Parking Lot in Salt Lake City

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Kind of weird to do this now, just days after an election in which endorsements were requested and received without the issue being raised then.

Aside from endorsements, what other ties are there?

Looking at both endorsement results and actual votes cast, you guys snubbed every candidate we ran except for WxTransit at-Large and I suppose ASV but he was safe anyways. You did not back Wxtransit Deep South, Weatherboy or Utah Neolib At-Large, or really even either of our Lincoln GC candidates in terms of actual 1st preferences - the votes of yours that went to RC or myself were largely originally with a Fed write in that apparently dropped out at the last second but who was pretty clearly intended to restrict DA to one seat. And then once you realized he withdrew you tried to put forth another candidate, a ploy which only failed because you guys didn't have enough votes that weren't already cast.

The other main tie is DA voting for Fed Presidential tickets. While I won't speak for anyone else, I am personally not going to back LT if he is the nominee. Yes that means preffing Sev (or really any Laborite aside from a few choice characters) over him. (I will not at this point comment on any other potential nominee). I view LT as a clear criminal who belongs in an Atlasian Jail Cell, and your refusal to publicly denounce him specifically in any concrete way before your message here today shows clearly the level of influence he is still allowed to have. I don't care about "I can't control my membership" or "Oh I've talked to him privately" - if you really had a problem you would do something concrete. Even if you don't have the votes to remove his status as a voting member of the party, you could:

1: Refuse to vote for him in an election (you could even pick an election where your vote wouldn't matter such as his landslide reelection last month)

2: Eject him from party discords (while we don't have access necessarily there's no indication you've done this)

3: Endorse candidates he dislikes in leadership elections

Notice none of these involve you campaigning against him, resigning from the chairmanship, leaving the party, or even necessarily voting Labor (1 would allow you to just not vote or write in something). They're relatively simple actions that would show your disagreement in a concrete manner.

If I had a dollar for every time I told LT to STFU and behave either in public or private, I would not have to worry about how to pay for my Spring tuition. For a long time I have requested the LT not be present on Lokcord as it tends to bring out the worst in him and had that policy been followed this would not have happened to begin with. As such I am rather pleased with the Lokcord ban. I seem to recall saying as much back in the mid summer (may have been in a discord discussion I don't remember).

Private discussions are about as meaningful as a US Senator saying they're "concerned" and then falling in line with leadership the next day.

The Lokcord ban has not diminished his standing or approval among Federalists or Southerners more broadly. Enough said.

I cannot comment on penalties and discussions related to this matter in "a certain place", and I don't think it appropriate from a legalistic perspective to get ahead of an ongoing court process especially with regards to stripping someone of office/voting rights etc.

As a general rule I have repeatedly discouraged the kind of singularly focused approach whereby individuals are latched onto as targets to be destroyed or crippled one way or another as I have long found this to be counter productive and with examples of such being repeatedly demonstrated. A good example was the myopic focus on destroying Pericles in 2018 and its role in helping to facilitate the restoration of Labor. To the extent that LT, YT or anyone has engaged in such approach, I have repeatedly discouraged such going all the way back to DWTL in late 2009 with his "list of enemies". The effort to "get" at certain people distracts from the larger strategic objectives, hampers the ability to collaborate with natural allies, empowers and emboldens the opposition (as well as to arbitrarily inflate their support) and can lead to if taken to extreme, criminal activity.

Often times the response used to blunt my warnings has been the need to "fight back", the need to not be steam rolled over and respond in kind for slights both real and imagined. However, the difference becomes one of Cold Harbor and Vicksburg, Pickett's Charge and Chancellorsville. To engage in counter productive actions such as those referenced above in 2018, doesn't stand up when the end results are weighed even if the criteria is one of "punch back hard" or whatever you want to call it. In such circumstances, the aggressive (pushing beyond acceptable bounds) pursuit of an objective, becomes the very undoing of success at it.

As a party you are free to resolve whatever you desire and deem in your own best interest. It is not my objective to change your minds on this vote, it is merely my objective to communicate my own long standing opinions, convey the various and (somewhat) conflicting roles I have had to play in regards to this matter, and hopefully protect the reputation of my party and its members.

LT's actions are clear, he:

1) gained access to a document he shouldn't have even known existed
2) looked at the viewers and picked one to prey on, taking note of their real name without their consent
3) demanded to know what their Atlas username was

I'm honestly pretty terrified of what he might have done had someone given that out given it may have been someone high up in Labor that he would thoroughly enjoy ruining the online and offline lives of.

And then of course the attitude towards Scott weighs heavily as well.

On secrecy and playing different hats: Fine, but it doesn't change the fact that you've taken no action against LT and from an outside perspective appear to be more or less embracing him, and that your party largely did not back our candidates even though we declared for the ballot or at least before polls opened, while you guys resorted to last minute write ins.

In my view you and your party have shown you wish to lessen ties with us, and are embracing and enshrining an individual I believe many of us cannot support, and therefore I have voted Aye on the resolution.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The only non-Fed endorsed for Region wide office, received every Federalist vote and that was you Dwarven Dragon.

We voted for AGA too and I voted for you Wulfric so I dont know what you guys are talking about

AGA is not even a DA member he's a liberal so he's pretty irrelevant to a DA convention.

While the support for my vanity northeast campaign was nice and I do appreciate it, I'm referring to my more viable GC candidacy above, where:
Your (OSR) and Feds more broadly first pref was for SN enough said. Had he not withdrawn I would never have seen your vote.

3: Endorse candidates he dislikes in leadership elections

Also, you do realize that there are no contested leadership elections.

There is nothing to stop leadership elections from being contested.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The only non-Fed endorsed for Region wide office, received every Federalist vote and that was you Dwarven Dragon.

We voted for AGA too and I voted for you Wulfric so I dont know what you guys are talking about

AGA is not even a DA member he's a liberal so he's pretty irrelevant to a DA convention.

While the support for my vanity northeast campaign was nice and I do appreciate it, I'm referring to my more viable GC candidacy above, where:
Your (OSR) and Feds more broadly first pref was for SN enough said. Had he not withdrawn I would never have seen your vote.

The expectation was that Brother Jonathan was going to run again, at least that was what I heard communicated to me and this is why the convention vote played out the way it did. Your outrage would be more understandable if in fact you won endorsement and then the above happened.

AGA is relevant because he was endorsed on our At-large slate and then received solid backing from federalist preferences. It is thus relevant to a discussion about us throwing people under the bus or whatever this is.

3: Endorse candidates he dislikes in leadership elections

Also, you do realize that there are no contested leadership elections.

There is nothing to stop leadership elections from being contested.

There is nothing to stop people from declaring for office by the 15th of the month prior to the election as has been long standing Federalist policy, either. Still doesn't happen though.

If BJ was the intention, why were there a bunch of first prefs (6 valid and a couple more not) for SN2903 then?  (they were only transferred due to SN never actually declaring)

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The only non-Fed endorsed for Region wide office, received every Federalist vote and that was you Dwarven Dragon.

We voted for AGA too and I voted for you Wulfric so I dont know what you guys are talking about

AGA is not even a DA member he's a liberal so he's pretty irrelevant to a DA convention.

While the support for my vanity northeast campaign was nice and I do appreciate it, I'm referring to my more viable GC candidacy above, where:
Your (OSR) and Feds more broadly first pref was for SN enough said. Had he not withdrawn I would never have seen your vote.

The expectation was that Brother Jonathan was going to run again, at least that was what I heard communicated to me and this is why the convention vote played out the way it did. Your outrage would be more understandable if in fact you won endorsement and then the above happened.

AGA is relevant because he was endorsed on our At-large slate and then received solid backing from federalist preferences. It is thus relevant to a discussion about us throwing people under the bus or whatever this is.

3: Endorse candidates he dislikes in leadership elections

Also, you do realize that there are no contested leadership elections.

There is nothing to stop leadership elections from being contested.

There is nothing to stop people from declaring for office by the 15th of the month prior to the election as has been long standing Federalist policy, either. Still doesn't happen though.

If BJ was the intention, why were there a bunch of first prefs (6 valid and a couple more not) for SN2903 then?

My understanding (possibly incorrect from bits I read Sunday night) was that a realization was made that BJ was not running again and thus efforts shifted to another Fed. I was not on discord until late Sunday night, and have no idea what the mechanics were regarding Lincoln GC. I was not able to get this past Sunday off of work like I normally do because of inventory and the back to school rush.

Well this is all very weird so I'd appreciate hearing more from someone more aware if you can arrange that. Knowing there were only 4 seats to allocate, why not back the candidates already on the ballot rather than someone (SN) who apparently wasn't even committed to a candidacy (hence the Sunday night abrupt adjustment from SN to BJ (so apparently BJ indicated he would run privately, privately withdrew, and then got back in again according to your account and the vote pattern).

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The only non-Fed endorsed for Region wide office, received every Federalist vote and that was you Dwarven Dragon.

We voted for AGA too and I voted for you Wulfric so I dont know what you guys are talking about

AGA is not even a DA member he's a liberal so he's pretty irrelevant to a DA convention.

While the support for my vanity northeast campaign was nice and I do appreciate it, I'm referring to my more viable GC candidacy above, where:
Your (OSR) and Feds more broadly first pref was for SN enough said. Had he not withdrawn I would never have seen your vote.

The expectation was that Brother Jonathan was going to run again, at least that was what I heard communicated to me and this is why the convention vote played out the way it did. Your outrage would be more understandable if in fact you won endorsement and then the above happened.

AGA is relevant because he was endorsed on our At-large slate and then received solid backing from federalist preferences. It is thus relevant to a discussion about us throwing people under the bus or whatever this is.

3: Endorse candidates he dislikes in leadership elections

Also, you do realize that there are no contested leadership elections.

There is nothing to stop leadership elections from being contested.

There is nothing to stop people from declaring for office by the 15th of the month prior to the election as has been long standing Federalist policy, either. Still doesn't happen though.

If BJ was the intention, why were there a bunch of first prefs (6 valid and a couple more not) for SN2903 then?

My understanding (possibly incorrect from bits I read Sunday night) was that a realization was made that BJ was not running again and thus efforts shifted to another Fed. I was not on discord until late Sunday night, and have no idea what the mechanics were regarding Lincoln GC. I was not able to get this past Sunday off of work like I normally do because of inventory and the back to school rush.

Well this is all very weird so I'd appreciate hearing more from someone more aware if you can arrange that. Knowing there were only 4 seats to allocate, why not back the candidates already on the ballot rather than someone (SN) who apparently wasn't even committed to a candidacy (hence the Sunday night abrupt adjustment from SN to BJ (so apparently BJ indicated he would run privately, privately withdrew, and then got back in again according to your account and the vote pattern).

The information I picked up may have been backwards. I heard something about BJ not accepting write ins, without clarification as to when in the election this was. It might have been in regards to the end instead of the beginning.

BJ was not accepting at the beginning and started accepting later in the election.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

This seems very much on the order of trying to shut the stable door after the horse bolted. But Wulfric did express a wish to hear more clarification on the Lincoln Fed situation.

either of our Lincoln GC candidates in terms of actual 1st preferences - the votes of yours that went to RC or myself were largely originally with a Fed write in that apparently dropped out at the last second but who was pretty clearly intended to restrict DA to one seat. And then once you realized he withdrew you tried to put forth another candidate, a ploy which only failed because you guys didn't have enough votes that weren't already cast.

As the Regional Chair and having been in charge of Federalist GOTV there, this is categorically false.

My initial GOTV did not include either of the Feds who ended up being written in because neither of them were part of any plan. The Feds who voted for RC directly – look 'em up – are pretty much typical voters whose votes happened to matter most when the election ended. The SN thing was communicated to me later on (more precisely, that a Fed wanted to run and that that Fed was SN) and justified by his recent interest in running again. He then ended up backing out of it, apparently early on in the weekend, not that that stopped other people from writing him in afterwards.

I wrote Jonathan in, as I always do, but a DA candidate (RC) was clearly preferenced ahead of him in reflection of this reality.

Is it partially my fault that Jonathan later wrote himself in, as he also often does, and several other voters then bandwagoned that write-in into a candidacy that would never have been accepted by the write-in in question? Maybe. But both of our write-ins were longstanding habits of ours that were not picked up on by anyone else in any election prior to this one. Jonathan made no indication either before or during the election that his write-in was any different from what he usually does. Calling either of our write-ins a "ploy" is ridiculous. I was not online during the weekend to carry out any such ploys, even if I wanted to (spoiler: I don't), and also clearly communicated this ahead of time at the beginning of the election.

End result: the candidates on the ballot were backed because neither Fed accepted. The blame for all that probably lies with me, as the person who did the GOTV, but I fail to see how your argument follows from that because it doesn't match up with what happened at all.

From a legal perspective, Jonathan's vote for himself is in fact an acceptance. Had Kaiser not preffed me, or if I had gotten slightly less prefs from Tack/Crane, I would have stayed behind Jonathan throughout and the seat would have gone to Jonathan. Had he conceded his victory (in Lincoln this is done by never swearing in), the seat would go to special election.

My argument is that instead of backing either of the DA candidates who actually wanted the job, most of you guys instead backed SN first and foremost and did so for nearly the entire election, despite him in the end not wanting the job, and then when you realized he did not want it, you then shifted your remaining votes to another Fed in hopes you still had enough votes left to control the outcome. If your argument is instead that SN's withdrawal wasn't communicated out for some time and that votes would have been different if communication was better, and that the write-ins for Jonathan were just a meme, it doesn't really make you look much better - in this case, several voters vaulted a meme candidacy (BJ) instead of backing any real candidacy, and said meme candidacy came within a preference (in one scenario) or a couple of preferences (in another) of winning, under which the region would have to deal with a special election for not just one but two seats (the ensuing vacancy in Tack's seat plus BJ's seat).

TL;DR: I appreciate the additional perspective but it doesn't shift my view on the best path forward for the DA.