.

It's candidates like BigDaddy that help erode this belief, that partisan bullshit tactics aren't to get your guy elected, but to fill some deep-seeded need to kick someone, for whatever reason. We no longer live in a world where you can call an African-American boy, or a woman a broad, or even a homosexual a faggot. The hate in a bigot has to take some form, and politics is one arena where such bigotry, under the cloak of blind loyalty, is actually rewarded. As such, BigDaddy has no integrity. You would think, a liberal voting conservative, should be something he would welcome. Instead, he thinks it's a GOTCHA.

It is such a big GOTCHA to him that it's on his little list, the first thing you see on his profile, the thing he takes the most pride in.

I still don't get the part where I am supposed to tell BigDaddy, okay, you got me, I'll come clean. Do any of you? I voted Libertarian. Should I have consulted with BigDaddy first? Should I have asked for his permission before I voted? Christ, if he really voted for Badnarik, wouldn't you think he would be trying to talk others into voting for him? If he wanted Badnarik to be President, why in the world would he want me to NOT vote for him?

For as much animosity as there is between me and the collective Hard Right, their candidate-du-jour is Fred Thompson, someone I wouldn't vote for if a gun were pointed at my head. But let's just say, for the sake of argument, I woke up one day, my soul conveniently ripped out of my body, and I believed Thompson would make an excellent president, and I wrote with the same lovey-dovey tone that I did concerning Badnarik. Do you truly think a cheater like Kempite and a monkeyboy like Mduminiak, for as petty of people as they are, would tell me I as a liberal shouldn't vote for him? More than likely, they would say, yeah, you stupid liberal, even you came to your senses, and if Public Liberal Number One can vote for a manly man like Fred, surely the rest of your socialist brethren can do the same.

Not BigDaddy. Never think him ever capable of setting partisan gameplaying aside, even to find some element of common ground. Instead of considering our mutual vote for Badnarik something to build respect upon, he, in some twisted way that only dogs understand when they lick their own nutsacks, he considers it a GOTCHA.

Someone out there care to enlighten me and explain how he GOT me?

Vote Manipulation! "Serious Candidate" Kempite Exposed!

We interrupt our usual Week in Review to deliver the following article of the utmost importance. Part of the purpose of this blog is to deliver the news in a readable medium, in a way so any candidate who peruses here can get a real bead on what happens in the U4Prez world. I write this so you don't have to dig through several comment threads and rely on other candidates who don't quite know either what's going on. It is such a bombshell, that the first word from the moderator on the subject is the word Boom.

*From u4prez on 09/15/2007 02:47 am
"BOOOM! Candidate Copulate exposes voter manipulation scheme. It turns out one of our top candidates was rerouting votes of a 1 and changing them to a 10. Brilliant strategy, but one step behind Copulate. Ouch!!! The candidate has been fined a whopping 5000 ratings points.
Thanks to Cop for figuring it out.
This is the tenth case of voter manipulation we've found this week. 7 of them resulted in account deletions (all related to trying to hack our site internally). Most were mild, but this one was pretty big."

That candidate was Kempite.

And yes, I plan to gloat. Fasten your seatbelts.

Now, I didn't say anything when I watched Kempite's score inflate and deflate rapidly over the summer. A couple of candidates asked me about it, and I would watch for a few days here and there, on Monday he would be in the 8th position in the Top Republicans, by Thursday he was #3. At that point, he was boasting over 4000 votes, so I knew, at that point, even in June, something was going on, but I couldn't prove it, so I just bided my time.

Pull out your calculators along with me, and let's do the math. Let's say a candidate has 5000 votes, with a rating of 8.000. In order to move your total to 8.100, just a single tenth of a point, you would need 264 10's, without a single 1 (A raw score of 42640, divided by 5264 votes, equals a rating of 8.1003). And yet, there have been rumors and reports about Kempite bouncing up and down everywhere between 7.9 and 8.5. Logistically speaking, it would be impossible, when you consider Kempite never did have the squeaky clean reputation he thinks you're stupid enough to think he had all along. Look around, just on this blog, which is still the hottest item in the U4Prez world, there are a handful of candidates who would give him a 1, if they voted for him at all. With the occasional break-out of anonymous 1's coming around every so often like a reoccurring rash, it boggles the mind how a candidate with 5000 votes can gain a tenth in their rating, seemingly at whim.

At U4Prez, by the time you get to about 1000 votes, you're pretty much locked into where you're going to be in terms of a rating.

As of this writing, Kempite has 9,465 votes (to give you an idea of how much that is, I quit with 4,269 votes, from March 17 to August 8, which, in 176 days as a candidate, averages out to be 24.25 votes a day, which I think is the norm for most all of the popular candidates, and I invite you to do the math for yourself, the more popular candidates who have been around can generate about 25-30 votes a day), which, from his starting date of February 20 to September 15, means he could generate almost 46 VOTES A DAY, every day, for all 207 days of his being here.

I urge you to make the same comparisons with MejicoJohn, Copulate, Mduminiak, kt2020, and any other candidate who has been here since at least March, and you will find a gross exaggeration in Kempite's ability to produce votes, as opposed to everyone else.

At the time, I dismissed it. Kempite was one of the truly elite players this summer, I figured he had a trick up his sleeve, he had access to votes somewhere on the web which, were the rest of us able to discover, our vote totals would go through the roof as well. I had no way of proving wrong-doing, so it was something I just kept under my hat.

Until now, when I read the news from Eric Gurr himself on U4Prez.

Do you all want to know how he did it?

Copulate deserves all the credit for discovering this. I am no IT expert, so I am sure I'm going to botch it in trying to tell you how Kempite manipulated his rating, his votes, his raw score, and ultimately U4Prez itself.

Kempite was using something called an "IP rerouter". I still don't quite understand how it works, but through this, he is able to take all the 1's he received and turn them into 10's. Arch, you were wondering just last night how his score goes up when you vote him a 1, well, THIS is what he uses. Anyone with a little knowledge in the IT department, feel free to expound on this. Where certain candidates are concerned, he has been able to take those 1's you give him and turn them into 10's.

Kempite was able to manipulate these scores my merely placing an IP rerouter into the wording of his stat counter.

Some of you, I know you have enough experience with what I'm talking about, I'm hoping you will put your two-cents-worth into this, so we can openly talk about it, and we can do a better job of exposing this form of cheating the moment we see it, and not let it go unchecked for God knows how long.

That's exactly what this is. Cheating. This isn't creativity, this isn't finding a new wrinkle in the old programming. This is the real deal, folks. For those of you who are true fans of democracy, what Kempite did was manipulate the system entirely for his own advantage. He went outside of the rules.

I will be amazed and impressed if anyone presses me too hard on this issue. I defy Iron Lady to defend Kempite now. Please, Hard Right, I would love to hear you spin this one to your advantage. I've already seen BigDaddy calling out Copulate for being a whistleblower, if he could rat out Kempite, surely he must be doing it himself. That's part of why this is making me laugh so loud, because not long ago, Copulate actually WAS being accused of manipulating his scores, Kempite being one of those accusing him the loudest.

I am also wondering, just how many members of the Hard Right are using this same tactic? I do remember, within the last month, Hawk and Mduminiak each winning runoffs in which, according to the moderators, they won because of a barrage of 1's. With the ringleader being caught red-handed, I don't think it's too far a reach to think other members of the Hard Right cabal also play this game. If that's the case, I am urging those with some IT sensibilities to take a good long hard look at those two, and pretty much anyone who is close with Kempite. And if those who previously defended him to the death suddenly come up tainted, they should suffer the same fate as their master.

Some of you out there hate my guts, and that's fine, if you don't have enemies, you don't have character. But what Kempite was caught doing validates pretty much everything I've been talking about in terms of vote count transparency, corruption, favoritism, and the "fix". THIS is what I've been talking about all along. THIS is why I quit, and why I won't return until after the general election. This is also why several other candidates have quit, because this Hard Right cabal has been allowed to use U4Prez as their little 'hood, beating down anyone who speaks up against them, without fear of reprocussion from the moderators. They see a website where freepers run rampant, where all elections are frauds, and where the creator, up until now, didn't seem to care. My gripes have all been confirmed.

Call me a whore or a slut or whatever you wish. Question my morals. Call me out when you think I'm wrong. But make no mistake about it, my integrity is still intact. I still have never betrayed a PM, whereas all PM's are fair game when placed in Kempite's corrupt hands. I have never had to manipulate my score unethically to get ahead. Again, question my tactics, but everything I did, I was upfront about, direct, never hid from anything I did, never made excuses.

So yes, Anthony Pellegrino, this whore has more integrity in her middle finger than you have in your whole body.

You of all people should know better than to put yourself on a pedestal, because it's a tough fall when you get knocked off. By trying this campaign of being a "serious candidate" with the serious answers, you put yourself up there. I didn't tell you to act like a pompous dickhead. That one is on you. There is no one here who will ever take you serious again, and if they do, sometime down the road, there's a few newbies who don't know, trust me, they will. If ever they write a history book on the U4Prez world, this article will be in there.

I wonder what Tony Nasso must be thinking right now, looking down on us from heaven. Do you think he would have approved of such cheating? Do you really think he wants your name associated with his anymore? Maybe you should roll his memorial page out again, just to make sure there's anything more in that well you can suck up and use. Maybe there's one last brownie point you can leech off of Tony4Prez, what do you have to lose at this point?

Pretty much everything I've ever said on the subject of Kempite has come to fruition. He is a backstabbing bully who can't be trusted with the slightest bit of confidentiality. He will use any bloody thing at his disposal to boost his own reputation, from dead candidates to apparently the U4Prez voting system itself. He cares for nothing but the feeding of his own ego.

Everything he has worked so hard for means absolutely nothing. What good is it to solve the problems in a democratic society, when democracy itself is something you seek to defile? What good is it to talk about American principles, when the most sacred principle itself, the belief in a fair and just voting system, is just the punchline to a joke in Kempite's mind? Why bother calling yourself a "serious candidate" when you are obviously the least serious candidate here?

I take very little pleasure in this. I never wanted to be right in the "fix", in the charges of favoritism I levied against Eric Gurr. But how tragically correct is it now, the thought that, while Eric and Kempite were getting it on on some dumb little talk show, while Kempite was shaking Eric's hand with his right hand, he was sticking him in the back with a knife in the other? Was Kempite actually looking Eric in the eye and saying all was well, while at the same time manipulating the already suspect voting system to his advantage? I cried bloody murder when I saw it happening, and I was shooed away like the psychobitch many would love to portray me to be. I feel completely validated, I think many might question the methods by which I sought to continue to apply pressure to U4Prez to open its eyes to the real problems it's facing. But in the recent turn of events, I don't think many will challenge me and call me wrong.

The only tough question left is, how deep does this go? I don't want to call for a witch-hunt, but I have already said every single election in the history of U4Prez is a sham. Let me make this perfectly clear, and this goes to friend as well as for. Not a single election in U4Prez history is valid. I do not recognize a single primary winner or party leader, including myself and my own set of victories. None of it counts. I'm sorry, but that primary win you covet, apparently Kempite thought so little of you that he sought to corrupt the entire system for his own masturbatory pleasures. It's now worthless. Oh, sure, with Kempite out of the way, you might actually win President, but so what? You won your primary through a corrupt system, a system easily manipulated and apparently bastardized for months on end. Why should anyone honor your win, after how Kempite trashed the place?

If anyone else is doing the same thing, anyone else in the Hard Right who thought they could get away with it, I'm telling you now, every day you continue to try to play this game of vote manipulation, you are bringing U4Prez that much closer to its own death. Come clean. Everyone with the slightest bit of IT experience is probably all over your profiles as we speak, watching your ratings chance on a minute-to-minute basis, voting you 1's and seeing if your rating also rises. You would be doing everyone a favor in admitting it to Eric and accepting whatever punishment is warranted.

Some get kicked out of here because they flame and curse their minds away. Personally, I feel this is far worse. I will never advocate the termination of a fellow candidate, but maybe, with Kempite remaining, he can be set up as the example, as the candidate most opposite what America stands for. The perfect traitor. Someone willing to destroy the site for his own ego. When new candidates come up to me in the future and ask me for a little advice, I will tell them of Kempite, I will point to his profile, I will direct them to all his accomplishments, and then I will tell them it all turned to shit, because Kempite took the essence of democracy itself, and wiped his ass with it.

Now, more than ever, U4Prez needs a Constitution, a framework through which this kind of thing becomes harder to pull off.

Kempite wins a recent video contest because he talks about being a "serious candidate". He has a lot of fucking nerve, to accept the prize with one hand, as he stabs U4Prez in the back with the other.

Kempite didn't betray me, I knew what he was a LONG time ago. Kempite betrayed U4Prez and a whole lot of people who went to bat for him. If they continue to defend him, if Iron Lady ever defends his name when someone brings his crimes up, then they go beyond blind loyalty, they transcend blind loyalty into complete stupidity.

For something positive, I thank Eric Gurr for sending a strong message, that such games will not be tolerated. I'm sorry I had to become a raving bitch out in the wilderness for this to come to pass, but considering how he has reprimanded ten people for hacking and manipulation, it is clear, if nothing else, he is tired of the idea of U4Prez being seen as a corrupt, neglected site, where favorites get away with what they want, and the creator will let it all go. Had this happened six weeks ago, maybe things would be completely different.

BigDaddy yips ar everyone's ankles, claiming he GOT Olivia, GOT Copulate, with his usual NAH-na-NAH-NAH appeal. BigDaddy, you're not in Copulate's league. You are a homophobe trying to play GOTCHA games concerning your perceived homphobia in others, how tragic is that! We're trying to stop these harmful games, not perpetuate them. U4Prez will die if it descends to BigDaddy's level. What Kempite did hits to the core of U4Prez itself. Bagging on me because you question my motives for voting how I did in 2004, are you really going to sit there and call that a GOTCHA? If all you care about is the GOTCHA, then I declare Copulate the winner, BigDaddy, he took out the biggest name at U4Prez, but he didn't do it with gameplaying or nagging or namecalling, no; he used the truth. If this is truly a game to you, BigDaddy, Copulate's scored a touchdown, you lose, game over. For once, the good guys win.

It will be interesting to see who lands where in the Hard Right, and who will be the first to pat Kempite on the back.

As for me, Kempite, keep my name out of your fucking mouth! I told you guys over and over and OVER again, you have bigger things to worry about than how Olivia runs her campaign, how Olivia runs the Independent Party, how Olivia runs her mouth. You got caught, and if anyone else in your clique is doing it, they will be caught as well. You have no credibility left. All those who rely on you for their status will either distance themselves with you, or fall alongside with your down the crapper of mediocrity, and you will cease to ever be taken seriously ever again. Anytime you ever talk about that whore Olivia again, everyone will look at you, and say, didn't you whore yourself out to turn a few 1's into 10's?

The very first soundbite I ever put on my profile was, the difference between me and the rest in Washington is I'll tell you up front I'm a prostitute. I wonder which whore this place will appreciate more from this point on.

Never Mind the Big Boys, Let's Talk about You!

Last week, the moderators put up in the News Section their desire for you to put a short video together for YouTube. They're running their debate for the Republican candidates, and they mysterious powers-that-be thought it would be cool if someone at U4Prez got their video, asking the candidates a question, used at the debate, and hence shown all over the world on cable television.

I'm awaiting the moderators to announce Kempite's video won yet again, most likely because the moderators will only support a video made by the hand-picked president himself. Hedrick, Lucky, Mejico, anyone else wanting to take a crack at this, don't even waste your time, it's Kempite, or it's no one.

I thought it would be pertinent to turn the tables on this one. Instead of acting like adoring fans, why don't we have these kind of questions asked right here, for the U4Prez candidates to answer? You all are running for President, am I right? Then maybe YOU should get the opportunity to answer such questions.

In this spirit, I pose the following question to all candidates at U4Prez:

QUESTION: There has been some talk concerning a U4Prez Constitution to be written after the general election in November. If you are elected President, what do you think your role in writing such a Constitution should be, and, as a follow up, what is one thing you would definitely want to see put into this Constitution?

Maybe I should have addressed this to Kempite personally. As much as I believe he has been, and continues to be, the largest recipient of moderator favoritism, and there is a firm base of evidence to support this and the "fix", in not wanting to crush everyone's spirit and to actually have fun with the concept, I address the question to all of U4Prez. All are invited to answer this as a comment on this blog or in an email or message to me.

As for me, let me deliver my own answer.

Ever since I brought up the idea of a U4Prez Constitution, everyone I've talked to on the subject not only thinks it's a good idea, they can't wait to get started on it. I truly hope these people are brainstorming ideas, because if and when I do return after the general election, I want to jump in with both feet and really take this on. This is important, because it will be a document letting not only the Internet on the whole where we stand as a community and how we solve the problems we face, it will also tell the moderators what we expect from U4Prez as a website.

There are problems at U4Prez, some are trivial, like being unable to delete a frikkin photo without moderator approval, and some are major, like having a reliable system for counting votes that all candidates can understand. Some of the issues that face us, we can handle ourselves; issues of conduct, harassment, and anything of that nature, I believe we can police ourselves, and we should all take a more active role in such endeavors. But there are other items we simply have no or little control over.

A Constitution would change that. It would lay down a structure through which we as candidates can solve our own problems, can make the moderators more responsive to our needs, and can make U4Prez the sort of vibrant place it was once and could be again.

I am not running for President this year, but were I to win the Presidency in November, I would oversee the creation of a Constitution Convention, much like the conventions when the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution were written in the 1780's. It would involve all party leaders, past and present, all primary winners, and any other agreed-upon candidates at the party leaders' discretion. I would say, if we got at least the thirty most involved candidates at U4Prez to take part in this, we could create such a Constitution by January 2008, should we start a week after the general election of November 2007.

The role of the President would be to PRESIDE, not to write it herself. She would be the one to set the tone, to organize, to be at the center of the tempest, to calm candidates down, to organize committees and oversee debates. She would also be the one to frame the Constitution to her making, either making it resemble the US Constitution, or to come up with something entirely different. As the Convention wore on, the President would be organizing votes on given sections, piecing these sections together, and at long last, offering a draft the Convention can vote on as a whole.

As in real life, the President does not write law. Legislation begins in committees in the House and Senate. Such committees would do the actual hard work of penning this Constitution. The President can promote some of her agenda, assist the committees, but in the end, these committees would do the nuts-and-bolts work.

One issue I would definitely want addressed in such a Constitution would be vote reform, how votes are cast, how ratings are configured, and more importantly, how votes are counted in a fair, transparent way. Such a process should be made easy to understand, so there is no more wondering how one candidate can beat another under whatever cockamamie condition. It would demand the moderators make the voting process clear to all candidates as they sign up, the moderators no longer surprise us with whimsical changes to the process, they no longer act as if they can make it up as they go, and most importantly, such a process can be challenged.

Ratings are one thing, but however ratings are created, they need to not change at the drop of a hat, with no explanation.

Vote count reform, though, would be my prime issue as President. If we can't trust elections, then what's the point in playing democracy? If no one understands the process, it can only turn to chaos, which is the status quo. If the moderators can change the system in the middle of a run-off, then you can hardly blame me for bringing up favoritism and the fix. Unless there is a designated place where the vote count system is posted, easily accessible to all and easily understood by all, it is subject to corruption and manipulation.

As you can see, such a Constitution would force the moderators to be much more open and honest in how they determine run-off leaders, instead of merely announcing winners at their convenience, producing numbers no one really understands. Such openness would promote trust in the process. A well-written Constitution would state not only how the candidates demand such votecounts to be done, but also what will happen when the moderators blow it, and how the candidates can challenge the results. With transparency, however, I would like to think almost all elections would be considered legitimate, but in cases where a vote is suspect, the Constitution would have guidelines as to what should happen in such an event, and what we demand the moderators do to rectify the situation.

In short, WE have the power to make law for U4Prez and to enforce it.

I'm not saying we should have three branches of government, a bicameral legislature, yada yada. But I am saying, we should have a system in place whereby we can solve crises ourselves, where we work with the moderators, and the President will have a role in upholding and defending this Constitution. How the President does this will go a long way to whether or not she will be re-elected next year, because such a President would have the chance to put some of their principles to practice. Hence, the President is not just someone who won a contest. The President actually will have responsibilties according to the Constitution we all write together.

But this is all speculation, my own daydreaming from my own question.

I encourage all candidates to challenge one another and ask of themselves these kind of questions, not just go around and around ober Washington politics, but the politics within the U4Prez world. How would you solve the problems U4Prez itself faces, were you to actually be elected President in this little world of ours? I offer up the question I posed for you to consider, and I hope to get some sort of feedback on what I ponied up.

And if you've thought up some questions to ask U4Prez candidates, this is the place to bring them up. Never mind the big boys and their canned responses, you know what they'll say, there's no real surprises there. But you've been at U4Prez for a while, you know it for what it is. If you were in a position to improve it, what would you do? What kind of questions would you pose to those candidates who have won a primary and are in a position to win it all? How would YOU answer these sort of questions?

Feel free to comment plentifully on this one.

Six Secrets to a World-Class Flame-Out

One of my better friends got a hold of me last night just a hair too late, alerting me that The Wiz was losing control. I rushed to U4Prez as soon as I could, and there he was, really ranting about things I'll tell you about later. I wanted to chime in, give him a quick PM to tell him I was here, he needed to calm down before he got himself in real trouble.

I was just too late. When I got there, even though his crown was at the top of the comment listings, his account had been suspended. TheWiz flamed out.

I've talked to him since then, and I thought how his blaze of glory went. And in this moment of reflection, my mind came to rest on my own flame-out last month, my own resignation that was too awesome to deliver quietly. In this thought, I think I can pat myself on the back, because I flamed one of the all-time greatest flame-outs you will ever see on a message board.

TheWiz will read this, and I know GESmith reads this on occasion, and if they had to do it over again, I'm sure they would make sure they didn't just get shoved to the door as if by a half-dozen bouncers at some nightclub. Had they had it to do over again, I guarantee you they would have made sure they got EVERYTHING out that they wanted to say. That's sort of the problem with spontaneous combustion, it's... well, spontaneous. There's no time to rehearse. It happens.

I think that's why my meltdown was so frenzied and dramatic, because I had actually quit the night before. I came back, knowing it was a bad idea to do so, and it didn't take much, just the usual sarcasm from the Hard Right hooligans, to set me off. I had a night to think about what would happen if I returned, hence, to a small degree, I guess my flame-out was planned.

And I think I'm in a position to offer advice for those of you who are frustrated with U4Prez, don't know why you bother showing up anymore, and are looking to quit with a little bit of panache. Why just walk away and no one notice for a few weeks, when you can rip shit and tear ass and let EVERYONE know you're pissed off and can only be happy again if everyone else is even more pissed than you!

Here are six tips, six thoughts to consider as you feel yourself sliding into the fire, and you are dancing the forbidden dance of the flame-out.

FIRST, PICK A TARGET. There's no point in going after someone who doesn't come around but once a week, he's not going to know what you're spazzing about. If you're going to go down, go down swinging at the biggest baddest motherfucker you can find. In my case, Mduminiak was around, even as a monkeyboy he was the highest ranking member of the Hard Right around, I might as well let him have to deal with me. I think this made my flame-out better because my wrath was focused, concentrated on a single individual, and that individual had an outstanding reputation for being a gold-ribbon asshole. I didn't go after the others who were there. If the bomb was strapped to my chest, I was going to give the biggest target at the moment a big kiss as it went off.

SECOND, IGNORE THE SARCASM AT THE PERIPHERY. While I was going after Mike, you had the usual Hard Right thugs chiming in with insults and sarcasm. I think they knew I was leaving and melting down, why not give Olivia one more good kick to the solarplexus as she's getting thrown to the curb? I remember Musicman asking who pissed in my Cheerios that morning. Iron Lady and I think BigDaddy started in with the usual dysentary that runs from their vocal chords, but I don't remember what they said, I really don't. That's because I was focused on my target, and I was letting loose my inner demons for all to have to deal with. Now, had I removed my sights from Mduminiak and went after Musicman, the flame-out would have become discombobulated, out of sync, all over the place. The single stream of ranting would have become two, then three and four and more rivulets, none with the impact that original burst of angst would have if continued uninterrupted. Because I kept going forward with my attack, it was far more effective than had I went after everyone at once.

THIRD, USE EVERYTHING WITHIN REACH TO FUEL YOUR TANTRUM. It wasn't enough that I was screaming and morphing into the lunatic psychobitch some had already painted me into being. I had to do more. I went to my own profile and erased all of it. I went to the Indyleader profile and posted my resignation there for all to see. I started ripping down the Antipartisan Pledge. Everything I had a hand in, everything that had taken five months to build, I was ripping down in a few minutes. And while that was happening, I was still bellowing at my target, maintaining my focus on him. See, you can walk and chew gum at the same time, provided you keep your target eyed up. So long as every step is a forward step, your hands can go complete apeshit and rip down anything on the walls. By doing this, by ripping down your own work, you're ripping your heart out of the place, and this jagged, gaping hole will be left for everyone to patch.

FOURTH, YOU HAVE EVERYONE'S ATTENTION, SAY IT! And Lord knows I did. I called the fix, and I called Eric Gurr out on the charge of favoritism, for all to hear. And while I was being poo-poo'ed by some, I knew there was a jolt of truth in it, and it rang out through many who had confided in me over the months, the belief that this whole thing was bought and sold, that the president had already been picked, and that U4Prez was going down the crapper because Gurr wanted to play with the elite instead of reconcile the bloody voting system! Unfortunately, unless you are one of about five candidates on U4Prez, Eric Gurr really doesn't give a shit about what you think. A flame-out, however, gets his attention real quick, and if the cursing is fluid and rancid, and the ranting gets faster and faster, he will come RUNNING to your needs. And that's a real pity, that Eric really doesn't care about what the vast majority of candidates have to say, and that you have to impale yourself against the wall to get his attention. Had he shown that kind of attention in previous incarnations, perhaps the need to set yourself on fire wouldn't be so harried and consuming. Of course, the reality is he presses a button, and poof, you're gone, your profile is suspended, and hopefully that's the end of it.

FIFTH, IF YOU KNOW YOU'RE GOING DOWN, TAKE SOMEONE WITH YOU IF YOU CAN. Suspending the OliviaLLC profile wasn't enough to get me to go away. I quickly jumped onto the Indyleader profile and continued the rant. That worked for a minute or two, until Eric suspended that one as well. But it gave me a moment to see a few new faces, and it struck me, these poor saps were just starting as candidates, maybe I should save them the heartache and tell them the fix was in, and they'd go find something better to do. I was able to get my RUN FOR YOUR LIVES blast in on three of them before I was cut from that one as well. I tried it again on the Antipartisan Pledge profile, but Eric was catching on and cut me off quickly. I was strongly thinking about using the Women's Society profile, and I may have tried, but by that time I think Eric just cut my IP address altogether. I watched as I continued to fume, watched how smug some acted, how others asked what my problem was, how the argument seemed to continue without me for a few moments. It was strange. But I knew I was about to be cut, and I had enough presence of mind to warn a few newbies, as I was being drug out kicking and screaming, to not even bother, Kempite's the winner, sorry to blow the surprise for everyone, now you can do something more productive with your lives than build a tidy little campaign while the Hard Right hooligans laugh you down.

SIXTH, END THE TIRADE ON YOUR TERMS, NOT THEIRS. I think everyone has left at least one bad job in their lives, thinking to themselves, I know enough to bury this place, all I would have to do is spill my guts, and this place would be down the tubes. I think most of us, if not all, have thought that one time or another, but we never actually do it. Well, I told myself that's exactly what I will do, spill my guts, let it all hang out, tell all the little stories I'd been tucking away all these months, all the sordid details not known in the U4Prez mainstream. All of it true, all of it was on the record, it's just a matter of recording it in a way that others could make sense of it. When I wrote my first article, I truly thought this blog would last a week tops, that I would have no readers, that life would go on. I truly didn't expect Eric Gurr being demoted because of what a disgruntled former candidate had to say, and yet he was, which brought instant credibility to the points I was making as I was flaming. I also didn't expect my meltdown to become perhaps THE seminal event in U4Prez history, because I knew I had enemies before I flamed, but I had no idea how deeply obsessed they were over me. They didn't have Eric Gurr with his finger on the trigger any longer, waiting to shoot me down again should I get uppity and out of line. They no longer had the creator in their hip pockets. I had no idea every video Kempite would make thereafter would have Olivia as a tag. I had no idea Mduminiak would make MORE anti-Olivia videos. I certainly had no idea those two would make me the centerpiece of their talk shows and their history-making 67-minute couchfest. The blog I thought would last a week as the final burst of a nasty flame-out has become a five-week tour-de-force. There is definitely something to be said about leaving on your own terms.

I got Kempite and Mduminiak sending their lackeys over to my blog to write YOU'RE A WHORE and STUPID SLUT where they can. I got Kempite himself calling me a crackwhore on video, probably the stupidest thing a candidate trying to promote himself as one with answers instead of games could do. Now they have their minions coming to me, just like Osama bin Laden sends his stooges to Al-Jazeera with his latest video, begging me to debate them on their shows. Why would I do that? Since my departure, I've said what I wanted to say, without fear of a drop in ratings or suspension for vulgarity, and they've twisted themselves every which-a-way trying to deal with it all. They've put on the most savage attack campaign in U4Prez history, and for all their efforts, there's a petition being circulated for my re-instatement, with I believe more signatures than the U4Decency Petition, a petition co-authored by Kempite, a petition he long ago used as bathroom tissue. Why in the world would I suddenly give them the time of day? Sounds to me like I'm having my way with them.

I am in this position because I had a world-class flame-out last month, and U4prez is still feeling the effects of it.

I am tempted to jump onto one of these talk shows, or even start one of my own. Can you imagine, Kiss & Tell on the radio?

Trust me on this, though, candidates, there are 2500 candidates out there. The U4Prez world does not revolve around these two putzes. I've had invitations to do other shows, and I am strongly considering calling up the Johnny/John show when it gets off the ground, or perhaps take Rosty up on his invitation for the "DynamicDuo" to make an appearance. Who knows? I can tell you this, such an event will be on my own dime, not to give the Gruesome Twosome the sort of audience they've never enjoyed, but to have fun with a friend or two.

I have these options because I had the flame-out to end all flame-outs.

I'm not sure what the future will hold for Wiz. I hope we haven't seen the last of him. I hope he can rest assured, thought, that his moment of spontaneous combustion could certainly have been worse, and while I hope there won't ever be a repeat performance, in case it does so come to pass, I've offered him six points of advice for a bigger and badder flame-out.

And if you're sitting there, frustrated with U4Prez, and you have the gasoline in one hand and the lighter in the other, I encourage you to take my six points to heart. There's no point in lighting yourself on fire unless you intend on maximizing it, sucking every morsel of marrow out of that bone, making the most of your final moments in this world. Why be a fire when you can be a shooting star, streaking and screaming across the sky for all to deal with? I think you've got your work cut out for you if you insist on trying to top my effort, because, frankly speaking, when it comes to losing one's mind for all to watch, I've set the bar pretty high. Don't settle for mediocrity. Burn bright!