First and foremost, I want to thank the party for the trust they have placed in me and sawx. We will not let you down.
And I want to thank Polnut, who was the best Chair we could have hoped for and who built this newly revived effort from a minor party struggling for recognition into the thriving, principled and committed team that we are today. The TPP is a singular force in Atlasian public life because of Polnut, and all of us who take part in this movement owe him our deepest gratitude for his service to our cause and to our nation.
In the national elections this weekend, Atlasia faces a clear choice - to move backwards to the days of rancor, party-line tedium and innumerable reckless political stunts, or to push forward with the work of building a better Senate and a better nation. Too often, still, the Senate is clogged with irrelevancies and impracticalities, and while I apologise to my many friends on the political right, it must be said that this epidemic of crackpottery seems to more recently stem from extreme right rather than left.
Our party's representatives in the Senate are among the most dedicated and diligent public servants I've known in all my years in Atlasia. Senator Polnut, a true statesman, has established himself as the conscience of the Senate, a (too often sole) voice of reason when the fringe right or left champion unpassable and unworkable legislation as red meat to their supporters. And in his short time in the Senate since rejoining the fray, Senator Bacon King has been an eloquent and thoughtful legislator, seeking to build consensus in unlikely places instead of burning bridges, as well as serving with distinction on the blue ribbon commission on electoral reform.
We are a small party. We always have been, and likely always will be. A message of cross-party compromise and consensus solutions will never be as popular or as exciting as caterwauling about the gold standard or the guillotine. But what this party exists to offer is simple - good government. That is what our Senators work for every day in Nyman. That is what my friends, Governors Sawx and Simfan work for every day in the Northeast and the Pacific. That is what Vice-President SJoyce works for every day in the White House. What Duke, Averroes, SirNick, Flo and our other regional legislators, party elders and friends of The People are fighting for.
Now can I promise perfection? No. No one can and it would be irresponsible to do. People slip up. We will sometimes make the wrong call. That happens in government - it's the nature of the beast. What I can promise is that TPP is a party that holds dear Edmund Burke's belief that your representative owes you not just his work, but his judgement. We have our
clear principles and platform, but the people that serve as our at-large Senators are above all else people whose judgement you can trust, and know that no one is cloistered in party HQ sending out decrees on the official line. That's not how we do things, and never will be. That's not good government.
I'd like to end by quoting our departing chair, Senator Polnut, who I think wonderfully summed up the vision of this party -
We are driven by best-evidence and best-practice, not ideology. We believe in aiming for the future with open eyes and a heart full of optimism.So my friends, if you want good government, for the people, and, yes, by The People, we must work like never before to re-elect our Senators this weekend. It will not be easy, but I am confident that we can do it, together.
We must move forward not back and always twirling, twirling towards freedom.
