Cybernetic Socialist Republics wrote:Clarified that his air wing did hundreds of sorties, which I guess wasn't clear by my post. IRL NATO did 3,500+ sorties in Operation Deliberate Force, not sure how much the carriers did specifically. Also added arrogance to weaknesses and cut liked by Catholics in strengths.
NS Nation Name: Cybernetic Socialist Republics
Character Name: Upton Robert Fleming
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 36 (Born August 16th, 1970)
Character Height: 6’2
Character Weight: 180 Pounds
Character Position/Role/Job:Character Country/State of Birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Governor of Pennsylvania (2003-)
- Philadelphia District Attorney (1997-2003)
- US Naval Reserve (1997-)
- US Navy Fighter Pilot (1988-1997)
Character State of Residence: Pennsylvania
Character Party Affiliation:Main Strengths:
- Democratic Party (1988-)
- Charismatic communicator
- Good administrator
- Donor support from Real Estate Development, Construction and Nuclear Industry
- Young
- Multi-racial/strata youth support
- Cool and Calculating
Main Weaknesses:
- Disliked by Libertarians, Isolationists, White Evangelicals, Nuclear Energy Skeptics, Localists, NIMBYs
- Donor support from Real Estate Development, Construction and Nuclear Industry
- Young
- Aloof
- Arrogant
- Catholicism inspired fence-sitting on sexual politics with a 'personally conservative, civically liberal' position that alienates both sides.
- Target of a grassroots right-wing conspiracy machine
Biography:
Upton Robert Fleming was born to Judith Fleming (nee Moore) and Harold Fleming In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother was among a select few women who worked at NASA on the Apollo program, the year before moving to Philadelphia with her husband as newly weds as both of them received offers to work in Pennsylvania in higher education, Judith in teaching mathematics and Harold is developmental economics. In addition to career advancement, their new better paying jobs would also allow them to live in a minority-majority suburban neighborhood in late 1969. Having educated parents, a bright mind and living in an affluent community, it was none too difficult for him to not only do well in school, but vigorously pursue extracurricular activities, sports and volunteering included, primarily through catholic organizations due to his religious upbringing. His political awakening truly began when he attended a Jesse Jackson campaign speech in a Philadelphia church in 1984, which spoke of the need to unite and mobilize young people and minorities.
He would graduate as a valedictorian in high school, graduating at 16 before earning a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, but intending to go down the path of a military career, he decided to enroll in the NAVY ROTC program. From the first year he began flight training with the goal of becoming a fighter pilot. Meanwhile, he pursued a political science degree with a minor in engineering, followed by a law degree he'd work on through his service.
He’d end up serving on the USS Theodore Roosevelt where he would end up meeting Talise Mabus, one of the first female fighter pilots in US history, and ending up in a relationship with which meant leaving a relationship with an African-American woman he had been dating from high school to college. He'd marry Talise in 1994, a marriage established in mutual political advancement almost as much as personal love. While married he'd serve around three more years in active duty, most notably during the intervention against the Bosnian Serbs. In response o Bosnian serb separatist force bombarding an open air market. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, along the USS America and two french carriers were deployed to the Adriatic to in which the airwing he was a part of flew hundreds of sorties, hitting hundreds of Bosnian serb separatist targets, helping force them into negotiations.
After transferring to the naval reserve in 1997, Upton would run for Philadelphia District Attorney, promising to bring military discipline to the fight against crime. Over the next four years, he’d aggressively promote his actions as contributing to a decreasing crime rate, raising his profile as the homicide rate continued to descend. His mode of operation included aggressively pursuing the harshest possible prison sentences against hard drug manufacturing and dealers. He’d win re-election to district attorney easily and rumors began to swirl about his being a potential candidate for the 2002 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election to replace the term limited Republican Governor. He announced his run early in 2002, running a campaign emphasizing both his tough on crime record and, to many observers, surprisingly liberal orientation on economics, even as he supported bi-partisan proposals like simplifying public programs, promoting movement towards land value taxes and backing employee stock ownership plans. He also cautiously tapped into an abortion skeptical vein among older African American voters and a critical number of white Catholics, while seeking a big donor constituency of Real estate developers and the construction industry. He’d manage to win the Democratic race in a field split by three notable candidates, securing 39% the primary vote with a strong showing in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs, but a noticeable weakness in rural Pennsylvania.
In addition to emphasizing his record on crime in Philadelphia, he would spend his campaign promising to lower sales taxes, introduce progressivity to state income taxes and support a process to replace property taxes in the state with land value taxes to promote land development and punish vacant land ownership. He'd go on to win the general election by 5 points, primarily hampered by poor performance in rural counties, but aided by very strong urban support and solid suburban backing.
In office, his first legislative production was the Pennsylvania of Tomorrow program, which was meant to significantly lower sales taxes and increase education funding by shifting over to a more progressive state income tax, along with a variety of 'sin' taxes on beer, cigarettes and gambling. Looking to find a way to secure revenue through utilities taxes, the plan also called for a small tax on electricity generation that was weighted by carbon emissions, partially in an attempt to promote nuclear energy. The program also called for the phase out and replacement of both state and local property taxes in Pennsylvania with land value taxes, starting with a complete moratorium on new property taxes within municipalities. Lastly the bill included putting the Pennsylvania state Treasurer, an office held by a Republican in charge of an project called 'Pennsylvania Solidarity', which would exist to provide advice and aid to businesses in Pennsylvania to implement ESOP plans for their employees, support agricultural cooperatives and promote credit union membership as local alternatives to national conglomerates.
After negotiations with the republican controlled legislature, Upton was able to secure smaller versions of all of his priorities, with the exception of the property tax/land value tax transition, which went through without modifications. Upton would go on to reform government procurement in Pennsylvania through the creation of the Office of Administration and Efficiency, which would seek to factor in recirculated tax revenue in its’ procurement decisions, leading to an increase in business for Pennsylvania from the state government and net improvements to the Pennsylvania budget of around a billion dollars by the end of his first term. As part of his tough on crime approach, he also support laws intended to move towards a requirement for all prisoner's to either work or train for work during their prison term, even at the expense of bending to a republican legislature that wished aimed to increase prison privatization.
In 2004, due to an effective campaign in a low profile race during a presidential election year, his wife Talise was able to secure a landslide victory for the state treasury, even getting inroads into rural Pennsylvania. She went quickly to work using the full breadth of powers provided through the Pennsylvania Solidarity project, leading to significant expansion of ESOPs, coops and credit unions in the state.
In 2005, when the discussion of social security reform in Washington D.C. went into full swing, Upton weighed in by suggesting that he’d be supportive of having the social security trust fund transition its assets into index funds and away from non-marketable securities, alongside lifting the cap on FICA and SECA contributions. The former parts of these comments would be interpreted by some as endorsement of a partial privatization of social security, which caused some dissension in the ranks among progressives in the state democratic party. This triggered the creation of a tongue in cheek campaign by the activist left to draft his wife, Talise, perceived as more left wing, to run for governor in 2006. Talise would end up converting this energy into an announcement of her intention to run for the United States Senate in 2006.
The humorous campaign would, instead, morph into a very serious campaign to draft the 2002 Green Party candidate to run against Upton in the upcoming primaries, who was originally reluctant to do so due to feeling that there was a lack of infrastructure to support a campaign. He quickly gained support from some factions of the Pennsylvania democratic party that opposed Upton, primarily those on the right and localist leaning parts of the party, feeling that while he was in theory closer to their views, the challenger, or the Republican nominee, would be easier to pull in their direction once in office than Upton.
Despite an impressive campaign for someone who was a third party candidate in the election cycle before, Upton won a decisive victory in the primaries, though it was notably much smaller than his own wife’s senate primary victory. Both, however, would go on to win their general election victory in November with around ~60% of the popular vote, as more center and left leaning voters were drawn to vote for Talise and Upton by the other respectively, in addition to riding the 2006 blue wave. The election victory would do much to undermine organized opposition to Upton in the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, particularly when his election victory saw the end of his team's attempts to squash speculation that he was planning to run for President for 2008. State Democrats coveted the chance to have the first black president come from the state whose only other native born president was the man who let America fall into civil war, James Buchanan.
Come new years, 2007, news of an exploratory committee to run for a Upton Fleming run would come out, allowing him to draw some national media to his inauguration speech on January 21st, where he lay out all that he had accomplished in his previous term as Governor of Pennsylvania, before laying out his agenda for the future in terms that were very much nationally applicable, with the promise that specifics would be saved for his February budget address to the state General Assembly.
On March 1st, 2007 he’d officially launch his presidential campaign.
Other Info:
The election victories here are significantly toned down to be at around the average national democrat numbers of the given year to account for the fair possibility that Upton would do worse than Ed Rendell. Given that the RL 2006 republican nominee was a black football player, and given that he performed only ~5 points worse than the 2002 candidate, in a year that republicans did ~13 points worse nationally, I think a black veteran with a tough on crime record could perform at least this well. The inspirations here are Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, except a veteran and committed to building a political force inside of Democratic party to the left of the New Democrats/Democratic Leadership Council types, but just as professionalized.
I have read and accept the rules of the roleplay: Cybernetic Socialist Republics
Do Not Remove: DRAFT87421
Pending
Somebody else will get to Mrs. Fleming soon, I promise.
Sorry about all this, really. If this was in 2020, then it'd be fine to have Zahir be in the GOP, but this is still-quite-conservative 2007.
