Federalist Party NPC Elections HQ

[Joseph Cao]

[Representative Cao made a trip to western Vermont at the request of Burlington’s Federalist leaders, who joined in organizing a Zoom fundraiser in town before letting the Representative and local candidates for the state House and Senate pay a visit to Grand Isle County and its leading towns. Among these were a stop in the town of North Hero located out on Lake Champlain, where he delivered the speech reprinted below.]

Good afternoon, Vermonters! Glad to see everyone here continuing to wear your masks and all the rest of it, even as I’m sure the proximity to a great lake (though not officially a Great Lake) and that fresh breeze coming in at this very moment is doing wonders for your immune systems. It’s great to be – can we get a check on this microphone? Yep. There we go. Thank you very much.

Anyway, to continue. It’s great to be out here on Lake Champlain today, near the site of one of the finest moments in our own War for Independence. You all are well acquainted with the course of events during the failed British campaign in this area, I’m sure, so I won’t bore you all too much with a retelling. I do want to note that if things had gone differently at the time, if the British had succeeded, the entire course of the war would have been altered. Being near the site of one of the inflection points of the war really throws its repercussions and legacies into relief, and also serves as a reminder of why the war was fought in the first place. It has to be emphasized that our Revolutionary War was one of the first to be triggered by an idea and a philosophy of the world that was fundamentally at odds with what the British (and the rest of the world, really) considered to be viable. But it was the brainchild of some of the finest thinkers of their generation, who during the war – a war over an idea of what the thirteen colonies could be – also proved to be able strategists, proved willing to fight and die for an idea, and  in the aftermath proved themselves fully capable of getting a nation founded on an idea to its feet. Our politicians today may not loom anywhere near as large as the Founders did in their time, but we at the Federalist Party likewise realize that a set of animating principles can prove to be the linchpin (or Lynch-pin, if you will) that holds together a group of public servants, gives them the drive to get things done for this nation and its citizens, and supplies those accomplishments with a proper philosophical framework that lets them stand the test of time and last for future generations. We’ve tried to keep to that goal since our founding; and since then we’ve brought policies and changes to Vermont and to other states all across Atlasia that lift up the common man and woman, those in the city and those in the country, marginalized communities of all sizes and shapes – that give them and their communities the chance to flourish.

So we’ve covered the past; let’s get to the present. Lake Champlain may loom large in our national history, but for you all there are also practicalities and issues that come with living on a lake. It’s been on the receiving end of a host of problems. The recent low precipitation has been lowering water levels in rivers across Western Vermont that drain into the lake, and there’s been consequences for its wildlife. Part of that wildlife is also under threat from chemicals that drain into the lakes and rivers of the Champlain Valley – pesticides and chlorine-treated water being particularly egregious offenders. And other lakes across Vermont and the nation, most of them less illustrious than this one, are falling victim to the same forces. This state of affairs can’t be allowed to stand. Every civilization has held a reverence for nature and the environment that gave them what they needed to survive. Our modern society has surely lost some of that gratitude, and as citizens, we all have a responsibility to do what we can and take what small steps we can manage in order to preserve our lakes, our rivers, and our environment. And as for us, the officeholders who you have the power to elect, we have additional responsibilities to go with that additional power: to stand up to corporations who generate the majority of air and water pollution, to oversee efforts to restore habitats, and to work with the scientists and workers who know best how to get about it.

The Federalist Party stands ready to protect Lake Champlain and other lakes across Vermont and Lincoln and Atlasia. We stand ready to protect and to preserve and to defend not just the people and communities of Vermont, but their environments as well. Nothing lasting happens without a favorable environment, as the Founders made skilful use of, and none of the plans we have for Vermont can get off the ground without an environment of trust. The day to determine that environment is approaching. Let’s push forward and create a better economic, social, and natural environment for all – and here to explain how she aims to do that, please welcome a longtime advocate of preserving Vermont’s natural beauty, a pioneer of sustainable approaches in managing Lake Champlain’s drainage system, and your next state representative!

[West_Midlander]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

Rally in Louisville, KY

Hello, Louisville! It's great to be here in lovely Kentucky!

Today I want to talk to you about radicalism and truth. Our party is decried as radical and as a home for radicals. Our party is home to many people who have varying political beliefs, as is so for any big tent party.

What I want to bring to your attention is that in a poll of party members, 43% answered that they identify as some variant of moderate. As the Secretary of my party's own Moderate Caucus, I know that we have many people who are very passionate about their political convictions, some of them conservative and others more moderate.

Our party will fight for Main Street values, for responsible government and spending, for small business and for the common man! If you want your vote to show your support for those values, please vote for our Federalist candidates here in Kentucky.

Rally in Lexington, KY

Good evening, Lexington!

A poll of Federalist party voters showed that our party said politicians should resist centralism. Our voters were unanimous in this position. This is our party's stance because we know that a government so large that it can provide anything you could ever want is large enough to take away your God-given right to own a gun, your right to property on a whim, and your freedom without due process.

Authoritarianism and promises of true equality in other countries have always begotten suffering for the people. Fattening of the rulers of communist countries while the poor toil, die of starvation or waste away in gulags. This is the freest country God ever created. If you believe we should never surrender our rights en masse to a monstrous central government, if you believe in balance, in federalism, then you are a Federalist. Please vote for your local Federalist candidates this election, for liberty, for property, and prosperity.

[West_Midlander]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

Rally in Houston, TX

Howdy, Houston!

Today I wanted to talk to y'all about economic policy, guns, and about the Federalist Party's broader appeal.

Our party strongly supports fiscal conservativism and responsible government. Most members of our party completely support a social safety net but we believe our debt obligations are important also. We know that COVID-19 relief (if additional aid is necessary) comes before our financial obligations. However, our party knows that once the health crisis is overcome, once our economy recovers, our debt remains and when we are solidly back on our two feet we should act before we are forced into a dire position by our mounting debt.

Our party also has a strong appeal to moderates. While our membership is solidly pro-gun and mostly opposed to an assault weapons ban (which I personally oppose as well), 14% of our membership does support this measure. I certainly can appreciate this position as a response to gun violence and I personally support other, less invasive gun control measures (i.e. the boyfriend loophole, automatic background checks, etc). I definitely understand the reason why people support the assault weapons ban, however, because I used to be among them. I should also note that a majority of our party supports background checks.

Returning to economics, our party has broad appeal here as well. Our membership is unanimous in its belief in regulating the economy to prevent monopoly and to preserve competition. We, Federalists, value free-market competition because the free market reduces costs, increases choice, and incentivizes innovation. However, the benefits of the free market are slightly curbed when monopolization takes place. Though, a wholly state-run system is the worst economic system conceivable. Under this system, consumer choice is eliminated and the federal government has all the power.

In an ideal economic system, small businesses and small LLCs and corporations are empowered. Once our economy recovers, it is my personal belief that we should remove economic subsidies from most large corporations and I believe many in my party share a similar view. The claim that our party supports smart deregulation in service of big business obviously has no standing due to the reasons that I have mentioned. We support that policy because it is good for economic growth, particularly that of small businesses.

Additionally, I believe tariffs have their place in limited circumstances and that view is shared by most in our party. A supermajority (71%) of our party believes in "strategic use of tariffs" while a minority (14% each) believes in free trade and protectionism, respectively. Both of these other views have their place in the conservative movement, however. I am confident, though, that our party has a solid (super-)majority to govern on the tariff issue if elected. The position that I and others take is that outsourcing is something that should be stemmed. The limited tariff (and protectionist) stance says that Atlasian jobs are weighed over free competition on the global scale and lower prices on some goods at home. Others make this calculation differently (valuing cheaper goods and a global free market more) and come out supporting free trade as a result. However, it is my position that a person has a particular belief because they have come to that conclusion in their own, correct, way. No person can be faulted for their political belief if they have considered the issue from both sides and differently from myself.

If you believe strongly in small business, a fair, free market, and civil discourse on political subjects then I encourage you to support your local and state Federalist candidates.

[West_Midlander]

Dixie Strong PAC Ad
To be aired in urban and suburban Missouri, Kentucky, and Texas through the end of the campaign cycle

Don't fall for the fearmongering. The Federalist Party strongly supports LGBT Atlasians and same-sex marriage as an institution. A poll of registered Federalist Party voters showed that 100% of that party's membership favors LGBT rights. Additionally, 85% of Federalists favor same-sex marriage. 15% of Federalists hold the libertarian stance that government should get out of marriage and 0% of Federalists are opposed to marriage equality. A vote for the Federalists is a vote for LGBT rights, for small business, and for tax breaks for you. This message paid for by the DSP and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

[Joseph Cao]

[Representative Cao was introduced at a masked and socially distanced rally for the Federalist gubernatorial candidate in Bennington by the local town manager, who was in turn introduced by a number of state senators for southern Vermont. A transcript of his speech is reproduced below.]

Thank you for that fine speech, Mr. Manager! And I’m greatly honored to be here in Bennington today. Folks, thank you very much for coming out here to listen to us this fine afternoon, and thank you for keeping up the mask-wearing and social distancing; it is a mark of your willingness as civic-minded citizens to listen and to critically weigh the various campaigns up here around the state in preparation for making your decision at the ballot box just a week from now.

We’re glad you’re stepping up, and I can tell you that we the officeholders you elected are also stepping up in turn: your town manager over here, who’s graciously welcomed all of us today, has been able to implement a new Strategic Economic Development Plan for the entire local area as part of his work on the Bennington Economic Development Partners. Local workers and local businesses can now reap the benefits of folks like your town manager’s hard work in keeping big corporations from taking over the town economy. This, folks, is the party of Main Street values! And we say to you all that if he and other Federalists are able to take the state House this October, we are ready to hit the ground running and give the small businesses of this great state the opportunity to flourish as they never have before.

And look, COVID is still dominating our lives. That’s not something that’s up for debate. But Atlasia is nothing if not resilient and we will be able to get through this if we continue to keep our fellow citizens in mind, keep their health and their wellbeing and their humanity in mind, and act accordingly. That means keeping in mind the safety of your high-risk neighbors and friends and family. It means giving what courtesies you can to these people to protect them and protect all of us, keeping six feet away, washing your hands, staying as healthy as possible, not placing others at risk by congregating as little as possible. The severity of this disease has been impressed upon all of us. Its impact on our lives has been equally devastating, particularly so for the underprivileged and the marginalized. But what we ordinary citizens can do, what I’ve mentioned above, can go a long way towards helping the nation recover. The responsibilities falling to doctors and medical staff and essential workers as the primary ones facing the pandemic head-on are those that strictly depend on their role – and as for us officeholders, if falls to us to support them and give them space to do what they need to do.

Whatever else Franklin Roosevelt may have said, he hit the nail exactly on the head when he told the nation just under ninety years ago that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The fear experienced by the ordinary citizens across Atlasia, the working men and women who wake up each day not sure if they’ll survive, is not rational. That is entirely natural! “Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror” is old as time and has been remarked upon by many, many people in various forms – not least of all North Bennington’s own famous daughter, Shirley Jackson. Jackson’s stories and novels are, for the most part, not about external threats. The ghost in every story of hers lurks within the readers’ own minds. We in Atlasia, however, are fully aware of the limitations that have been set in place, and I hope you all over the past months have become better aware of what you can do to stay safe and help to bring our country over the hump. We still fear, that is true. But if that fear can motivate us to be on our guard – if the paralyzing effects of that fear can be ameliorated by hope for a better future – if each of us can rise beyond the depths into which this “nameless terror” seeks to drag our nation and its citizens, and to look out for our fellow citizens to offer them the help they need – then, Atlasia, I am fully confident that the common men and women of this nation will get through this long national moment of crisis.

And it falls to us public servants gathered here today to do so as well, for the citizens we represent in our public capacity as well as for ourselves in our personal capacity. It falls to us now to tell you all exactly what we seek to do to combat this crisis, and to do that, Bennington, I invite you all to give your best welcome to a fighter for communities like Bennington all over the state; a fine public servant with an accomplished record; your next Governor of Vermont!

[West_Midlander]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

Rally in San Antonio, TX

Buenas días, San Antonio!

I am a Catholic, a Latino, and a Federalist. I am proud to be a member of a party that values life. 100% of our party members are pro-life, according to a poll of registered party voters.

Some say that being "pro-life" means supporting abortion and social welfare but I don't agree. I strongly support a social safety net and most of my colleagues in this party do as well. Congresswoman Jessica does, Congressman Spark does, and many others too. We support programs to curb homeless, to fight poverty, to do some things to help our most vulnerable in conjunction with lower levels of government. This is federalism, power should be equally distributed between the regions and the federal government. All power shouldn't lie with the federal government because this is how we get excessive waste and abuse, at the Pentagon for example. You have to specify because when you say waste some people claim that you are saying social programs are a "waste" and that is a blatant lie.

Our party is consistently pro-life. This label is ours. This label chiefly applies to the unborn but our party is very pro-life in other areas as well. A majority of our party opposes the death penalty. A supermajority (71%) of our party supports cutting waste in the Pentagon as opposed to increasing military spending. A plurality of our party supports foreign policy restraint. In addition, a supermajority (84%) of our party supports either foreign policy restraint, non-intervention, or isolationism.

Our party is about protecting life, freedom, and opportunity. Please vote for your local and state Federalists if you agree with us.

Rally in Irving, TX

Hello, Irving! It's great to be in Texas!

Our party is majority Christian and 28% Catholic. We will always fight for religious freedom and for the right of people to any speech so long as it does not directly encourage violence.

We support your right to believe or not and I personally believe students should be able to pray in non-teacher-led prayer in public school. I come from a religious, rural community in North Carolina and I know how important faith is to all of us there as it is to y’all in Texas. I go to a small Catholic church in town and we socially distance and we give the peace sign now instead of shaking hands but we can still believe together as we should.
I have voted for agnostics and I don’t hold it against them but no one can deny that this is the party of faith. If you strongly believe in the right to worship and in the right to free speech, please vote for your local Federalists!

Rally in Lefors, TX

Hello, Lefors!

I know what it’s like to come from a small, small town because I call a town home in North Carolina that has a population about a hundred people less than Lefors.

I know that there are farms in this area. I come from a community where a lot of people farm. One farm grows strawberries and other produce, some people have cattle, lots of folks have great big, green, John Deere tractors.

In high school, for our school pride week, we used to have about three tractors pulled up into a little courtyard. In our town’s Christmas parade, people ride through with tons of tractors and oftentimes you get behind a combine harvester on the roads in Southern Franklin County, where I come from. You never get frustrated, though, because you know “no farms, no food” is absolutely true.

Liberals (small l), oftentimes from big cities, talk big about helping out rural Atlasia but in reality, they look down on us. They call us “hicks” in closed quarters, or “rednecks.” Of course, they do.

This is the real farmer’s party. I will always fight for your rights, and for small family agriculture and not the big corporations. If you believe as I do, please consider me for Atlasia’s House and vote for your local Federalist slate!

[West_Midlander]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

Rally in Austin, TX

Hello, Austin!

Today I want to you about taxes and Southern governance for Southern people. Fremont and Lincoln are being taxed to death (including regional rates). We don't want that kind of taxation here in the South. We know that when you work hard, you deserve to keep more of your money. Of course, y'all are smart enough to decide what you want to do with your own earnings!

You don't need a nanny state to take most of your earnings and to provide everything to you. Latinos and Southerners at-large, we value individualism, and I know this is true of Texans too. We value property, the right to life, and the right of the people to happiness. An overly powerful, omnipotent federal government has the power to take away any or all of your rights, to dictate what you can do on your own property to an obscene degree, to take away your guns, to regulate speech, and on and on.

Folks from other regions or new residents to our region make big promises of this program and that service but at what cost? We, Federalists, strongly believe in social welfare in conjunction with private enterprise, in conjunction with private charity. We hold this stance because we know the long arm of Nyman can reach down to Austin and extinguish the candle of liberty if we empower that central institution (our federal government) so. We need a federal government but there must be a balance, and there must be limits on federal power.

As a native Southerner, I hold this region in high esteem, maybe too much in comparison to the other regions but I am proudly Southern. I believe strongly, that compared to the other regions, our region follows the original Atlasian system of federalism, laid out by the original American founders (from before our refounding as Atlasia). The founders were not stupid; to think that we can improve upon their governing model in supporting a centralist system is not a wise move in my view.

If you agree with us, on personal responsibility, federalism, and fair, balanced government, please vote for your local and state Federalist candidates!

Rally in Dallas, TX

Howdy, Dallas!

Your rights should extend insofar as they don't infringe on anyone else's. When we talk about "safe spaces" and hate speech, we need to be careful. No limits, aside from prohibiting violence-inducing speech, should be placed on free speech. Censorship is dangerous to our democracy whether online or off.

If the government can censor offensive views, up to and including racism, we fall onto a slippery slope where an increasingly large central government can censor even political views that it doesn't like. As a multiracial, half-Mexican person, of course, I oppose racism and I don't discriminate against anyone. However, if we dictate which views can or cannot be peacefully spoken, all of our rights are in danger. Especially when the same liberals who support policies such as these are those who support severely limiting your gun rights and expanding the already-enormous central government even more.

If you fervently believe in free speech and liberty, please vote for your local Federalists! Thank you, Dallas!

[West_Midlander]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

Rally in Arlington, TX

Hello, Arlington!

Some folks seem to equate concern for an overarching big government as a direct critique of their own party. This critique is well taken because the governing party in Nyman recognizes that it is the party of big government and history has shown us that big government grows more oppressive the more powerful it becomes.

We know that our party, the Federalist Party, is the party of guns and the party of gun owners. Our party is the party of hunters, the party of sportsmen, and the party of safe use and care of guns. Our party is more unified in favor of your gun rights than the majority party because we recognize that this is a fundamental freedom of the people. As some folks say, the right to guns protects all other rights. God-willing, it will never come to that, and the way we prevent that outcome is by voting. Our vote is our first defense against tyranny. A vote for your local Federalists is a vote for a reasonably-sized federal government, paired with an empowered regional government.

Vote for freedom and liberty, vote Federalist! Thank you, Arlington!

[West_Midlander]

Dixie Strong PAC Ads
To be aired in rural Missouri, Kentucky, and Texas through the end of the campaign cycle

Do you believe life begins at conception? Do you oppose late-term abortion and support strong families? If you are strongly pro-life, you are at home in the Federalist Party. Vote for your local and state Federalist candidates this election. This message paid for by the Dixie Strong PAC and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

The Federalist Party is the party of gun rights and the party of defense of property. Our party will fight to make it easier to operate a small business and lower taxes for working families. If you agree with us, vote Federalist this election. This message paid for by the Dixie Strong PAC and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

To be aired statewide in Missouri, Kentucky, and Texas through the end of the campaign cycle

The Federalist Party supports making it easier to operate a small business and lower taxes for working families. If you agree with us, vote Federalist this election. This message paid for by the DSP and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

[Joseph Cao]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

Rally in Arlington, TX

Hello, Arlington!

Some folks seem to equate concern for an overarching big government as a direct critique of their own party. This critique is well taken because the governing party in Nyman recognizes that it is the party of big government and history has shown us that big government grows more oppressive the more powerful it becomes.

We know that our party, the Federalist Party, is the party of guns and the party of gun owners. Our party is the party of hunters, the party of sportsmen, and the party of safe use and care of guns. Our party is more unified in favor of your gun rights than the majority party because we recognize that this is a fundamental freedom of the people. As some folks say, the right to guns protects all other rights. God-willing, it will never come to that, and the way we prevent that outcome is by voting. Our vote is our first defense against tyranny. A vote for your local Federalists is a vote for a reasonably-sized federal government, paired with an empowered regional government.

Vote for freedom and liberty, vote Federalist! Thank you, Arlington!

Thank you for them fightin’ words, Westy! And thank you, Arlington, for having us here – keep masking up, keep socially distancing as you all are doing now! Folks, I just want to mention that the both of us are going to be on your ballot in just over a week’s time. So if you want a pair of listening ears and careful hands who will fight for your concerns and your needs in the House, I urge you to vote for the both of us – and for others up and down the ballot who will likewise be a representative for every Atlasian, whether liberal or conservative or in between!

Now, I’m not the first person most would think of when associating politicians with the South. Still, I am a federally elected representative who was sent to the People’s House by a coalition of Atlasians that is not bounded by any state or region; I have a concern for my constituents and for their wellbeing and have both introduced and supported legislation that will alleviate some of the problems ordinary citizens like yourself face each day. And I want to point out something in the messages that have been on the air recently. It is Labor’s right, of course, to seek your support. But I hope I can make the case for why that message is somewhat flawed despite its undoubtedly good intentions, and why the Federalists will continue to fight for you and you only.

Positive government action has been considered something of an oxymoron by certain people to my right. I do have to say, however, that while I categorically reject that hyperbolic characterization, the role of government in Atlasian society continues to be something that only the Federalist Party has consistently gotten right even as we fix infrastructure, get COVID relief to the people, lower taxes, fight for a transition towards clean energy that doesn’t leave anyone behind, provide support for Atlasians’ childcare, and more besides. From our founding, we have recognized the crucial role the states and regions play in administering the people of this great nation, far more informed about each locality’s idiosyncrasies than the federal government could ever be by virtue of being far closer to ordinary citizens on the ground. And we recognize that the role and structure of government helps to make these wonderful policies you hear about more practical, more workable, and better and fairer for all Atlasians. The bicameralism, the rules and unspoken structures of legislative debate, the checks and balances in our federal government: all of these were put in place explicitly to slow down the process of “getting things done” in order to allow reasoned and constructive debate to be held. Such debate produces far better policy that has input from people of all political persuasions.

And we Federalists have resisted efforts toward governmental streamlining – to switch to unicameralism, say, or to bypass the legislature’s role in the legislative process – because we understand that such moves, no matter how much they are accompanied by assurances that this is only necessary to get more and better legislation through more quickly for the good of the people, ultimately accomplish exactly the opposite. Governing is difficult, and this is partly because it was designed to be so. But such a system was set up because the last thing the Founding Fathers (those of America and those of Atlasia) wanted was for governing to turn into ruling. The people invariably suffer when more power and more agency is concentrated in one place. This nation was founded upon the notion that a decentralized system of government could succeed in spite of all contemporary evidence to the contrary; that we would now move back towards the form of governing we categorically rejected several times is a slight to what ordinary Atlasians past and present have metaphorically and literally fought for. What we Federalists have managed to do, and what I’m proud of, is to still be able to deliver results for you good folks – healthcare, infrastructure, clean energy – while doing our best to preserve the institutions and the principles that have driven this nation since its inception.

So having made the case for ourselves and for the agency of you the people, we hope you all can do your duty as citizens of this nation: to be a reasoned and informed participant in the democratic process with an eye towards fighting for what is best for you, your neighbor, your family, and your community. We do our best in what we do in our own constitutionally defined roles: to fight for the people and for the nation. Now, people of Arlington, inhabitants of Texas, citizens of Atlasia, it falls to you to do likewise and make the best choices you can. We wish you all the best of luck.

[West_Midlander]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

Rally in Corpus Christi, TX

Hello, Corpus Christi!

The claim has been made that our party is bankrolled by Wall Street. That couldn’t be further from the truth. While I do run the pro-Federalist Dixie Strong PAC, this organization has been strictly people-funded since its founding, rejecting contributions from non-person entities. Additionally, I have never taken contributions from any Wall Street or corporate entities and I pledge to you now that I never will.

Furthermore, the assertion has been made that putting importance on social policy (in conjunction with economic policy) is the wrong way to go about things. I wholly disagree with the premise that standing up for important social policies is a distraction from economic policies because all of these issues are dearly important. We know that preserving your gun rights and protecting the unborn is extremely important. Equally, we know that encouraging small businesses and lower taxes for working families is important as well. We have always supported common-sense, people-first economic policies because we trust and respect y’all to decide for yourselves where wholly appropriate.

We know that sometimes economic aid from the federal, regional, state, or local government is necessary. Occasionally, especially these days, we fall on hard times...particularly now due to COVID-19, and some of us have to rely on private charity or government aid and there is no shame in that. We will continue to work to uplift our most downtrodden while respecting the right of people to earn money, to create businesses, to prosper, and to live freely.

If you agree with us, please vote for your local and state Federalist candidates!

Rally in El Paso, TX
Joint-campaign event for WM for House and pro-immigration reform W. Texas Federalist candidates

Buenas noches, El Paso!

I support immigration reform and I am a Federalist. Not everyone in my party agrees on this issue but opponents of immigration reform don’t have bad intentions in my view.

As a Latino, I know that we work hard and value making it our own way. We don’t like to ask for help. Our party has some of the same values: valuing individualism, hard work, and keeping more of one’s own pay.

We know that we must help the neediest in our society, our elderly, the disabled, and in particular, our veterans, especially those suffering from physical disabilities or non-physical ones like PTSD. This is parallel to the importance of family in Latino culture. If we value individualism and capitalism, and treat our most downtrodden in society as our elders, like our family, then we are probably better off.

I don’t support a hypothetical physical barrier of any kind on the border because I think economic conditions contribute more to immigration. I don’t think a physical barrier is very much effective. Though, I don’t think this is a prospect that has much support in Atlasia anyway.

If you share my values, I encourage you to vote for your Federalist candidates.

I extend my arm to greet the local moderate Federalist candidates onto the stage; several are Latinos, themselves

Rally in Plano, TX

Hello, Plano!

Thank you for coming out today!

I strongly favor conservationism and clean energy, including nuclear. I think some environmental measures go too far but I do think that climate change is a pressing concern. Some in my party support an all-of-the-above approach to energy and I can understand that because they value energy independence most. Liberals (small l) value preserving the climate but many prefer to leave nuclear out of the equation, which seems counterintuitive in my view.

We have to make some hard choices to protect our environment but we shouldn’t undertake actions that are plainly impossible or economically destructive.

I am hopeful, however, that as clean energies become cheaper they will be used more often and I support federal subsidies for companies who produce clean energy and I also support federal money to further research clean energies. Conservatives, at-large, have always valued conservationism, from American (before our refounding as Atlasia) Presidents Roosevelt to Nixon who created the EPA to the conservation endeavors undertaken by President Reagan.

I made conservation a priority when I was an elected official previously and wrote the Southern Environmental Act and was previously a member of the regional Climate Action Now party. I reject the claim that our party does not care about the environment, about conservation. If you care about conservationism and encouraging economic growth, jointly; I encourage you to vote Federalist this election!

Rally in Lubbock, TX

Hello, Lubbock!

If even Labor’s own presidential candidate thinks the country is in a state of chaos after a handful of consecutive Labor terms in government, it is time for a change of leadership in Nyman. From that candidate’s own campaign launch speech and I quote:

There's none of the calm and quiet of the past year. The atmosphere is much more similar to that of two years ago - when I got elected vice president the first time. So now more than ever we need order in the midst of chaos.

If you want elected officials who will work to end the chaos, vote Federalist. If you want leaders who support moderate, sensible police and criminal justice reforms without neutering the police, and leaders who will protect your communities and small businesses, then I encourage you to vote Federalist this election.

Our party knows that there are racial disparities but that totally disempowering the police to an extreme degree is a bad idea. We know that reforms are needed, and some have already been passed, but we should be careful not to overcorrect. Overcorrection, i.e. reparations, for example, would mean treading into divisive waters instead of bridging the racial divide in our great country. I implore you to vote Federalist for a return to normalcy and a brighter tomorrow!

Garland, TX

Hello, Garland!

Today I would like to talk with y’all about the truth of ideology and what is said on the campaign trail compared to actions in government.

I did not see guns on the Labor presidential candidate’s platform page. This leads me to believe that not only is guns not a major part of his candidacy at all but something that he only uses as a political prop to appeal to swing or conservative voters. Obviously, he holds this view (for guns) only mildly and doesn’t feel the need to fight for it as much as he should. I already feared that he would, as President, idly refuse to fight a Labor Congress, if he is elected along with one. I would have hoped that he would have forced his party, as its Chairman, to repeal the Assault Weapons Ban. But, I do not think that would be a priority of his administration, whatsoever. Our party is not the exclusive home of gun-rights supporters and sportsmen but in terms of campaigners and elected officials, we are home to the most devout followers of the pro-gun ideology.

We fervently believe in repealing the Assault Weapons Ban. We know your gun rights should not be so terribly infringed as is the current state of affairs. The right to own guns is not absolute but the Assault Weapons Ban goes much too far. A vote for the Federalist Party is a vote for real defense of gun rights! Vote early or on election day!

Speech in Kansas City, MO
Speech to a socially conservative group

I believe if someone is convicted, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by a jury of his peers for certain, heinous crimes he should not be allowed back into society. This is because he has such a high chance to re-offend. Some prisoners can be rehabilitated in my view. Prison education, rehabilitation, and religious programs are useful. Some criminals like pedophiles and rapists will likely commit another offense and this is more likely so for pedophiles, in my view.

Too often pedophiles are let off too easily. For these two types of criminals, I don’t support the possibility of parole and if a state or region prefers, they should be able to utilize the death penalty.

I don’t know if she shares my view on this point specifically but in general, Congresswoman Jessica shares my view of strengthening penalties for sexual predators and other sexual criminals and has introduced legislation to that effect.

I would, however, ask that states not use the death penalty unless they were 100% sure they have the right person since a life sentence can be appealed.

Candidate MB, though, says he will institute a national ban on the death penalty and on life sentences for all criminals. We respect states’ rights and we strongly support measures to deter treacherous sexual criminals. I strongly believe that these measures, even if not as a deterrent, prevent these evil people from personally destroying more lives.

Thank you for having me here and thanks for coming out. Please vote for our local Federalist candidates if you agree with me on this important message.

[West_Midlander]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

St. Louis, MO

Hello, St. Louis!

Our party represents an economic agenda that appeals to the widest spectrum of Atlasians. No party in Atlasia, in my view, serves corporate interests or Wall Street. However, I believe my party does the best job serving real Main Street values.

I want to briefly mention the majority-party of Atlasia and its presidential candidate before I discuss our platform because we are often the two major competitors. In most parts of the country, voters mostly split into the Federalist and Labor parties on election day, however, Peace has made a bid for this state this cycle. That is beside the point, though. Anyway, the platform of Labor’s candidate seems to blur the line between seriousness and satire. I say this because his platform is very much a wishlist yet still lacks a mention of guns at all. Obviously, there is no mention of repealing the Assault Weapons Ban either. Furthermore, it seems hard to think that his administration would accomplish most of the things that he sets out to achieve especially since most seem out of the mainstream, even outside of what is publicly acceptable for many in his party and supporters. Many of his supporters—and this view is not only mine—probably align more with another candidate but are choosing to vote the party line instead.

Instead, as proud Missourians, as Southerners, I am asking you to humor me. Some of you may be Laborites but I ask you to bear with me. If you are a small business owner, if you are upper-middle class, I encourage you to hear me out and to consider the Federalists this election.

Labor’s economic agenda would prove disastrous if enacted. Their agenda would destroy our economy when our goal should be encouraging regrowth. This is because their primary aim is satisfying leftists and not the average Atlasian, not the median hard-working Atlasian. Their economic agenda is not meant to accomplish anything aside from punishing corporations and punishing wealth.

Our economic position is that we believe our debt obligations as a nation are important. We believe it is irresponsible for a nation to accumulate debt with no intent to pay. We also strongly believe in programs to invest in infrastructure and to fight poverty and unemployment. We know that additional aid may be needed to encourage recovery from this treacherous health crisis.

We believe in removing unnecessary red tape that keeps small businesses from thriving and we believe in safely reopening schools. We believe in local choice. We fervently believe in federalism and that the central government doesn’t have all the answers. What works for Fremont and Lincoln doesn’t always work for the South and what works for Nashville doesn’t always work for Missouri and St. Louis [respectively].

We know that the federal government has to step in to preserve the free market in some cases and our party is massively united on this issue. We know that monopolization crushes consumer choice and drives up costs. We believe in many, small privately-owned businesses. We don’t however, believe in nationalizing whole industries like telecommunications or energy, for example. If you believe in building back a stronger economy and fairer regulation, not punishing wealth and economic growth with radical economic policy, then I encourage you to vote Federalist this election!

[Joseph Cao]

[Ad to be aired in TV stations serving Newark, Hoboken, Camden, Trenton, Paterson, and Atlantic City until Election Day.]

[Atlasia the Beautiful begins playing.]

[A montage of Federalist officeholders: Yankee presiding over the Senate, Cao gaveling the House to order, DeadPrez campaigning, Spark speaking on the House floor, Brother Jonathan working in his office, DTC and reagente casting votes in the Southern Chamber. In the background of each scene, a moving part leaves an orange trail; each officeholder gets a noticeably different shade of orange.]

VOICEOVER: The Federalists are a broad and diverse party and we represent a broad and diverse nation.

[Another montage of Labor, Democratic Alliance, Liberal, and Peace officeholders: MB, Ninja, Poirot, Koopa, Oregon Blue Dog, Jimmy, S019. Each officeholder likewise gets a moving trail with a noticeably different shade of red, or blue, or purple.]

VOICEOVER: So are the rest of Atlasia’s parties. So are their policies. We respect that, and we’d never deny that.

[The pace quickens: a montage of New Jerseyans of all ages, races, genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds.]

VOICEOVER: New Jersey, we urge you to make your decision with this diversity in mind; with the understanding that for bad actors to deny this and to impose political homogeneity on an entire party is to likewise deny the agency and the diversity that all of us in this nation celebrate regardless of our partisan affiliation.

[While Atlasia the Beautiful concludes, the camera pans out on all of these montages as they zoom into the background, which fades to orange.]

VOICEOVER: Reject this reductive form of thinking that has dragged our nation down. This October, let's make an informed choice that isn’t based on hearsay.

This ad paid for by Tri-State Orange, a PAC affiliated with the NJ Federalist Party.

[Joseph Cao]

[Representative Cao made a visit to Pittsfield, Vermont, for a day of reaching out to some of Lincoln’s voters as part of his House and Senate bids and in support of a number of promising candidates for the state House and Senate. A transcript of the livestreamed speech he gave at the masked and socially distanced event is reproduced below.]

Hello, Pittsfield! It’s an honor to be here today, just one week out from a number of important elections that you responsible citizens are going to have to make some decisions on. Now it happens, as you just heard your good state representative say, that I am running for reelection to the House and also for Lincoln Senate – so take that, and take my work for your communities; for the citizens of Vermont and of Atlasia, into consideration as you go about your own business during the coming week. Regardless of which party you support, get out and vote! Your public servants are best served when you citizens express your intentions and your needs through the ballot box in as large numbers as possible. Of course, make sure you stay safe while you’re doing that! Mask up, social distance, vote by mail if you’re in the high-risk category. We want you to keep safe just as we care for our nation’s social, economic, and constitutional wellbeing.

We know things like these aren’t always easy and that external threats to our daily lives and futures aren’t always adequately guarded against. And for you all, Pittsfield, climate change is just as much of an everpresent threat as the coronavirus is; this town’s history has seen it flooded out multiple times, most recently and devastatingly during Hurricane Irene when Route 100 was flooded and you were cut off from everyone else for days. The decreasingly gradual aberrations in an increasingly volatile climate have very real consequences. They can cause untold amounts of devastation: not just here in Pittsfield; not just here in Vermont; but all over Lincoln and Atlasia and the world. They can cut others off from their friends and family, from their livelihoods; and all it might take is simply for one little road, the only way into town, to become impassable. They can remould the physical and economic and personal geography of our communities for years to come. Like COVID-19, this is absolutely not a threat to be taken lightly. Unlike COVID-19, this is not something that can be isolated even as its isolating effects have made themselves known here in Pittsfield and elsewhere; we’re already experiencing its effects across the nation.

Look, this is personal for me as well. My home, not to mention the homes of my family and friends, was flooded out by Hurricane Katrina and many of my possessions were lost in the devastation that attended our city. Higher ground was desperately needed, then as now. But our community understood that material possessions can be replaced, and the miracle of it was that the really irreplaceable things – the ties that bound us together, that enabled us to come together as one body to fix what we had and retrieve what we lost – got our community through the catastrophe and its aftermath. And it pushed our little community of small business owners, fishermen, poor folks and middle-class folks, both during and after the fact, to be more vocal as a community and to stand up and make ourselves and our needs and interests heard. It has also pushed myself and others in the Federalist Party to prioritize combating this continual and growing threat, to lessen the impact it’s already taking on communities all across Atlasia, and to do all this while continuing to give those communities the autonomy and the space to fight climate change on their strengths. Because our values are what makes us a party that continues to speak up for the value of regionalism, of recognizing and encouraging the success of Main Street having far more to offer this nation than Wall Street, and of the good that Atlasians have done and can still do independently of what the government does. And we will use those irreplaceable things, these values of ours that bind us together, to lift you all up as best as we can – to get this state and this nation to higher ground.

We want you all to stand up and make your voices heard, just as my own did all those years ago. We encourage you to take stock of what you need, what your family needs, what your community needs, and listen to those of your fellow citizens who have answered the call of duty and run for office. One of them running for the state Senate this month is here with us today, one of your own local daughters, a first-time candidate, brimming with ideas and experience at taking on such threats on behalf of her community; Pittsfield, it’s my pleasure to now invite you all to give a warm welcome to your next state senator!

[West_Midlander]

Rallies will be socially distanced with masks mandatory. Masks will be handed out at the door for those without. Temperature checks will be taken upon entry.

Rally in El Paso, TX

Buenas días, El Paso!

Labor is running blatantly false attack ads here in Texas. First of all, the ad jumps from talking about pre-existing conditions to cutting Medicaid which the ad also equates to removing Medicaid.

One. The Medicaid program was merged into AtlasCare and so doesn't exist anymore in its own right.

Two. Even as a non-Federalist will tell you and I quote:

The Federalists passed Atlascare and Yankee wrote much of it.

That is why it is called doofcare/Yankeecare.

Federalists will always fight to defend AtlasCare. This important program will always be safe from cuts under a Federalist administration and that program came to be under a Federalist government. Do you like your healthcare? small crowd yells a mixture of "Yes!" and "Si!" Then, vote Federalist for real action instead of false claims and grandstanding. Thank you, El Paso!

[Brother Jonathan]

Speech in Burlington, VT
Speech delivered to a social distanced, masks required, outdoor crowd of 35 in Leddy Park, Burlington. The speech was recorded and broadcast on Lake Champlain Access Television (LCATV) as well as streaming on various internet platforms

By way of introduction, let me say that I truly love the character of city of Burlington, this gateway to Lake Champlain, and the crossroads of New York, Canada, and the rest of New England. Today, Burlington is a diverse and vibrant city, a lovely patchwork that reflects our unique American identity, a melting pot surrounded by the some of purest expressions of New England identity I can think of.

Burlington, indeed Vermont writ large, has become a byword for a certain brand of progressivism, disdainful of any sort of tradition, a fiery hotbed of iconoclasts, the inheritors of the radical Jacobin legacy; we have, the conventional wisdom goes, abandoned by the roadside our once cherished values of tradition, steady and regulated progress, and community minded policy. Those who make such arguments have never seen the true Vermont, or observed in any meaningful sense the real character of her people.

When one ventures beyond the façade, peels back the layers, one sees that Vermont is (as it long has been) a bastion of the sort of conservatism that the Federalist party seeks to promote, and always has. While the rest of the nation has, at every turn, invited in developers and designers to destroy farmland, to turn family farms into the basements of towering apartment complexes and ostentatious (often garish) shopping centers and consumerist havens, here in Vermont we have stood by our past; in the face of truly radical development we stood firm, and placed our traditions, our values, our families, our farms, our communities first.

We may be a state where many have forgotten, or perhaps never knew our Puritan roots, but the white clapboard churches and meetinghouses are not idols of some lost sect whose echoes can no longer be heard. In the temperament and disposition of every Vermonter their remains that Puritan modesty, that disinclination towards the radical usurpations that emerge periodically and threaten to upend our communities. In every community, from Searsburg to Derby, the spirit of Vermont can be found in the ties that have bound us all, to the soil, to our communities, to one another. The Puritan spirit in Vermont is more than an echo, more than a lost tradition; it is a lived mantra that we can see the fruit of all around us.

This modesty and this disposition to preservation are the truest yankee values, the truest Vermont values. These values are conservative values, and I can say confidently that we in the Federalist Party share them. We shall seek, in that great yankee tradition, to marry industry and progress with tradition and community; we shall vigilantly guard against both complacency and radicalism; and above all we shall, as Federalist always have, embody those values that Vermont holds dear.

There is a saying, I'm sure many of you have heard it, attributed variously and in part to E.B. White and Robert Frost, that goes something like this "To a foreigner, a yankee is an American. To an America, a yankee is a northerner. To a northerner, a yankee is an easterner. To an easterner, a yankee is a New Englander. To a New Englander, a yankee is a Vermonter. And to a Vermonter, a yankee is someone who eats pie for breakfast." As someone who is looking forward to a hearty slice when I get home, I must fully agree with this sentiment. I thank you all for coming, and urge you all to vote Federalist, and to enjoy a slice (or two) of pie for breakfast!

[Joseph Cao]

[Radio ad to air in all major New Jersey markets until the election. Officeholders appearing in this ad are voiced by impersonators.]

PERSON 1: I have a pre-existing condition.

PERSON 2: I have a pre-existing condition.

PERSON 3: I have a pre-existing condition.

PERSON 4: I have a pre-existing—

S019 [interrupting]: I have a pre-existing condition, too! I can’t stop living in a fantasy world where other parties want to take away our healthcare.

[Record scratch]

VOICEOVER: New Jersey, your own Labor leaders don’t seem to know that AtlasCare was written in part by Federalist legislators and signed into law by a Federalist administration.

The Federalist Party will always fight for those with pre-existing conditions.

For you, New Jersey, that means preserving and improving your healthcare – and the Federalist Party has the track record to show for it.

For Labor officeholders who can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction, that means voting Labor out this October.

Vote Federalist for leadership you can depend on.

This ad paid for by the Federalist National Committee.

[Radio ad airing in stations serving Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, and Galveston until Election Day. Officeholders appearing in this ad are voiced by impersonators.]

PERSON 1: I have a pre-existing condition.

PERSON 2: I have a pre-existing condition.

PERSON 3: I have a pre-existing condition.

PERSON 4: I have a pre-existing—

S019 [interrupting]: I have a pre-existing condition, too! I can’t stop living in a fantasy world where other parties want to take away our healthcare.

[Record scratch]

VOICEOVER: Labor strategists don’t seem to know that AtlasCare was written in part by Federalist legislators and signed into law by a Federalist administration.

The Federalist Party will always fight for those with pre-existing conditions.

For you ordinary citizens of Texas, that means preserving and improving your healthcare – and the Federalist Party has the track record to show for it.

For Labor officeholders who can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction, that means voting Labor out this October.

Vote Federalist for leadership you can depend on.

This ad paid for by the Federalist National Committee.

[Joseph Cao]

[To conclude an afternoon of campaign events and get-out-the-vote operations across northeastern Vermont, Representative Cao accompanied a number of Federalist state legislators and candidates to Newport for a livestreamed rally at which seating was limited and masks and social distancing were mandated for public health reasons. The speech is reproduced below.]

Thank you for that exceptional speech, Senator! And a very good evening to you, Newport! It’s getting dark and the wind is picking up, but I can still see that you all are taking pains to stay masked up and six feet apart. Good to know my eyesight isn’t failing! Then again, even if it was, I saw an excellent optician’s while passing through the middle of town. This really is a town that leaves no stone unturned for its citizens; or, if you prefer, a community with something for everyone.

Though Newport does happen to be a community with something for everyone in more ways than one. Orleans County is an economic melting pot, but it’s also something of a paradoxical scene: among the highest rates in Vermont of poverty and unemployment and of second home ownership. Now no doubt there is some reason for that last statistic given your inexpensive rental housing – for which we must thank your Federalist city manager’s competence and foresight, by the way – but it nevertheless shows that this little corner of the state is home to a broad cross-section of our nation’s economic walks of life, from people struggling to get by at the best of times to people who remain in a generally comfortable position at the worst of times. And so in the midst of this huge economic and social and total upheaval from the pandemic, I want to say today that the Federalist Party at all its levels is looking to communities like Newport and others across Orleans County as ground zero for how best to get all our citizens across that broad socioeconomic cross-section out of the hole that we’ve all been plunged into. Candidates before me have elaborated on some of their plans in this regard, and candidates after me will continue to do so – and given their proximity to the ground, I think everyone is better served if I leave them to make use of their experience and their expertise in this area. Suffice it to say that I hope you all gathered here and you all watching online come away from this event with a better understanding of your candidate’s economic plans – which are, of course, all laid out on their websites as well.

And as we’ve stressed before, no part of policy can be considered in isolation. In the case of economic policy, we must of course consider the massive distortion and strain that COVID-19 continues to exert on the economy, and precisely how all our grand plans on this front can come to fruition while ordinary Atlasians’ livelihoods continue to be inhibited by the threat of the virus. So we Federalists at all levels of government – myself, your own Lincoln Councillor Brother Jonathan, your gubernatorial candidate and all your state House and state Senate candidates gathered here today – also continue to devote our energies and our votes to supporting our medical workers and providing relief to whichever communities it’s needed in. Still, it should be noted that on a purely human level we officeholders are just as powerless to prevent infection or guard against COVID or make our patients well again as any other ordinary citizen. To beat this crisis, our citizens need to step up en masse; and what we’ve seen, what has made us all immensely proud, has been you Atlasian citizens as a whole, doing just that. Masking up even in the absence of mask mandates; closing your businesses even before and after the duration of lockdown orders in your state; continuing to educate yourselves about this crisis and adapting to it in the good old timeless ingenious American fashion – that, more than anything we poor few officeholders can do to personally prevent the spread of the virus, is what will get us through this intact and ready to spring to greater heights.

Communities like Newport, similar ones all over Vermont and all over Atlasia, and their people who live in them quite literally hold the power of life and death in their hands. Of course, we officeholders live in communities as well. So even as we affirm the good judgement that you folks have made through the crisis and everything else that’s been thrown at you in this pig of a year, and as we continue to urge you all to exert that good judgement in all your daily doings and at the ballot box next week, we’ll likewise continue to fulfill our constitutional duties and make use of the leadership you give us and others. And as I yield the stage to a worthy candidate and a man fully deserving of election to the state House, I would like to express my hope that in the remainder of this event we can convince you that we are the right ones for the jobs to which we seek application – in the House, in the Senate, in the governor's, in the state legislature – to which, moreover, you also have the power of approval or rejection through your vote. Let’s make good use of it.

[Joseph Cao]

[As part of his own reelection campaign to the House and campaign for the Senate, and to support Federalist state legislative candidates and the gubernatorial candidate in Vermont, Representative Cao joined a small masked and socially distanced gathering of candidates and ordinary citizens at a livestreamed public town hall in Montpelier to discuss Federalist policies at the state level, before proceeding to a general event across town which likewise adhered to public health guidelines. The gubernatorial candidate opened the event with an exhortation for all Vermonters to maintain an open political mindset during and after the election, a sentiment echoed in the speech transcribed below.]

Montpelier! It’s great to be back out here again on the trail among you all. I’m delighted to have had a productive roundtable meeting earlier today with some of you good citizens regarding ways to get our local small businesses and workers out of this economic rut, just as I’m sure our candidates here tonight are only too glad for the much-needed input from you all. We as officeholders and as a party benefit from your speaking up; the closer we are and the more feedback we can have at every step of policymaking, the more we all benefit. Every single one of the policies you’ve heard proposed by your local candidates for the state legislature are the products of roundtables and discussions and meetings like the one this afternoon, and I hope you all gathered here today and you all watching this online can see for yourself what we’ve promised all along – the Federalist Party of Vermont will work with and for all Vermonters.

We really do mean all Vermonters; it’s something we’ve always tried to do in light of the politically divided climate we find ourselves in. I’m sure you’ve all seen poll numbers that have the Liberals, the Federalists, Labor, and the Democratic Alliance in something close to a statistical dead heat. A lot of these town halls and meetings have featured voters and questioners with whom we don’t share a party affiliation. It is a mark of Vermonters’ niceness that even the loudest partisans we’ve met have been unfailingly polite and willing to have a reasonable and respectful dialogue on the issues! Anyway, we as candidates have also done a pretty good job of responding to all the questions we’ve gotten regardless of which side of the political aisle they came from. And we’ll continue to do the same for you all if our fine public servants here tonight are able to report for duty in the Capitol across town in a fortnight’s time. I want to be clear that we have our convictions – there’s no denying that policy-wise for any of our candidates or for our future governor here. We will act on our proposed platforms, particularly so when, as with most of our policies thus far, you the people are in agreement.

Still, there are other considerations that tie into what we as leaders and publicly elected officials have a duty to do. It is peculiarly seductive for some politicians to tell their most loyal constituents what they want to hear. But it harms all of them, and all of us, when they tell people that at the expense of what all their fellow-citizens (regardless of party) need to hear. For a public officeholder to focus overly on the voters who already agree with them is to push that officeholder a little further down the path of pushing aside all the others who they serve: other constituents; the rest of the nation that doesn’t agree with their views; even the Constitution itself, which, as you’ll notice, says nothing about any political parties or ideologies. For voters to continue driving this dynamic is to help push our citizenry apart as people gather in their respective ideological corners. It doesn’t take much of this for reasoned political debate to devolve into hatefulness, and as was mentioned at the presidential debate earlier, that is a red line which shouldn’t be crossed.

Feedback loops of this sort are seductive, of course. Why engage with people who drain you of energy through argument when you can retreat to the comfortable circle of friends who will back up everything you say? But that’s a gross distortion of the concept of friendship, as I’m sure you all will agree. Friends are not there to be cheerleaders for whatever you say or do. A friend or anyone else who truly cares about your wellbeing will step in if they see you going astray or settling into tendencies that are destructive in nature. Rather than do what ideological friends are obligated to do, these feedback loops instead amplify our worst attributes and fracture this nation further. Political officeholders swear an oath to the Constitution, to preserve and defend the nation, and to serve their constituents. And they go against the tenets of that oath when they do what is most convenient for them personally, rather than what the nation, their constituents, and the Constitution deserve.

Listening to the concerns of our ideological opposites, treating them with the same courtesy and listening ear as we would our ideological compatriots, is something that benefits us all. I know I’ve done my best to do that in my time as a Representative, as have my fellow candidates for the House this weekend. I'll do my best to do that if you decide to elect me to the Senate. I know our good state legislative candidates and gubernatorial candidate have done that in the time they’ve spent across this beautiful state coming into contact – six feet apart, of course – with voters of all political stripes. And I know that you citizens can do that as well: listen to your neighbors, those with whom you may justifiably disagree, and treat them with the courtesy they deserve as a fellow Vermonter, a fellow citizen of Lincoln and of Atlasia, and a fellow human being. Thank you for your willingness to listen, Montpelier, and please join me in welcoming a fine public servant and fine person who has served you all well magnificently regardless of your ideology – your next state senator!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Springfield, Missouri

This speech was made in a crowd size restricted gathering, with masks required and temperature checks at the door, to campaign for Federalist candidates for Missouri State Government.

I want to thank you for coming out here today and I just want to say how wonderful it is back to be out in the Show Me State, and today I want to go into more detail about how a Main Street Federalist state Government will work to revitalize and strengthen the small towns and cities and rural areas across the state of Missouri with our policies and while the other side may throw baseless attacks, I prefer to speak the people about what matters. Because jobs matter, schools matter, good roads matter and strong communities matter for a strong and vibrant Missouri that will lead the the country and us to the way to the future.

To begin with on Jobs, there are many important steps to create jobs and uplift people out of poverty. Number one we need to ensure that all communities have the basic resources that they need to succeed, and this includes helping struggling communities to keep their schools funded in the wake of a depleted tax base in communities that have lost jobs oversees. It also means working to promote and encourage both education and entrepreneurship in those communities that are struggling in this day and age.

In the digital age there are many opportunities for job and small business development using the internet as a key resource to bring in and ship out various goods and even services to places across this nation but across the world. This means a two pronged strategy of expanding spending on rural broadband so that the people in the small towns, rural areas and inner cities alike have access to the wider world. Beyond that it means engaging through small business development agencies to ensure that these companies are giving the jump start that they needed, are put in touch with supplier networks and demand for their products and services with a global reach.

A successful economy will mean that more is needed then just a vibrant small business sector, as it is vital to keep larger firms present as well, but more important is the strength of the middle class and to maintain a strong middle class, requires a strong base in education both on the career technical and trade side, and also on the University side of things. I will be making a more in-depth speech on education shortly, but for now, I will say that key elements to this success is a balance approach to prepping students for post secondary education, support for communities that are struggling as mentioned above and also reforms to the curriculum to ensure that our students have the best chance possible to be able to succeed.

Eliminating poverty is a multi-step process, it requires building a strong base for the economy, it also requires ensuring access to quality facilities both for main line health care, mental healthcare and drug treatment, which I will also talk about in an upcoming speech. It requires an education system that delivers for our kids. It also requires preservation of fiscal solvency, which the other side has repeatedly and irresponsibly derided as austerity when it is just plain old common sense that even FDR and IKE applied when ensuring that Social Security and the Highways had funding, if you value something and it is important to you, then we should fund it, not rely on the China and OPEC to fund it via the deficit. It should be noted that both inflation and interest operate as a regressive tax on the poorest among us.

In my time in Nyman, I have worked with people of all parties to ensure access to healthcare was not determined by income, and I have supported laborite initiatives on rural development and broadband, and also on combating addiction. A Main Street Federalist state government will work to achieve the same results and I urge you thus to come out and vote for your Main Street Federalist candidates for state legislature and Governor.

Thanks and Have a Blessed Evening!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Joplin, Missouri

This speech was made in a crowd size restricted gathering, with masks required and temperature checks at the door, to campaign for Federalist candidates for Missouri State Government.

Today I want to talk to you about several important and related issues to the economy dealing with matters of health, mental health, addiction and how these matters are both important and vital to the economy, well being and strength of our communities and wholeness of families in this state and around the country for that matter, as well as a number of ways in which action is being done at higher levels of government and furthermore what more can and should be done at the Regional level and what will be done at the state level if you elect a Main Street Federalist State Government.

To begin with I want say that one of the most important areas of healthcare is preventative medicine and action is being taken on the federal level to expand access to these preventative medications at no out of pocket costs through the Reforming Public Healthcare Act system. However, while a number of steps have been taken, it must be noted that there are going to be areas where the region can and should augment these steps. One would be to reform the region's healthcare laws to expand access to preventative care at no cost either through a direct program or requirements for private insurers. It should be noted large segments of the population including those would have formerly been on Medicaid already have these costs covered under the current provisions of the health care law. I also made sure three years ago that any state that did not take the medicaid expansion, that those people who would have been eligible had such occurred be treated just like existing medicaid recipient when rolled into Atlascare with their premiums subsidized along with out of pocket expenses.

Preventative care is important because it helps to mitigate general health and even even addiction related situations before they get worse, get more expensive get more debilitating and generally lead to a worse outcome before solutions are achieved. We have seen numbers that demonstrate just how bad it is for people who have preventative illness and the negative impacts on this has in some many different areas including families, the economy and communities.

However beyond just general health care, when it comes negative impacts, there is a massive impact on worker productivity, not to mention the stress caused on families, especially children who have relatives suffering from mental illness. Mental illness is a tricky subject to tackle because some of the solutions such as spreading awareness and minimizing stigmatization, areas that top of the list of priorities are difficult to address directly, but nonetheless the main street Federalists you elect will pursue a comprehensive strategy on mental health beginning with efforts to combat such stigmatization and also to spread awareness through education in our schools and media campaigns.

There are actions that can be taken people need to easily be able to access the best approaches and latest science based responses to various mental health situations, because the first line of defense often is going not be a professional but a mother, father, brother, sister, someone who has to make a tough phone call and make tough decisions. We cannot make these decisions easy, but we can ensure that people have the knowledge to step when a situation calls for it and thus prevent a bad situation from turning into a tragedy of one form or another. Part of this has to include information and how best to secure weapons and firearms, and while most Federalists are in favor of the right to bear arms responsibly, we understand that the difference between a bad situation and a horrific tragedy can often be made by the presence of weapons of various sorts.

A Comprehensive Mental health strategy is dependent upon access to the facilities and trained personal that can deal with these situations and in many case and situations we have seen these facilitates closed or cut back because of lack of resources. One benefit of the health care reform is that with the reductions in uninsured, many of these places are getting reimbursed and thus are financially solvent. Further work by the regional government can help on this matter as well, but in the absence of that a Federalist led Missouri will work with regional partners to expand and protect mental health facilities.

Part and parcel to this issue is the drug epidemic that has claimed far too many lives and wrecked far too many communities and families. While it is not our desire to resort to mass incarceration, it is necessary that a multi-pronged effort be made to curtail the flow of drugs in but a the same time work to combat and treat addiction so that families can be made whole again. While some people have issues with mandatory drug treatment as a penalty, I think that is a reasonable and far better approach to incarcerating addicts if it is reduced to a binary choice. Absent that, the best approach is always treating it as a medical condition first, rather than a criminal action.

That is only part of it, beyond that there has to be regulation and oversight over prescription practices because unlike many past drug epidemics, this one has it origins in loose pharmacy standards and lack of standards for proscribing addictive pain medication. We have seen reforms to how the Military proscribes these pain killers, we have also seen other federal laws to combat this and provide resources. A Federalist State Government will work to utilize these resources effectively and then work to build on the system to reduce over proscribing and flow of illicit drugs into the state.

Another key point has to be the pursuit of alternative, non-habit forming pain medication, including as a potential option medical marijuana, which has been legal for a long time but naturally there would be a stigma to that, especially for older generations and it would help to reduce that stigma and while maybe not ideal, it is far better than some of these intense, addictive opiate pain medications that have thrown fuel on the fire of this drug epidemic.

A Main Street Federalist state government will work to achieve significant results on health, mental health and drug addition and therefore I encourage you to come out and vote for your state Federalist Party candidates for office this weekend.

Thanks and Have a Blessed Evening!!!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

St. Louis Suburbs

This speech was made in a crowd size restricted gathering, with masks required and temperature checks at the door, to campaign for Federalist candidates for Missouri State Government.

Tonight I want to talk to you in more detail about the various components of a successful education plan and why that is important to the future of this state and the various different components that will inevitably come to be a part of this effort as there is not one problem in the are of education there is thus no one solution that will fix all of the issues that could plague our education system and hour our kids back from achieving their potential.

I like most of my Main Street Federalist colleagues, believe that education is inseparable from opportunity and while you may be able to succeed without it, the chances of doing so become so much more difficult and the numbers really do paint a bleak picture for those who do not have a solid plan for their future and those who don't have the opportunity to get a solid education.

One thing that I want to start off with is saying that there are many paths to education and while we must combat frauds, scams and abuses that often occur especially in the many for-profi private schools and technical institutes, at the same time we should not shy away from encouraging those whose passion it is to work with their hands from pursuing skilled technical and trades based educations that will equip them to succeed and become a part of the middle class as there are a number of people who have succeeded in those fields, but it has to be stated education is necessary their as well be it leaning how to manage a business, learning the field itself with the proper certifications to be able to achieve the trust of a customer base and knowledge to retain them with satisfaction, to learning new skills and abilities that will expand the opportunities in the primary career or branch out into a whole new one.

A key part of this is partnering up between community colleges and businesses to ensure that when people complete these programs that they have a job or at least an apprenticeship lined up so that there chances of getting hired in this field are increased dramatically. There are other ways that this can be facilitated as well including of course the increased support for those seeking to enter these fields in the minority and lower income areas.

Of course to have a balanced and strong middle class and to win in the economy of the 21st century a strong base with knowledge high tech and advanced fields will become necessary, including STEM, Doctors, Teachers and other professionals as well and these will be a vital component that also needs to be encouraged and supported through preparations in High School. Another key factor is ensuring that people who struggle economically are able to afford to attend a tate college campus without money being a limited factor to this being achievable. A key difference on this point is that why Main Street Federalists support helping those who need it, others seem keen to send billionaires on a free ride out of some misguided egalitarianism that somehow ends up rewarding the rich a the expense of the taxpayers.

Before we get to the post secondary education, there is the need to reform and preserve the public school system. Main street Federalists certainly support school choice, but at the same time we recognize the importance of reforming and improving public schools. The ways to do this include the reform of the curriculum to better match not just the needs of the students to prepare for their post secondary education (regardless of which path that might be), but also to better instill in them civic obligations and responsibility, and to ensure most important of all that we are reaching the most students possible with the curriculum structure and instructional methods being deployed. Reform is necessary precisely because the public school system is important, but at the same time while we support reasonable school choice measures we must not be caught in a trap of abandoning the vast majority of students who will be going to public school and thus we need to have a plan to ensure that they too have a chance opportunity.

I encourage you to come out and vote this weekend to support your local main street Federalist candidates for office.

Thanks and have a Blessed Evening!!!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

This speech was made in a crowd size restricted gathering, with masks required and temperature checks at the door, to campaign for Federalist candidates for Missouri State Government.

I have talked about education, multiple health care topics and I have also addressed small business and related matters to growth and prosperity, but we must be mindful that these approaches will not on their own guarantee everyone success and main street Federalists are realists in that we acknowledge the difficulties in this regards, but success in the other key areas will make success here far more workable, be it resolving addiction and/or mental health challenges, be it resolving lack of access to good schools and the opportunity that comes along with that.

There are a number of programs that will be available to help people to transition and get back on their feet of course and it is not the Main Street Federalist''s aim to cut these programs as the other side would always like to imply. Our objective is to cut dependency by helping people get on their feet and thus minimizing the need for such programs and reducing their costs in that way. We feel that this method of reducing dependence is far more likely to be productive and beneficial to society then throwing people off these programs to die in the streets.

That said there are some more areas that can and be vital to the success of any effort to reduce poverty in the state of Missouri. For one thing we need to find a way to make work pay without crippling the ability to the new and small businesses I mentioned before being able to survive, grow and get started. There have been successful ways to partner minimum wage increases with tax incentives to mitigate the impact, and yet beyond that there is supplementing the EITC at the state level though this is certainly with significant cost, it does tend to pull people out of poverty, which reduces dependency and the costs of those programs by extension. I find that to be a preferable approach to encouraging people to work and using that at the same time to reduce dependence on various programs.

Through a combination of education, job development and growth, combating both mental health and addiction and reinvesting in our rural communities and urban centers, we can create the backdrop that minimizes poverty and then pursuing efforts to raise wages that have the minimalist impact on job growth are key elements both to any plan to increase wages and also at the same time to grow the overall economy as I said in my first speech tonight.

I urge you thus to get out and vote for your Main Street Federalist for state legislature and Governor this weekend!

Thanks and a Have a Blessed Evening!!!!

[Joseph Cao]

[Immediately following the election, Representative Cao was in central Vermont continuing to campaign on behalf of the Vermont Federalist Party, which took advantage of party leaders' activity by organizing a series of Zoom fundraising sessions. The following speech was given in Barre, where the Representative had been asked to introduce the Federalist gubernatorial candidate.]

Good afternoon, Barre. Thank you all for keeping your masks on, and thank you all for showing up at the polls last weekend for the federal and regional elections! And I really do mean that. I know many of you probably voted for others on the same ballot, but my campaigns have always been about reaching out to the voters who I serve in our nation’s capital and hearing what they have to say. The more people make their voices heard, the more who come out and speak up for what they need and what they believe in, the better we are as a nation. The more we get to know about the issues that affect your daily lives, the better equipped we are to have a useful conversation with you all in shaping new policies that can solve these questions or alleviate these problems. So thank you all for coming out, and while our region hasn’t seen quite the same level of turnout as it had two months ago, I’m very glad we got to hear from many of you out on the trail about what you’d like to see on the political scene going forward.

Now, as with two months ago, there was some controversy surrounding a number of invalidated ballots, and this is rather a concerning issue – though not precisely for the reasons you might expect. What happened was certainly not something that ought to be encouraged by parties or individual leaders or anyone else, much less carried out once or even two election cycles in a row. It was arguably a distortion of the affected voters’ voices with all that that entails. I’m sure you’ve all heard these arguments ad nauseam, though, so I won’t dwell on it; certainly both sides of the argument have made themselves more than adequately heard.  But in the course of that debate, it was put forward by several officeholders that the morality or ethicality of such actions was of no concern. Now, of course, they are correct from a legal point of view; not everything unethical is necessarily illegal, and in the eyes of the law that distinction is what ultimately matters. As it should! The legal system works as it does for a reason: not as a final arbiter of what is right and wrong, which would subordinate our justice system to subjective concerns that might vary widely between different arbiters of the law, but instead to ensure that a maximally impartial verdict is delivered to all concerned citizens.

But the ethicality of the officeholder is, for precisely that reason, the furthest thing from irrelevant. The fact that there must be some other moral determinant aside from the law, to which we can point when the legal process emerges with a verdict that releases the “obviously guilty” person on insufficient evidence or sentences the “obviously innocent” person on evidence that says otherwise, is paramount in the rest of our many, many daily actions that do not consciously involve the law. Lady Justice is not literally blind; she does not have her eyes gouged out; she merely wears a blindfold, and so she still has powers of sight that must nevertheless be subordinated to the requirements of the legal framework within which she operates. We public officeholders may operate mostly within the bounds of the metaphorical blindfold that our positions impose upon us. Yet as humans and as fellow citizens with just as valuable a vote as the rest of you, we also have the same eyesight you all possess. We may or may not choose to use them, and that is our choice. But I would argue that acting as though that eyesight doesn’t exist, that the spirit of the law does not matter at all, deals a blow even to the act of following the letter of the law.

There is a public impulse to common courtesy and decency which transcends the religious bounds the Founding Fathers were all too aware of. Moreover, their ruminations on the effectiveness of our system of government – particularly that famous essay of John Adams’ – are explicitly predicated on the innate morality of the Atlasian people; people who will do to others as they would have others do to them; people who by and large understand that their fellow citizens are just as deserving of all that our nation has to offer as they themselves do. When we holders of the public trust or we citizens go against that, particularly when it is done deliberately and with full knowledge of the consequences, the ties that bind society together and allow it to function are inevitably weakened. When national leaders openly embrace the idea that nobody has morals and nobody deserves to act as though they still matter, it deals a correspondingly large blow to the bonds of trust upon which our nation runs; including, I may say, those upon which we in Congress and the regional legislatures depend in order to gather together as one body and argue over the issues in good faith as duly elected representatives of the people. People who see politics as a zero-sum game where the ends justify the means are arguably not in it for the communities they claim to fight on behalf of, but rather for whatever burst of adrenaline they get from sucking the moral lifeblood out of our body politic and leaving a soulless legal framework behind to be exploited and loopholed to death.

I and others on the campaign trail here in Vermont have talked a lot this past month about what we Federalists have done, are doing, and can still do: for the sick and the needy and the high-risk, for the struggling small businesses and the people who wake up each day not knowing if they’ll be able to get through this, for the environment and the million and one public facilities that most people use without a second thought. As we’ve also said, we recognize the similar goals being pursued by other parties who likewise care about our nation and its citizens, and we’re more than ready to work with them in legislatures here in Vermont and in other states across Atlasia. But I think what we have – the Federalist Party of Vermont, and by extension that of Lincoln – in our understanding that the process matters just as much as the results; the means just as much as the ends; the wellbeing of our nation’s social and constitutional fabric just as much as the wellbeing of its citizens; is what ultimately sets us apart as the party of all Atlasians: those ahead and those left behind, all of whom are affected by the little things and words and deeds that do still matter.

All the fine candidates with me on stage tonight recognize this, and all of them are eminently fit to tackle not just the problems still facing your communities, but also the problems with respect to either side of this series of dichotomies. It is now my pleasure to introduce a dedicated public servant who has pursued solutions to both of these for most of her life in and around her community, her county, and the state. A warm welcome, please, for your next Governor!