Twilight's Last Gleaming: An American Political RP OOC (Open

[The Sarangtus Lands]

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: The Sarangtus Lands
Character Name: Lyman Wilkes Connor
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 35
Character Date of Birth: 5th of November 1972
Character Position/Role/Job: Aide to Senator Robert Byrd (1993-1998), Executive Director of MoveOn (1998-2003), Campaign Manager for not-Dean (2003-2004), National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice (2004-2007), Campaign Manager for St. Cierge (2007-)
Character Country/State of Birth: West Virginia
Character State of Residence: West Virginia
Character Party Affiliation: Independent
Faceclaim: Jacob Frey
Main Strengths: A bit of an experimentalist, very strong ground game and internet organiser, conscientious, reasonably intelligent, liked among progressives, very red-blooded working class
Main Weaknesses: Loyalty to the Democratic Party a bit shaky at times, may be seen as someone who is trying to hog control, has made controversial statements in the past, intolerable to moderates, often quiet uncouth against people he doesn't like, somewhat unpredictable and slightly impulsive, scandalous personal life
Biography: Born to a farming family in rural West Virginia, he lived a moderately good childhood until the farming crisis struck, leaving their family bankrupt and forcing them to move to Charleston. After moving to Charleston, his family was able to rebound somewhat, with his mother continuing her job as a teacher and his father retraining to become a metalworker, being an avid member of a union. This is where Lyman came into his own, in Charleston, and, as he was always a bit of a debater sort of person, had decided to enter politics as his career route.

He got his master's degree in political science from West Virginia University, participating in the university's politics and becoming, as he was there, the chair of its progressive club. With his distinguishment, along with a good contact or two from university, he was able to get into Senator Byrd's office as soon as he left work. He was known to be a conscientious worker, and a bit of an experimentalist, making his mark even within only a few years through being the 'ideas man', even if people didn't always believe his ideas were the best.

There was one particular thing in which he made a mark. His boss was an advocate of censuring not-Clinton during his impeachment, though opposed impeaching him. In a typical dice roll, Lyman had an idea. With the approval of Senator Byrd's office, he personally wrote and designed a petition calling on people to oppose not-Clinton's impeachment, censure him and move on, first circulating among Byrd's local supporters in West Virginia but later becoming a viral national campaign. This lead to what was known as the 'MoveOn' organisation, which he founded, leaving Byrd as he did so, and slowly became a national advocate for progressive politics.

He rose money for progressive firebrands such as not-Wellstone, and pioneered the use of the internet as a small donor fundraising technique. He also did voter registration campaigns, helping young people to get signed up and mobilising the left-wing base. He endorsed not-Bradley in the 2000 primaries and raised a great deal of money for him, allowing him to keep a fundraising parity with not-Gore in spite of not-Bradley's lower national support. He called the election of 2000 'a stolen election' and said that 'Cush was now ruling over the majority who voted for not-Gore', while also talking about how he supported not-Nader in this email chain. (OOC: None of this is changed from IRL)

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he led a charge to promote tolerance towards the Muslim community, calling for 'Justice not Hate' as the campaign became known as. He led a national mobilisation of people against the Iraq War, calling on them to send letters to their legislators and newspapers, along with later opposing the Cush tax cuts. He led marches around the country, while leading a virtual March on Washington Against War, with over 1 million participants. (OOC: Also nothing changed)

Seeing this success, and the quickly dipping popularity of the Iraq War, he decided to back not-Dean's campaign for President, becoming his campaign manager, as he led the new and innovative tactics of not-Dean, allowing him to become the presumptive frontrunner, though a certain 'gaffe', which Lyman would privately call 'a massive bunch of fucking molehill shit that the neocon news turned into some shitty problem because they wanted to fuck us over', comments which made themselves into the public domain through a careless staffer of his talking about it, though at that point nobody cared as the campaign was over.

After the sudden and unexpected end of the Dean campaign, he decided to continue his anti-war activism, taking over the leadership of UFPJ, presiding over the massively successful September 24-26 march in Washington, however also leading to a large split within the anti-war movement as UFPJ and ANSWER found themselves in odds, with a spokesman for ANSWER calling Lyman 'excessively controlling and obsessive to a fault' as part of a statement to the press criticising the UFPJ at the event. Nonetheless, he marched on, continuing to rally against the war, and against the surge. (OOC: The only part that's changed is the quote about Lyman)

He also played a large part in the election of Elana Bennett, being one of the first people to support her in the primaries and helped rally support for her in the general. He saw her as a descendant to the firebrand progressive legacy of not-Wellstone and is now watching her governorship with interest. He has always believed in the power of local and state government, and supported many local and state candidates in the Midterms.

After a vacancy opened up in St. Cierge's campaign, he has decided to swoop in and hopefully bring St. Cierge to the White House, though his main aim is to mainstream many formerly radical ideas and give the 'militant leftists' (as a conservative newspaper once called him and those around him) a voice in modern American politics.
Other Info: In terms of his personal life, Lyman has a Siberian husky and a Burmilla cat, and is married to Virginia Connor (nee Peller), in a lavender marriage arrangement to cover their secrets. As expected, they have no children. Lyman has 2 brothers and one sister.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: The Sarangtus Lands

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

[New Luciannova]

1. That's a lot to work with. It sounds like you know your Spanish remarkably well. I have a friend with a master's degree in Spanish who didn't know all those cultural distinctions. It's now Tomas Pilar (De La Pilar just sounds so much fancier, as does Sierra Negra).
2/3. I feel as if I gave him more weaknesses, a person who is not intellectual coupled with a hot temper and impulsive behavior could be particularly crippling. In addition to being a juvenile delinquent. I have one more weakness that ties into four.
4. I was picturing they'd be bad enough to be scarring, obviously their old, so it's not grotesque. I was initially planning to making them facial to add another weakness, but really didn't feel like looking at pictures of burn victims for the face. I'm going to give him some minor PTSD that manifests in occasional outbursts or anxiety attacks.
5. NA
6. Well, depending on the type of lawyer it is either more obvious or not (clearly family court or a public defender could obviously make a good case), as a prosecutor he often is quick to strike a bargain for juvenile offenders, often even giving public defenders more than they asked for, often eager to seek softer sentences for juvenile offenders, helping them get a fresh crack at life. He is willing to listen and sympathize with their experiences, knowing that he was in their position once and felt like nobody listened to him during that time. He prefers to give juvenile (non-violent) offenders shorter sentences, parole before their 18th birthday so they have a clean record, diversionary programs, or other such opportunities to avoid being too harsh. He also is much harsher as a prosecutor on adult offenders who harm younger kids either through getting them caught up as drug users or involved in the dangerous drug trade, or those who abuse their children be in physical, emotional, or sexual. Anything like that.

1. Haha thanks I'm an actual Cuban-American
1.5 If the town or location where the name originates is actually called "La Something" then "De La Something" makes sense. For instance, De La Vera or De La Cruz (or De La Calle but that sounds weird).
2. Not being an intellectual means very little. Look at most people in the world for examples. Everybody has a temper and many are impulsive. It's nothing new or weak.
4. That really isn't enough to earn a purple heart though
6. That just seems like soft on crime

6 is selectively soft. He's extra tough against non-juvenile offenders. I re-wrote the entire application above. There's more data there. His weaknesses have been expanded to include PTSD. I decided just to go with Pilar.

[Free Ward Marchers]

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name:
Character Name: George Blackwing Yactoh
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 48
Character Date of Birth: June 2, 1959
Character Position/Role/Job:

Governor of Virginia (2006-)
United States Representative from Virginia's 2nd district (2001-2006)
Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Services (1990-1994)
Attorney (1984-1990)

Character Country/State of Birth: Virginia
Character State of Residence: Virginia
Character Party Affiliation: Democratic
Faceclaim: James Dry
Main Strengths: Passionate Speaker, Popular with minorities, bipartisan
Main Weaknesses: Hot headed, Flip-flops on policy, hated by progressives, too centrist for the national democratic party

Biography: George Blackwing Yactoh was born in the Mattaponi Reservation in Virginia on June of 1959. Both of his parents were of Pamunkey descent, and his father, Stephen T. Yactoh, was a tribal court judge. In his youth, his greatest aspiration was to become a Supreme Court Justice. His family had been loyal Democrats, but George had little interest in electoral politics at the time. He attended the University of Virginia and got a degree in history in 1981. Yactoh was also a skilled golfer, playing golf for Virginia, and briefly considered trying to go professional before deciding to get a law degree, which he received from VU in 1984. He passed the bar later that year and began practicing law in Williamsburg. Over the next seven years, he became well-known in the state as a prominent corporate lawyer.

George's first involvement in electoral politics came though his and his family's profound dislike of Ronald Reagan, prompting George to volunteer for the Mondale campaign in 1984. While serving as an attorney, he began making connections within the Virginia Democratic Party, and served as co-chair of the Dukakis campaign's (limited) Virginia operations in 1988. It was while working on the 1988 campaign where he met his future wife, a Democratic staffer named Alyson McCarty. They would go on to have three children, Stephen (born 1992), Bailey (born 1997), and Grace (born 1999).

In 1989, he worked with (Not-Douglas Wilder's) gubernatorial campaign, having been previously acquainted with (Not-Wilder's). After being elected, he offered him the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Despite having limited experience in healthcare, George decided to accept the position. During his four-year tenure, George began to express his dismay at the state of the Virginia health care system, which motivated him to enter politics himself. After the end of Walters's term, George made a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1994. However, he lost the primary.

George considered running for Governor three years later, but the outgoing republican governor's popularity convinced him to forgo a bid. Instead, he ran for the House of Representatives in 2000, winning the election in the 2nd district against all odds. He would only serve two terms in the House, as he decided to run for the open Governorship. After winning the Democratic primary, he defeated (not-Jerry Kilgore) in the general election, becoming the first Native American governor of Virginia. As Governor, George has remained popular. He has governed as a relative moderate, although he is not a conservative, being pro-choice and supporting healthcare reform.
Other Info:

Abortion
Center-Left - Protect responsible choice. Ban partial-birth abortions except in the case of life of the mother.

Corruption
Center - Both parties are corrupt. We need better oversight and reform.

Education
Center-Left - Make teachers accountable with performance based pay. Increase funding. Remain open to options such as charter schools.

Energy
Center - Renewable and non-renewable energy must be equally researched.

Environment
Center-Left - We need to leave a healthy environment for our children. Work to reduce emissions and harmful toxins. Modified Kyoto.

Free Trade
Center-Left - Consider new free trade deals carefully, and create incentives to keep jobs in America.

Government Spending
Center-Left - Focus on real priorities. More funds for military and social programs.

Gun Control
Center-Right - We should be wary of gun control. The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms.

Healthcare
Center-Left - Near-universal health care whether public or private, but no mandates. Require health insurance for every child.

Immigration
Center-Left - Legal immigration is great. Support guest-worker program for illegals and amnesty.

Iran
Center - Keep diplomatic channels open and use economic sanctions. Go to war as a last resort.

Iraq
Center-Left - We have done our job in Iraq. Begin pulling out troops gradually. Set a timeline for full withdrawal.

Military
Center - The military is in a solid position right now but could use additional ground forces.

Regulation
Center-Left - Moderate increase in regulation to prevent abuse.

Role of Government
Center-Left - Government is not inherently a good or bad thing, but plays an important role in society.

Same-Sex Marriage
Center-Right - Marriage is between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others.

Social Security
Center-Left - Allow a small amount of private investment but keep it regulated.

Tax Rates
Center - Leave income tax as it is presently. Keep progressive taxes and remove small hidden taxes like marriage tax.

Unions
Center - Labor demands must be balanced with business concerns.

Wall Street
Center-Left - If Wall Street needs a trillion dollars we should buy assets with it and nationalize corporations as needed.

War on Terror
Center - We must focus on Al Qaeda, the War on Iraq is a distraction. Civil liberties are important.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: Free Ward Marchers

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

[New Luciannova]

Character Name: Tomas Pilar
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 41
Character Height: 5’11”
Character Weight: 170 lbs
Character Position/Role/Job: Soldier (1988-1993), Prosecuting Attorney (2000-2005), Congressman FL-21 (2005-Present)
Character Country/State of Birth: Miami, Florida
Current Residence: Miami, Florida
Character State of Residence: Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: Julian Castro(Image)
Main Strengths: Fluent speaker of English and Spanish, Inspiring Military and Legal Background, Son of Cuban Immigrants, had arose from poverty, extremely hard worker, strong ties to the Hispanic Community, willing to work hard and passionate for his beliefs,
Main Weaknesses: can be very stubborn and make judgements easily, had a temper, rumors of a wandering eye, sometimes speaks before thinking, has a tendency to use vulgar language, often is very narrow-minded and emotions may cloud his judgement too much for him to be overly intellectual, despite being intelligent. Tomas previous suffered from PTSD since his military service, which his faith has helped him recover from in a healthy way, but occasionally these painful memories do resurface and manifest themselves in night terrors, anxiety attacks, and in more rare cases moderately violent outbursts, he thusfar has not harmed a person or animal, but has broken inanimate objects and thrown things. He has managed to hide this from the public, for now.
Biography: (Minimum 2-3 paragraphs)
Tomas dela Pilar was born in the United States only several days after his parents had made the perilous journey from Cuba into the United States. His parents wanted him to be born an American. His family moved into a poor immigrant community in Miami’s inner cities. Tomas’ father, Ricardo, and his mother Maria took whatever jobs they could. His mother worked as a maid at a hotel and his father did construction work when he could and otherwise performed odd jobs. Tomas was often left in the care of neighbors and the few relatives who also immigrated. When he was four, his father was able to find more reliable work as a mechanic’s assistant and trained as an mechanic, his mother ultimately made more money and worked at more upscale hotels. A year later his sister, Isabella, was born and later his brother Matteo and his sister, Antonia. When Tomas was nine he began working at a local Bodega to earn some of his own money. Unbeknownst to him, his employer had been involved in criminal activity, involving both drugs and gambling. When the store was raided, he was arrested as well as the owner and was sent into a diversionary program. After completing the program, he distanced himself from crime and decided in apply himself academically.
Tomas took what jobs he could, after ensuring they were legitimate and achieved good grades in school. He graduated and enlisted in the US Army Reserve to pay for his college education. That’s when the Gulf War occurred. Tomas was sent to Iraq along with his unit. However, he distinguished himself in Iraq, exposing himself toe enemy fire to full a fellow soldier from a crashed helicopter for which he was awarded a Bronze Star. Injuries he sustained from the burning were severe third-degree burns on his torso for which he earned a Purple Heart. He left the US army after his tour was over as a corporal and enrolled in the University of Miami. He struggled from PTSD-symptoms often having night terrors, anxiety attacks, periods of depression, and outbursts, often aggressive ones. Despite this, he was good student but he had a bit of a “Greek Life” and liked to party, drink, and fornicate, often as a means of suppressing the memories of war that plagued him. After he graduated, he was contacted by missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. Tomas was persuaded the become a Mormon and changed himself remarkably, he ceased drinking and womanizing. He enrolled in law school and became a prosecutor after he graduated. He sought to use his role as one to help children struggling in Hispanic neighborhoods. Tomas married Emilia, a young woman he met during undergrad who also converted to the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints.
Tomas continued to work as a prosecutor, and believed he was helping his community. His parents later moved to live closer to him and are extremely proud of their “American” son. In early 2001 his first child was born, a son named Francisco. Tomas wanted to re-enlist in the army after 9-11, but Emilia forbade it for his son. Tomas was approached by a judge after a trial and attended his first meeting of the local Republican Town Committee. Tomas became increasingly political. He ran for the United States House of Representatives in 2004. Despite being in a red district he knocked on every door. His military and legal background, and reputation as a constant underdog presented wide appeal.
I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: (New Luciannova)[/quote]

[Vaquas]

In it's current form I can't support it. "Mental health condition" is a remarkably broad definition and most Americans will suffer from a mental health issue in their lifetime. People with mental health conditions are not inherently more dangerous than the rest of the population and many people with mental health issues vary quite widely. We should distinguish mental health conditions based on their nature. We don't really want to treat people with depression and autism or OCD the same way we treat paranoid schizophrenics.

I don't think someone with autism should have a gun

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about the autism spectrum or the millions of people on it.

[Madrinpoor]

I don't think someone with autism should have a gun

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about the autism spectrum or the millions of people on it.

I have autistic family and friends ranging from high-functioning and Asperger's to nonverbal. Someone with Asperger's should be allowed to have a gun or someone high-functioning, I'm not a dumbass. But I know people who have issues expressing communicating and understanding their environment on the lower end of the spectrum, and I don't believe they should be given firearms, like I don't believe someone with unmedicated schizophrenia should be.

[New Luciannova]

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about the autism spectrum or the millions of people on it.

I have autistic family and friends ranging from high-functioning and Asperger's to nonverbal. Someone with Asperger's should be allowed to have a gun or someone high-functioning, I'm not a dumbass. But I know people who have issues expressing communicating and understanding their environment on the lower end of the spectrum, and I don't believe they should be given firearms, like I don't believe someone with unmedicated schizophrenia should be.

I have autism, I also have a high IQ and am a law student. My worst crime is an unpaid parking ticket. I feel a bit uncomfortable around firearms, but don't want my rights denied by my condition, especially when people with autism are not violent and quite diverse in ability levels. The body of work on autism has expanded dramatically over time and we now know that autism is a common condition and you probably know someone with autism and don't even realize it. To say a person should be denied their right to keep and bear arms because they have autism is woefully uninformed or bigoted.
A highly involved person with autism is not someone who should be granted a firearm, but there are more reasons than just that diagnosis in those cases.

[Madrinpoor]

I have autistic family and friends ranging from high-functioning and Asperger's to nonverbal. Someone with Asperger's should be allowed to have a gun or someone high-functioning, I'm not a dumbass. But I know people who have issues expressing communicating and understanding their environment on the lower end of the spectrum, and I don't believe they should be given firearms, like I don't believe someone with unmedicated schizophrenia should be.

I have autism, I also have a high IQ and am a law student. My worst crime is an unpaid parking ticket. I feel a bit uncomfortable around firearms, but don't want my rights denied by my condition, especially when people with autism are not violent and quite diverse in ability levels. The body of work on autism has expanded dramatically over time and we now know that autism is a common condition and you probably know someone with autism and don't even realize it. To say a person should be denied their right to keep and bear arms because they have autism is woefully uninformed or bigoted.
A highly involved person with autism is not someone who should be granted a firearm, but there are more reasons than just that diagnosis in those cases.

So you just called me a bigot and didn't mention my argument.

[New Luciannova]

I have autism, I also have a high IQ and am a law student. My worst crime is an unpaid parking ticket. I feel a bit uncomfortable around firearms, but don't want my rights denied by my condition, especially when people with autism are not violent and quite diverse in ability levels. The body of work on autism has expanded dramatically over time and we now know that autism is a common condition and you probably know someone with autism and don't even realize it. To say a person should be denied their right to keep and bear arms because they have autism is woefully uninformed or bigoted.
A highly involved person with autism is not someone who should be granted a firearm, but there are more reasons than just that diagnosis in those cases.

So you just called me a bigot and didn't mention my argument.

i wasn't talking about you. I was talking about the earlier comment where the poster said a person with autism should never own a gun.

[Mareadmonte]

Hey all. As unfortunate as it is, I'm afraid due to IRL circumstances I won't be able to continue with the rp. If anyone wants Woolworth, go right ahead! In addition, here's my unfinished pro tempore app if anyone wants to tweak and make it their own.

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: Mareadmonte
Character Name: Joseph "Joe" Edward McKinney
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 89 (Born May 25, 1917)
Character Height: A normal height
Character Weight: A normal weight
Character Position/Role/Job:

President pro tempore of the United States Senate (1989-1995), (2001), (2001-2003), (2001-2003), (2007-)
President pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate (2003-2007)
Dean of the United States Senate (2003-)
Senate Majority Whip (1971-1977)
Candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination (1968, 1976)
United States Senator from New York (1949-)
Representative from New York's 29th District (1947-1949)
Private First Class, United States Army 105th Infantry Regiment (1941-44)
Private, United States Army 105th Infantry Regiment (1940-1941)

Character Country/State of Birth: Stony Point, Rockland County, New York
Character State of Residence:
Tuxedo Park, Orange County, New York
Georgetown, Washington D.C.
Character Party Affiliation:

Democratic (Registered & nominee, 1945-)

Liberal Party of New York (as nominee, 1950-)
Working Families' Party of New York (as nominee, 1998-)
Independence Party of New York (as nominee, 1992-)
Green Party (as nominee, 1998-)

Faceclaim: Ted Stevens
Main Strengths:

The One and Only: McKinney's sheer recognition allows him to maintain an iron grip over New York politics. Building his 60-year political brand across the state, his endorsement (or lack thereof) can make or break a primary or general election. If Senator McKinney doesn't like you, you're dead in the waters of the New York DNC. His longevity of service has also allowed him to make a name for himself nationally, being one of the most recognizable politicians, if not as recognizable as the President.
A Mentor's Mentor: McKinney's status as an ancient creature of the Senate, among the oldest and longest-serving in United States history, leaves him in a position of an elder statesman in Washington. Despite being a prim-and-proper, straight-laced man, McKinney has befriended and mentored a wide swath of colleagues over the years.
A Warrior's Reward: McKinney's background as a World War II veteran influences and strengthens his position amongst voters, and provides a strong background in strategic decision making and an ability to work under pressure. McKinney won a purple heart after being injured in the Battle of Saipan. A lingering struggle with the wartime injury has plagued the Senator for 63 years.
Friends with Benefits: Elected to the House of Representatives in 1946, McKinney served with political icons such as Sam Rayburn, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon. Particularly striking up a friendship with fellow northeastern Irish catholic John Kennedy, they would remain friends throughout their lives, with McKinney being Kennedy's personal preference for a running mate in 1960, but was rejected by advisors. McKinney, counting Kennedy as one of his closest friends, was heartbroken after the events in Dallas. In addition, in the Senate, McKinney befriended the likes of Hubert Humphrey. These connections, as well as ties to national donors, ensure McKinney never runs out of stories to tell - or cash.
The Emperor: Serving New York for 6 decades, New York voters have continuously re-elected Joe McKinney by sizable margins every 6 years. With a strong record of delivering for the state and a time-tested sense of loyalty to him, any political threat to him has long since passed. His strong position in the state has earned him the nickname of "The Emperor" of the Empire State.

Main Weaknesses:

Dimming Flame: liberal firebrand to mainstream/moderate

Biography: (Minimum 2-3 paragraphs)
Other Info:

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: (Your Nation's Name Here)

[size=30]Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

[Kavanis]

That's a shame, you were a fun contributor! Hope all is well OOC.

[New Provenance]

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: The Sarangtus Lands
Character Name: Lyman Wilkes Connor
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 35
Character Date of Birth: 5th of November 1972
Character Position/Role/Job: Aide to Senator Robert Byrd (1993-1998), Executive Director of MoveOn (1998-2003), Campaign Manager for not-Dean (2003-2004), National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice (2004-2007), Campaign Manager for St. Cierge (2007-)
Character Country/State of Birth: West Virginia
Character State of Residence: West Virginia
Character Party Affiliation: Independent
Faceclaim: Jacob Frey
Main Strengths: A bit of an experimentalist, very strong ground game and internet organiser, conscientious, reasonably intelligent, liked among progressives, very red-blooded working class
Main Weaknesses: Loyalty to the Democratic Party a bit shaky at times, may be seen as someone who is trying to hog control, has made controversial statements in the past, intolerable to moderates, often quiet uncouth against people he doesn't like, somewhat unpredictable and slightly impulsive, scandalous personal life
Biography: Born to a farming family in rural West Virginia, he lived a moderately good childhood until the farming crisis struck, leaving their family bankrupt and forcing them to move to Charleston. After moving to Charleston, his family was able to rebound somewhat, with his mother continuing her job as a teacher and his father retraining to become a metalworker, being an avid member of a union. This is where Lyman came into his own, in Charleston, and, as he was always a bit of a debater sort of person, had decided to enter politics as his career route.

He got his master's degree in political science from West Virginia University, participating in the university's politics and becoming, as he was there, the chair of its progressive club. With his distinguishment, along with a good contact or two from university, he was able to get into Senator Byrd's office as soon as he left work. He was known to be a conscientious worker, and a bit of an experimentalist, making his mark even within only a few years through being the 'ideas man', even if people didn't always believe his ideas were the best.

There was one particular thing in which he made a mark. His boss was an advocate of censuring not-Clinton during his impeachment, though opposed impeaching him. In a typical dice roll, Lyman had an idea. With the approval of Senator Byrd's office, he personally wrote and designed a petition calling on people to oppose not-Clinton's impeachment, censure him and move on, first circulating among Byrd's local supporters in West Virginia but later becoming a viral national campaign. This lead to what was known as the 'MoveOn' organisation, which he founded, leaving Byrd as he did so, and slowly became a national advocate for progressive politics.

He rose money for progressive firebrands such as not-Wellstone, and pioneered the use of the internet as a small donor fundraising technique. He also did voter registration campaigns, helping young people to get signed up and mobilising the left-wing base. He endorsed not-Bradley in the 2000 primaries and raised a great deal of money for him, allowing him to keep a fundraising parity with not-Gore in spite of not-Bradley's lower national support. He called the election of 2000 'a stolen election' and said that 'Cush was now ruling over the majority who voted for not-Gore', while also talking about how he supported not-Nader in this email chain. (OOC: None of this is changed from IRL)

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he led a charge to promote tolerance towards the Muslim community, calling for 'Justice not Hate' as the campaign became known as. He led a national mobilisation of people against the Iraq War, calling on them to send letters to their legislators and newspapers, along with later opposing the Cush tax cuts. He led marches around the country, while leading a virtual March on Washington Against War, with over 1 million participants. (OOC: Also nothing changed)

Seeing this success, and the quickly dipping popularity of the Iraq War, he decided to back not-Dean's campaign for President, becoming his campaign manager, as he led the new and innovative tactics of not-Dean, allowing him to become the presumptive frontrunner, though a certain 'gaffe', which Lyman would privately call 'a massive bunch of fucking molehill shit that the neocon news turned into some shitty problem because they wanted to fuck us over', comments which made themselves into the public domain through a careless staffer of his talking about it, though at that point nobody cared as the campaign was over.

After the sudden and unexpected end of the Dean campaign, he decided to continue his anti-war activism, taking over the leadership of UFPJ, presiding over the massively successful September 24-26 march in Washington, however also leading to a large split within the anti-war movement as UFPJ and ANSWER found themselves in odds, with a spokesman for ANSWER calling Lyman 'excessively controlling and obsessive to a fault' as part of a statement to the press criticising the UFPJ at the event. Nonetheless, he marched on, continuing to rally against the war, and against the surge. (OOC: The only part that's changed is the quote about Lyman)

He also played a large part in the election of Elana Bennett, being one of the first people to support her in the primaries and helped rally support for her in the general. He saw her as a descendant to the firebrand progressive legacy of not-Wellstone and is now watching her governorship with interest. He has always believed in the power of local and state government, and supported many local and state candidates in the Midterms.

After a vacancy opened up in St. Cierge's campaign, he has decided to swoop in and hopefully bring St. Cierge to the White House, though his main aim is to mainstream many formerly radical ideas and give the 'militant leftists' (as a conservative newspaper once called him and those around him) a voice in modern American politics.
Other Info: In terms of his personal life, Lyman has a Siberian husky and a Burmilla cat, and is married to Virginia Connor (nee Peller), in a lavender marriage arrangement to cover their secrets. As expected, they have no children. Lyman has 2 brothers and one sister.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: The Sarangtus Lands

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

Looks good, you can count this as your first green light.

[Hopal]

BILL


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uAJ ... sp=sharing

Here is the gun reform bill. Please let me know if your characters wish to sponsor the legislation or if you see any errors.

Greg Shields would like to co-sponsor.

[Jovuistan]

BILL


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uAJ ... sp=sharing

Here is the gun reform bill. Please let me know if your characters wish to sponsor the legislation or if you see any errors.

Add Sen. Carole Martel and Rep. Tony Boesch (R-WI-1)

[Lavan Tiri]

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: Prince Kropotkin
Character Name: Tom Krueger
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 60
Character Height: 6' 4"
Character Weight : 190 lbs
Character Position/Role/Job: Senate Minority Leader (2007-present), Senate Majority Whip (2003-2007), Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman/Ranking Member (1999-2003), Senate Republican Conference Chairman (1997-2001), Senate Republican Conference Secretary (1995-1997), Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman (1991-1995), Senate Chief Deputy Minority Whip (1987-1989), Senator for Texas (1985-present), House Chief Deputy Minority Whip (1983-1985), Representative for Texas's 21st Congressional District (1979-1985)
Character Country/State of Birth: Texas
Character State of Residence: Texas
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: John Thune
Main Strengths:

Knows Where The Bodies Are Buried And Has Licked The Shovel Clean: Tom has been in Congress since 1978, and in the Senate since 1984. He's held just about every Senate leadership position. He's shaken every hand, knows every big donor, and has a meticulous intelligence gathering operation on every Senator. He was an effective whip, knowing when to yell and scream like his idol LBJ, and when to sidle up and whisper or offer a shoulder pat, a neat whiskey, or a brown envelope. He's covered up everything from traffic offenses to financial misconduct to abuse of substances, campaign finance laws, and marital partners, and extracted favors in return.

Been There, Done That: Krueger has his name on some serious pieces of legislation: the first Reagan budget, the balanced budget and deficit reduction control acts, and the financial services modernization act. Everyone from Wall Street and big PACs down to the common taxpayer associates him with someone who wants to, and has delivered on, cutting taxes and regulations.

Main Weaknesses:

You Can't Say That!: Tom was at least once theoretically a moderate Republican on social issues, and he's certainly not a gay-basher or race-baiter, but he has had a history of xenophobic comments, from antisemitism to anti-Asian sentiment.

Stubborn as a Texas Mule: When he doesn't get his way, he digs in over the most minor points. He seized up passage of the CFMA -- legislation he supported -- over a singular point (arguably to the financial benefit of his wife, qv.). He's dragged agency officials in front of the Budget committee over the most minor spending lines.

A Tall Man With Tall Tales: He has a genuinely impressive resume... but the one he claims is even more impressive. A long history of fabrication and exaggeration came back to bite him badly during his abortive Presidential campaign (cf.). His military, academic, athletic and business records have all been exaggerated at various times, sometimes stretching the truth, sometimes making up complete falsehoods.

President of Nothing...: His 1996 Presidential campaign was an embarrassment on the national stage from which he slunk away with his tail between his legs and a trace of bitterness.

...especially not the Pat Buchanan Fan Club: Krueger has strikingly poor relations with paleoconservative and economic nationalist Republicans. He doesn't get on well with the Christian Right who regard him as unChristian, unserious about social issues, and a political opportunist (in all three cases, they are absolutely and entirely correct).

Where Did It Come From?: Tom has substantial financial wealth despite having only had a couple of low level staff jobs out of the Army. Much of this wealth comes from his wife, but he has also invested substantially while in the Senate. He has been accused of insider trading and is one of the main opponents of banning members of Congress from insider trading.

Storm Coming: (which is coincidentally also the title of... yeah, yeah) Krueger has been at the forefront of the push to deregulate the financial services industry and the landmark 1999 bill that repealed Glass-Steagal bears his name. While it might not be immediately apparent in May 2007 that this is a weakness, and indeed at the time he'd still be portraying it as a success, it is clearly going to become very controversial as the financial crisis hits.

Freddie Krueger: Aside from the unpleasant nickname, he also has a vaguely unsettling smile and for a Texan surprisingly few pictures of him in a cowboy hat.

The Other Half: (OOC: Ignore this if wife not approved.) He has frequently been accused of acting to the political and financial benefit of his wife.

Biography: The Krügers, as they were, arrived from Braunschweig, Germany in the 1840s; the Kruegers (who had Americanized their surname by the 1860 census) settled at Fredericksburg and were part of the pro-Union Texas resistance during the Civil War. Tom can also count English, Norwegian, Polish, Russian (including Russian Jewish) and Scots-Irish ancestry, and his maternal grandmother was Canadian. His father, Jacob Kruger, was a decorated Army Air Force fighter pilot who won the Distinguished Flying Cross during the Second World War and then returned to Texas to run the "land rich, cash poor" family ranch, while his mother Maria had been a flight nurse, and was forced to return to nursing when Jacob was severely injured, effectively paralysed, and later died from, a mechanical accident on the farm.

Tom was born in 1946 on the family ranch in Gillespie County, and grew up in the hardscrabble Texas Hill County that had produced a future President, Lyndon B. Johnson. Owing to his father's infirmity and an illness that left his younger brother, Fritz, severely incapacitated, the family was nearly bankrupted by financial problems. The family's finances recovered after selling off much of the land inherited from his grandparents. (Many years later, a now prosperous Kruger bought back the land and turned it into a recreational resort ranch.)

At Fredericksburg High, Tom starred in three sports (football, wrestling, and basketball), was elected student council president in his sophomore year, and graduated in 1964. His teenage years saw competing political interests: he asked for a copy of Capitalism and Freedom for his 18th birthday, but claimed to have attended, in 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (there is no record of his having done so and dates from the school yearbook would seem to contradict the claim), idolized JFK and LBJ, and considered himself a Democrat. He attended the University of Texas at Austin and joined the ROTC. Upon graduation with a BS in Economics, he reported for Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia.

After graduating OCS and being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant he completed Ranger School (which later proved a subject of controversy) and Airborne School before deploying to Vietnam to join 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, at the Phước Vĩnh Base Camp in Vietnam. During his time in the Central Highlands he qualified as a pathfinder and served with the 11th Pathfinder Company. His most notable incident occurred in the service occurred in 1970 during the Cambodian Incursion: what happened next is still the subject of some controversy. According to the official citation for his Bronze Star:

While leading a six-man reconnaissance troop, First Lieutenant Krueger encountered an ambush and overwhelming fire from a much larger enemy force. Despite being targeted by intense hostile fire and facing daunting adverse weather conditions, First Lieutenant Krueger maneuvred his troop into a covered position from which they were able to return fire with such precision as to drive off the pursuing enemy force. His swift and decisive actions enabled the reconnaissance team to safely withdraw without a single casualty and provide intelligence leading to a critical air strike on a critical PAVN intelligence facility.

Critics of the incident have said the encounter may not have involved an "overwhelming" enemy force at all, but merely frightened villagers returning fire after the US forces stumbled into their path. The Marine pilots who carried out the resulting bombing raid also reported seeing no military or intelligence infrastructure at the target site. Tom was awarded two Purple Hearts while in Vietnam; the second of these awards was also questioned, with a suggestion that a "shrapnel injuries from a grenade" were really little more than a bad case of trenchfoot. While not controversial at the time or even during his early Senate career, journalists questioning the facts surrounding these engagements damaged his 1996 Presidential run. His fellow soldiers defended his conduct and said that while some villagers were killed in the crossfire, they were hiding PAVN/VC forces.

In 1971 he left Vietnam and by 1972 he was back in Texas at Fort Hood, fulfilling his service commitment by the end of the year. He has generally been reluctant to discuss his military career in depth and contrasted the acclaim his father's generation received for their exploits with the negative reception he and fellow Vietnam veterans received. He has also stated that the heckling he received on arriving back in the US contributed to his political shift towards the Republican Party, though those who served with him recall that he was already identifying as a Republican on arrival in Vietnam and strongly defended President Nixon. He returned to UT the following year to study economics using his GI Bill funds, but did not complete his doctorate and dropped out after less than a year to go and work for Senator John Tower as a legislative aide. At one point he attended a brief summer course on the campus of (but not affiliated with) the London School of Economics.

He found Washington DC to his liking, building up connections through aggressive networking and socializing. He took a junior staff position at the Department of Commerce, serving until the end of the Ford administration. In 1976 he ran for the Texas state legislature but lost by a humiliating landslide in the primary, whereupon he realized that he couldn't be successful in Texas politics without reestablishing his Texas roots. He returned to Texas and spent two years fundraising for the Texas Republican Party. He has said that during this time he ran the family ranch; critics contend he had little involvement with its day-to-day operations, and simply got lucky with some speculative gambles on cattle futures while schmoozing the donor class.

Regardless, armed with a badly fitting cowboy hat and the phone number of every mid-level and up donor in Texas Republican politics, he launched a campaign for Texas's 21st Congressional District, his home district and a traditionally Democratic district that had been turning Republican for some time. His 51% winning margin was embarrassingly slight for a hometown hero, but after that he never faced another such close election, being comfortably reelected with 70% in each subsequent election. In the House, he served on the Budget and Small Business Committees; in 1981, as just a sophomore, he had already established himself as a leading voice of supply-side economics and sponsored the Krueger-not-Latta Budget, which implemented Reagan's inaugural economic agenda, which cut non-military spending, boosted defense spending, and implemented the not-Kemp-not-Roth Tax Cut. He had initially run as a deficit hawk vowing to prioritize fighting inflation over delivering tax cuts, but embraced the Reagan agenda wholeheartedly.

In his House days, Krueger was regarded as uncommonly liberal for a Texas Republican on social matters. He voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 1982 and supported civil rights. He supported some abortion rights (but opposed public funding), publicly criticized homophobia and privately hired an openly gay staffer, and opposed the voluntary prayer amendment. However he was trenchant in his support of gun rights, and hawkish on foreign policy. He departed from his sometime libertarian views by being one of the few Congressmen to sponsor a bill reinstating the draft. He generally opposed nuclear disarmament treaties with the Soviet Union. In 1984, he ran for the open Senate seat, with his fundraising abilities more than any real profile helping him to the fore of a crowded primary. His campaigning was not always the best ("every speech was about economic theories," says one staffer, "he'd turn up for an event at a kindergarten and start talking about Milton Friedman, or lecture poor farmers on the benefits of free trade and cutting agricultural assistance"). But he had amassed a powerful war chest and dominated the airwaves in the general, propelling him to election as Senator. He replaced his old boss, Tower, and was the first candidate in Texan history to win more than 3 million votes, and one of the youngest Senators ever elected from Texas.

Upon taking office, he worked with Senators not-Hollings and not-Rudman to create the laws that bears their name, the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Acts. He was regarded as an "utterly fanatical" fiscal hawk by staffers and acquired the nickname "Freddie" (the reference to the movie slasher killer) for his desire to "slash" budget departments. He often talked about the "Jimmy Robinson Test", a reference to a supposed early supporter of his named Jimmy Robinson who ran a small family business. "Is it worth taking money out of Jimmy Robinson's pocket?" he would ask in reference to any increase in tax or spending. Journalists have doggedly tried and failed to find the real Jimmy Robinson and have noticed massive inconsistencies in Krueger's portrayal of him (at one point he was a black cotton farmer, another time a white paint supply merchant, for example). Despite his fiscal hawkishness he did vote for the Superconducting Super Collider to be built in Texas.

In 1996, he entered the Republican presidential primaries. Still relatively young, a decorated war hero with a history of impressive legislative accomplishments, and having won reelection in 1990 with over 3 million votes again, he seemed a strong candidate, but his campaign floundered. His Reaganomics were out of fashion and out of touch, reporters brought up numerous issues and inconsistencies in his personal history and dredged up murky tales of "Hot Tub Tom"'s fondness for the high life, some of it very high and very Colombian, and he failed to put together a strong outreach to evangelicals. He was publicly disowned by not-James Dobson and revelations of improper investments further sunk his candidacy. He never polled higher than 4% in any national poll, failed to win the Louisiana primary despite coming from a neighboring state and campaigning heavily there, and ended his run after finishing just 7th in Iowa. Throughout his campaign and afterwards he was scathing about Buchanan, dubbed him a "protectionist", and endorsed not-Dole.

His presidential hopes essentially ended, he concentrated on running for a third Senate term; bruised by the presidential campaign, his vote share was heavily down and he was forced to spend more money than on his first two campaigns combined. In 2002 he won a fourth term, this time restoring a more comfortable margin of victory, though again spending heavily. Since 1996 he has concentrated more on his Senate leadership aspirations. He has served in almost every Senate leadership position within the Republican Conference; from 1997 to 2001 he chaired the Conference, from 2003 to 2007 served as Majority Whip, and in 2007 won election to the Minority Leadership after not-Frist did not run for office in 2006. During the turn of the millennium he chaired the Senate Budget Committee (also briefly serving as Ranking Member during a fluctuating period of Democratic control) during which time he passed perhaps his most notable legislative achievement, the Krueger-not-Leach-not-Billey Act that repealed Glass-Steagal among other modernization of financial services regulation. He also sponsored the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and was resolute in his insistence that the bill exempt credit swaps from SEC oversight, holding up the bill for months until he got his way.

During his time in the Senate, he has served on the Budget, Armed Services, Agriculture and Appropriations Committee, on the latter for a long time holding the key Subcommittee Chair/RM on Foreign Operations. He is a devoted Longhorns fan and noted for his dislike of Texas Aggies sports; however he made an exception in 1999 following the Aggie Bonfire collapse, donating his future F-16 flyover reserved for his funeral as a US Senator to the Texas A&M community. He has ruled out running for President again and wishes to concentrate on his Senatorial career. It was initially assumed he would endorse his number two, Ruskie Helms, but has held off making an endorsement for now.

Other Info: Tom is twice divorced; his third wife is listed below. If she is not excepted, assume she is the same but without any high office. OOC, he obviously replaces Phil Gramm's career almost entirely, so if Krueger is accepted, references to Gramm in law names could be replaced with Krueger.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: Prince Kropotkin

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: Prince Kropotkin
Character Name: Katie Miller
Character Gender: Female
Character Age: 50
Character Height: 5' 6"
Character Weight : 120 lbs
Character Position/Role/Job: Secretary of Energy (2005-present), Deputy Secretary of Energy (2001-2005)
Character Country/State of Birth: Texas
Character State of Residence: Texas
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: Kristi Noem
Main Strengths: Politically powerful husband, substantial personal wealth, extensive government connections, loyalty from Cush administration.
Main Weaknesses: Socially liberal RINO, utterly corrupt, inextricably linked with Cush administration, literally killed a guy oops lol.
Biography: Katie was born in 1957; she has a brother and two sisters. She was raised in Lubbock, Texas, in an upper middle class household. She attended private Catholic school and then Smith College, Massachusetts, where she took a degree in Economics and Finance, followed by a master's degree at Tuck Business School of Dartmouth College.

Upon graduation, Katie went to work in New York with Citicorp in their investment banking division, and then moving to the boutique investment bank Allen & Company. In 1987 she served a White House Fellowship, after which she returned to Citicorp as a VP for two years. In 1989 she entered government service for the first time, holding positions with the Department of Energy and the Small Business Administration, before being appointed to the board of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Days before leaving the CFTC in 1993, she voted to exempt Enron from regulation, and then left to take up a seat on Enron's board of directors.

Having returned to Texas to work with Enron, she then moved to the Crossroads Group. During her time in Texas she became well known at the Governor's mansion and her aggressive advocacy of deregulation enthused John Cush. When he was elected President, he appointed her Deputy Secretary of Energy. In 2005, she was tapped to replace the outgoing Secretary of Energy. In her time at the Department her lack of technical knowledge has been criticized, as has her strong deference to industry. Her administrative and organizational capabilities have been well regarded, though.

She first met Tom Krueger in the 1980s; they married in 1993, her second marriage, his third. They have no children together, though he has three from his first marriage. Earlier in her career, Katie advocated for abortion rights, women's rights, and gay rights, but has since largely stopped speaking on social issues. In 1996 when her husband ran for President, she was extensively profiled and journalists found out about a driving incident which resulted in the death of another motorist. No criminal charges were ever filed and she privately settled two civil suits resulting from the crash, which she has generally refused to speak about.

Other Info: I know this bio is way too short; I will add more detail if the general premise is given the OK.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: Prince Kropotkin

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

In defense of submitting a power couple...

These characters replace Mitch McConnell/Phil Gramm and Elaine Chao/Wendy Gramm, who really were power couples in this era, with McConnell/Chao being Senate Minority Leader and Secretary of Labor at the same time (and later Senate Majority Leader and Secretary of Transportation at the same time). I have reduced Katie's personal wealth and career accomplishments relative to Elaine Chao considerably.

If accepted, Katie would not run for any office and I would not use her to boost the candidacy of my own characters. I don't imagine Katie really having much to do as Secretary of Energy so it's more about her role as a spouse.

I have tried to emphasize the nepotism and corruption aspect to bring out the weaknesses of such an arrangement.

I don't want to argue with you guys all the time so if you just say this is not OK, I will accept that and change Katie's government service time to a private sector career.

They both look good to me.

[Lavan Tiri]

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: The Sarangtus Lands
Character Name: Lyman Wilkes Connor
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 35
Character Date of Birth: 5th of November 1972
Character Position/Role/Job: Aide to Senator Robert Byrd (1993-1998), Executive Director of MoveOn (1998-2003), Campaign Manager for not-Dean (2003-2004), National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice (2004-2007), Campaign Manager for St. Cierge (2007-)
Character Country/State of Birth: West Virginia
Character State of Residence: West Virginia
Character Party Affiliation: Independent
Faceclaim: Jacob Frey
Main Strengths: A bit of an experimentalist, very strong ground game and internet organiser, conscientious, reasonably intelligent, liked among progressives, very red-blooded working class
Main Weaknesses: Loyalty to the Democratic Party a bit shaky at times, may be seen as someone who is trying to hog control, has made controversial statements in the past, intolerable to moderates, often quiet uncouth against people he doesn't like, somewhat unpredictable and slightly impulsive, scandalous personal life
Biography: Born to a farming family in rural West Virginia, he lived a moderately good childhood until the farming crisis struck, leaving their family bankrupt and forcing them to move to Charleston. After moving to Charleston, his family was able to rebound somewhat, with his mother continuing her job as a teacher and his father retraining to become a metalworker, being an avid member of a union. This is where Lyman came into his own, in Charleston, and, as he was always a bit of a debater sort of person, had decided to enter politics as his career route.

He got his master's degree in political science from West Virginia University, participating in the university's politics and becoming, as he was there, the chair of its progressive club. With his distinguishment, along with a good contact or two from university, he was able to get into Senator Byrd's office as soon as he left work. He was known to be a conscientious worker, and a bit of an experimentalist, making his mark even within only a few years through being the 'ideas man', even if people didn't always believe his ideas were the best.

There was one particular thing in which he made a mark. His boss was an advocate of censuring not-Clinton during his impeachment, though opposed impeaching him. In a typical dice roll, Lyman had an idea. With the approval of Senator Byrd's office, he personally wrote and designed a petition calling on people to oppose not-Clinton's impeachment, censure him and move on, first circulating among Byrd's local supporters in West Virginia but later becoming a viral national campaign. This lead to what was known as the 'MoveOn' organisation, which he founded, leaving Byrd as he did so, and slowly became a national advocate for progressive politics.

He rose money for progressive firebrands such as not-Wellstone, and pioneered the use of the internet as a small donor fundraising technique. He also did voter registration campaigns, helping young people to get signed up and mobilising the left-wing base. He endorsed not-Bradley in the 2000 primaries and raised a great deal of money for him, allowing him to keep a fundraising parity with not-Gore in spite of not-Bradley's lower national support. He called the election of 2000 'a stolen election' and said that 'Cush was now ruling over the majority who voted for not-Gore', while also talking about how he supported not-Nader in this email chain. (OOC: None of this is changed from IRL)

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he led a charge to promote tolerance towards the Muslim community, calling for 'Justice not Hate' as the campaign became known as. He led a national mobilisation of people against the Iraq War, calling on them to send letters to their legislators and newspapers, along with later opposing the Cush tax cuts. He led marches around the country, while leading a virtual March on Washington Against War, with over 1 million participants. (OOC: Also nothing changed)

Seeing this success, and the quickly dipping popularity of the Iraq War, he decided to back not-Dean's campaign for President, becoming his campaign manager, as he led the new and innovative tactics of not-Dean, allowing him to become the presumptive frontrunner, though a certain 'gaffe', which Lyman would privately call 'a massive bunch of fucking molehill shit that the neocon news turned into some shitty problem because they wanted to fuck us over', comments which made themselves into the public domain through a careless staffer of his talking about it, though at that point nobody cared as the campaign was over.

After the sudden and unexpected end of the Dean campaign, he decided to continue his anti-war activism, taking over the leadership of UFPJ, presiding over the massively successful September 24-26 march in Washington, however also leading to a large split within the anti-war movement as UFPJ and ANSWER found themselves in odds, with a spokesman for ANSWER calling Lyman 'excessively controlling and obsessive to a fault' as part of a statement to the press criticising the UFPJ at the event. Nonetheless, he marched on, continuing to rally against the war, and against the surge. (OOC: The only part that's changed is the quote about Lyman)

He also played a large part in the election of Elana Bennett, being one of the first people to support her in the primaries and helped rally support for her in the general. He saw her as a descendant to the firebrand progressive legacy of not-Wellstone and is now watching her governorship with interest. He has always believed in the power of local and state government, and supported many local and state candidates in the Midterms.

After a vacancy opened up in St. Cierge's campaign, he has decided to swoop in and hopefully bring St. Cierge to the White House, though his main aim is to mainstream many formerly radical ideas and give the 'militant leftists' (as a conservative newspaper once called him and those around him) a voice in modern American politics.
Other Info: In terms of his personal life, Lyman has a Siberian husky and a Burmilla cat, and is married to Virginia Connor (nee Peller), in a lavender marriage arrangement to cover their secrets. As expected, they have no children. Lyman has 2 brothers and one sister.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: The Sarangtus Lands

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

Looks good, you can count this as your first green light.

Approval number 2 is granted.

[New Luciannova]

Hey all. As unfortunate as it is, I'm afraid due to IRL circumstances I won't be able to continue with the rp. If anyone wants Woolworth, go right ahead! In addition, here's my unfinished pro tempore app if anyone wants to tweak and make it their own.


Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

I'm disappointed, I'll miss your involvement. Good luck with whatever is going on.

[New Provenance]

BILL


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uAJ ... sp=sharing

Here is the gun reform bill. Please let me know if your characters wish to sponsor the legislation or if you see any errors.

Place Frank Taylor (D-CA-17) as a co-sponsor.

[Lavan Tiri]

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The Vice President

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: me

Character Name: Nathaniel John Mabus

Character Gender: he man

Character Age: 68 (born December 7th, 1938)

Character Height: 6'1

Character Weight: 200 pounds

Character Position/Role/Job:
- Vice President of the United States (since 2001)

- Campaign Director, John Cush for President (2000)

- CEO of Brinkmann-Voss (1995-2000)

- United States Secretary of State (1989-1993)

- Director of Central Intelligence (1987-1989)

- United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1985-1987)

- House Minority Whip (1981-1985)

- Representative from Colorado's 5th Congressional District (1973-1985)

- General Counsel of the Department of Defense (1969-1971)

- Deputy Foreign Policy Adviser, Richard Nixon 1968 Campaign (1968)

- Chief of Staff to Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel (1967-1968)

- Deputy Legislative Director to Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel (1964-1967)

- Legislative staffer for Congressman Peter H. Dominick (1960-1964)

Character Country/State of Birth: Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Character State of Residence: Glenwood Springs, Colorado/Washington, D.C.

Character Party Affiliation: Republican

Faceclaim: Chuck Norris

Main Strengths:
- Despite his staggering unpopularity, Mabus is one of the most potent power players in the Republican party. His ruthless consolidation of behind-the-scenes power across four administrations has culminated in becoming the most powerful Vice President in American history.

- Even his enemies acknowledge that Mabus is one of the foremost experts on foreign policy in Washington. His expertise is frequently sought-after by lawmakers on both sides, and he essentially hand-picked many important staffers in the State Department.

- The closest advisor to President Cush, and sometimes speculated to hold more sway within the Administration than the President himself. While that's up for debate, Mabus definitely has the ear of the President, and has a great deal of influence over hiring, appointments, and access to the POTUS.

- Long, successful career with a massive amount of experience and contacts.

Main Weaknesses:
- Quite literally the most unpopular person in America. Recent polls have shown that only thirteen percent of American voters have a "Positive or Strongly Positive" opinion of the Vice President.

- Often blamed for orchestrating the War in Iraq and profiting off of it, and the blame for "enhanced interrogation techniques" is entirely his.

- His power playing tendencies have caused a great number of enemies and opponents to appear: those who wish to counter or lessen Mabus' influence over Cush, those who want to cut the RNC free from him, those who simply don't like him and want to watch him lose.

- Combative personality and poor relationship with the press.

- Has occasionally broken publicly with the President: for example, in 2004, he openly came out in support of same-sex marriage, after his beloved grandson Jason came out to him as being gay.

- He worked for Richard Nixon. He was a personal associate and friend of Richard Nixon. He helped Richard Nixon get elected President.

Biography: Nathan Mabus was born at a very young age, on a snowy night on his family's ranch outside Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The Mabus family had settled in the area in the 1870's, led by Alfred Mabus (1845-1930) of Cleveland, Ohio. Alfred was the third son of grocers who had immigrated to America from Bavaria in the 1840's, and he expected little in the way of inheritance. So, he took his wife and children and set off West, settling in the Colorado Territory shortly after coming home from the Civil War. A cautious man by nature, Alfred didn't take part in the frenzy of the Gold Rush at Pike's Peak--instead, he built a proper homestead on the banks of the Colorado River. Alfred had one son, Victor Mabus (1868-1958), who survived to adulthood. His other three children all died before the age of 19: his son Peter of pneumonia, his daughter Rebecca of pneumonia (separately from Peter), and his eldest son Alfred, Junior, was mauled to death by a bear.

Victor became a lawyer, and was a prominent figure in Glenwood Springs' early history, and became acquainted with President Roosevelt while Teddy vacationed at the historic Hotel Colorado in the city. In 1892, Victor married Daphne Pickering, daughter of a railroad worker. They had two sons, Donald (1894-1917) and Steven (1897-1994). Upon Alfred's death in early 1930, Victor inherited the Mabus Ranch.

Donald and Steven were polar opposites. Donald was serious, studious, and dour. He took everything he did with deathly grave seriousness. Steven, however, was a party animal. His favorite activities were carousing in town with the ranch hands and railroad men. However, Steven loved the ranch, while Donald yearned to escape it and see the world beyond. In 1917, Donald--who was then, like his father, studying law--enlisted in the Army during World War One.

In France, a German bullet took Donald's life. He had married in 1914 while studying in Denver, to a young woman named Michelle Ellenberg (1897-1976). Michelle, whose parents had passed shortly before, now a widow at twenty, with one son--Mark Mabus (1915-1997)--and another child on the way, was taken in by Victor and Daphne to live on the ranch. Steven comforted Michelle through her mourning of Donald, and helped raise her children, Mark and Lawrence (1918-2003). The pair gradually fell for one another, and were married in 1922. They had no children of their own, and Steven happily raised his nephews as his own sons.

Mark Mabus is the father of Nathan Mabus. In 1934, he married Eleanor Holmes (1917-2005), daughter of a local banker. Mark and Eleanor have four children: Alfred (1935-present), Isabelle (1936-present), Nathan (1938-present), and Harold (1940-present).

Life on the mountain ranch, surrounded by generations of stoic German men, shaped young Nathan into the man he is today. Opa Victor insisted that his grandsons be educated, and they attended school in Glenwood Springs while also working alongside the ranch hands. Nathan likes to joke that he learnt to ride a horse before he could walk, and how to tie a lasso before he could speak.

In 1955, Nathan left the farm and graduated high school early, enabling him to move south to Gunnison, where he attended Western Colorado University. Here, he obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Politics and Government, and developed an incredible alcoholic addiction. He met and began dating Charlotte Lamont (1938-present), a Gunnison native, while at Western. They started dating in 1956, which was also the year Nathan acquired his alcoholism. Nathan and Charlotte split up in 1957. He skated through the next two years of classes--sleeping late, staying up late, skipping class, fighting and carousing and carrying on--and was about to be kicked out in 1958 when Charlotte dropped back into his life. She found Nathan, passed out in a drunken stupor, on her front porch on a freezing-cold night. Irritated, she dragged her ex-boyfriend inside, threw him on the couch, gave him a blanket, and locked her bedroom door. The next morning, Charlotte served Nathan a hearty breakfast and told him that if he quit drinking, she'd marry him. Obviously, she didn't think he actually would. But, Nathan did what many men do when caught between the allure of alcohol and the promise of sex: turned to God. The Episcopal faith he had grown up with had eluded him over the years, but now--now he threw himself into church, as well as local politics. Nathan quit drinking cold-turkey with the help of the priest, Gregory Kreutzmann, and graduated from Western in 1959.

In the summer of 1959, Nathan and Charlotte married on the ranch outside Glenwood Springs. That autumn, they moved to Washington, D.C., so Nathan could attend law school at Georgetown.

Georgetown was probably the worst time of Nathan's life, outside of alcoholism. The other pupils--the sons of millionaires and Congressmen and the hoi polloi of Washington society--looked down on the dusty, rough and tumble ranch boy from Colorado. Lost and alone in town, Nathan and Charlotte struggled to find their place in D.C.. In 1960, in order to make money and contacts, Nathan fought his way into a job interning for Congressman Peter Dominick of Colorado. He served under Dominick's legislative director, and specialized in foreign policy--something he felt immense fascination towards, having never left Colorado before moving to D.C.--and used this position to help his wife get a job as a secretary for another Colorado congressman. The Mabuses settled in to D.C., and Nathan graduated near the middle of his Georgetown class in 1962. He'd grown close to Dominick in the two years he worked for the Congressman, and got promoted to Deputy Legislative Director when he graduated. Dominick served as a mentor and guide to the young man, and Nathan stuck with his boss when Dominick was elected to the Senate in 1962. While living in D.C., all three of Nathan and Charlotte's children were born: Elaine (1961-present), Jonathan (1963-present), and Samantha (1965-1986).

Nathan continued working diligently for Senator Dominick, slowly becoming something approaching indispensable to the Senator. Although he adored Dominick, when Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel of California made a better offer in 1964, Nathan sprang for it and doubled his salary. Charlotte no longer had to hold a job of her own, and became a full-time, stay at home mother and proper society wife, hosting dinners for the wives of other Congressional staffers and some junior Republican Congressmen. The keen mind and workhorse ethic Nathan had demonstrated while working for Dominick served him well, and Kuchel promoted him to Deputy Chief of Staff in 1967.

Nathan itched to get more involved, to be something other than another faceless bill-drafter in the shadows of power. He convinced Kuchel to put him in contact with the burgeoning Presidential campaign of former Vice President Richard Nixon, where he was hired as Foreign Policy adviser to the candidate. Nixon, who was already well-versed in foreign affairs, nevertheless took a liking to the younger man, and promised to appoint him to a position within government. Nathan and Nixon would have long, circling conversations, in which Nathan would advise Nixon on aspects of his foreign policy promises, act as a go-between for Nixon and his contacts in Congress, and draft policy papers and speeches with the candidate. In turn, Nixon would mentor Nathan in the art of foreign affairs--not just the science of it, which Nathan understood just fine, but the human side of it. Nathan and Nixon became close, and remained so until Nixon's death. As close as one could manage to be to Nixon, anyway, which wasn't very close at all. At Nixon's funeral, Nathan attempted to deliver a speech but began crying halfway through and abandoned the effort. It's been speculated that the emotionally distant parenting and stern approach that his father employed has been a major driver of Nathan's life, as he continually latched onto older men and worked himself to the bone attempting to impress them. The Vice President, if asked about these theories, would call them bullshit.

After Nixon won the 1968 election, he began filling up his Cabinet and the many positions within it. He appointed his young, intelligent, workhorse of an adviser to the position of General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Nathan served admirably and quietly in this position for a little under two years, including through the end of the Vietnam War and the bombing of Cambodia.

In 1971 the Mabus family decided to return to the ranch, which was now owned by Nathan's grandfather, Steven Mabus. Nathan and Charlotte paid for a new house to be built near the Big House of the ranch where Steven, Michelle, Mark, Eleanor, and Alfred lived, as well as Alfred's twin daughters and his wife. Nathan quickly ingratiated himself into the local community again, and was recruited by local Republicans to run for the newly created 5th District in the 1972 elections. The 5th was drawn across a massive swathe of mountainous Northern Colorado, and the Republican primary drew a number of more local figures: state legislators, prominent businessmen, conservative activists and farmers. Nathan began the primary with a slight money advantage and the experience of his time in Washington, but had never run for elective office before. He struggled to pull ahead of the pack at first, and turned to his old bosses to help. Dominick and Kuchel both endorsed their former aide, and Dominick campaigned with him and lent him aid from the Senators statewide organization. With Dominick's help, Nathan pulled ahead and won the primary with a thin margin of 31% of the vote.

The 5th had a conservative character to begin with, and the red wave of 1972 helped immensely. The Democratic nominee was a wealthy rancher from Rifle, and the election was long and ugly, with both candidates readily launching attacks at one another. National conditions and turnout were on Nathan's side, though, and he pulled out a 52% win on election day.

In the 93rd Congress, Nathan was seated on the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, and Agriculture committees. He vociferously opposed the Case-Church Amendment and the War Powers Resolution, but was a cosponsor of the Federal Highway Aid Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

A bare few months into Nathan's first term in Congress, the Watergate scandal broke. Nathan, although originally a supporter of Nixon, was forced to admit that he had broken the law after the reveal of the "smoking gun" tape. He privately told Nixon that he could not deny that he deserved impeachment, and that if it came before the House he would vote against the President. This caused a years-long rift in their relationship that only healed in the 1980s.

Obviously, someone closely associated with the disgraced President would have a struggle to be reelected in 1974. Nathan held a press conference, wherein he soundly denounced his former boss. He stated, "Richard Nixon had the trust of America. He had the trust of the people. And he had my trust. In Washington, now, there are many who are saying they never thought something like this could happen--but now, with the clarity of hindsight, I do see it. I see how the man I admired, a man I considered a mentor and a friend, could lie and cheat and deceive the American people. The people's trust in the President has been broken, and so has mine. I only ask that those of us who knew him as a friend and not a criminal be judged fairly."

While his Democratic opponent hammered Nathan again and again on the Nixon issue, Nathan toured the district, touting the work he'd done protecting water for farmers and bringing federal money back to Colorado. In the 1974 election, Nathan narrowly won once more, and was sent back to Congress.

In the 94th Congress, Nathan was a cosponsor and supporter of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Tax Reduction Act of 1975. He started worming his way into the good graces of Republican leadership, and voted entirely along party lines. With Watergate vanishing in the rearview mirror, he was reelected in 1976 with a solid margin, despite Jimmy Carter's victory in the Presidential election.

In the 95th Congress, Nathan had his first bill become law: the National Energy Conservation Policy Act. He also cosponsored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. At this point, Nathan was appointed a Deputy Whip by Minority Whip Robert H. Michel, and served on the Republican leadership team. He was reelected in the 1978 midterms, as President Carter's popularity declined.

In the 96th Congress, Nathan was a cosponsor of the Taiwan Relations Act, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980, and the Classified Information Procedures Act. He continued voting entirely along party lines, and became an increasing thorn in Jimmy Carter's side, as he was voted Chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee ahead of the 1980 elections.

As Campaign Committee Chairman, Nathan spent a great deal of time and money recruiting Republican candidates to run for the House, as well as boosting them alongside Presidential nominee Ronald Reagan, who Nathan had endorsed early into the primary. With Reagan's coattails and massive victory, the Republicans captured 33 seats in the House. Going into the 97th Congress, Nathan was elected Whip by his fellow Republican Congressmen.

In the 97th Congress, Nathan coauthored the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. He was also the main author and sponsor of the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act. On all legislation, he voted along GOP party lines, and was seated on the Agriculture (Ranking Member of the Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Subcommittee), Appropriations (Ranking Member of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee), and Foreign Affairs Committees, the last of which he was Ranking Member of. His cache as a foreign policy guru grew throughout his time in Congress.

In the 1982 midterms, Nathan won reelection again, even as Democrats made more gains in the House. As the Reagan presidency wore on, Nathan became a close ally of Vice President Cush, and by extension, President Reagan, especially on issues of foreign relations.

In the 98th Congress, Nathan wrote and sponsored the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. He was also a coauthor and cosponsor of the Aviation Drug-Trafficking Control Act of 1984. In late 1984, Nathan and Cush began discussing the idea of a Cabinet appointment, and Nathan was vetted for a variety of positions. Shortly after Christmas of 1984, Ronald Reagan announced his intent to nominate Nathan for the position of Ambassador to the United Nations. "Congressman Mabus is one of the best and brightest in the House", Reagan remarked to the press. The President also highlighted the nominee's foreign policy credentials and his service as General Counsel to the DoD.

The confirmation process was grueling. While Nathan had allies in the Senate, he still faced grilling about his role in the Nixon administration, his history in the House, his views on the role of the U.S. in the world, and his fitness for the job. In the end, every Republican Senator and a few Democrats voted to confirm him to the office, and Nathan took office in spring 1985.

As United Nations Ambassador, Nathan and Charlotte moved from Glenwood Springs to New York City, while their children were busy at college--their son, Jonathan, was also living in New York while attending Columbia University. In 1986, tragedy struck the Mabus family: Samantha, Nathan and Charlotte's youngest daughter (and, by some reports, Nathan's favorite) was killed just three weeks after her 21st birthday, strangled to death by her boyfriend. Nathan was devastated and withdrew from work and family for weeks, turning back to the bottle and contemplating suicide. Charlotte intervened, slowly dragging Nathan back from the brink. With the help of President Reagan, Vice President Cush, several of his friends from the House, and even a few surprise visits from Richard Nixon, Nathan slowly began to recover. To this day, he still grows withdrawn and sullen on August 19th, the date of Samantha's murder.

While serving at the U.N., Nathan cultivated relationships that many characterized as "transactional", and was known for his relative reticence when dealing with fellow diplomats. Never one for backslapping and partying, the Ambassador spent as much time as possible with his wife instead of gladhanding other dignitaries. His tenure as Ambassador with both unexceptional and fairly short. In 1987, during the breaking of the Iran-Contra scandal, the Director of Central Intelligence died from a stroke. President Reagan asked Nathan if he'd like to move back to D.C. and take the job, and Nathan accepted.

Although he was unaffiliated with the Iran-Contra affair, Nathan still faced intensive questioning about it during his confirmation hearing, as well as his views on the role of the U.S. Intelligence Community. After a grueling process, Nathan was eventually--narrowly--confirmed. As Director, Nathan's first project was "cleaning out the rafters"--that is to say, eliminating waste and streamlining whatever he could. This recklessness backfired on him, however, as the Agency's effectiveness began to sag, forcing Nathan to abandon his plans to streamline the agency. He also focused on cleaning house after Iran-Contra, and restoring order and confidence in the CIA as a key part of the Cold War. He oversaw operations during the beginning of the end for the USSR, and pushed Congress to pass the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1988, which saw "covert operations" defined as secret missions in geopolitical areas where the United States is neither openly nor apparently engaged. This also required an authorizing chain of command, including an official, Presidential finding report, and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".

In the 1988 Presidential election, Nathan supported and advised John Cush throughout the campaign, growing ever closer to the Vice President. When Cush won the election, he announced that he would appoint Nathan to be Secretary of State.

Like Cush, Nathan favored a pragmatic, carefully managed foreign policy over Reagan's prioritization of vision and ideals. His confirmation process in the Senate was much less draining than the previous two, simply because he had already had two such hearings and such, very few new questions could be asked.

Early in his tenure at the State Department, Nathan threatened to cut funding to agencies in the United Nations if the PLO was recognized as a Palestinian state. He fought hard against any attempts to change the PLO from an observer organization to a member of the U.N., while also being much harder on Israel than previous Secretaries had been: he called on Israel to cease settlement in the West Bank, recognize the Palestinians as humans who deserved rights, and forswear the annexation of more territory. In the Madrid Conference of 1991, Nathan brought together all parties involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict to negotiate an end to the conflicts: while that obviously didn't happen, he got a great deal of good publicity for making the attempt.

When it came to the USSR, Nathan favored a policy of keeping the USSR territorially intact, in order to prevent the Russian nuclear arsenal from being "divided between a pack of squabbling badgers", as he put it to the President. In 1991, when (not-Gorbachev) visited the U.S., Nathan privately assured him that NATO would cease expanding eastward if a reunified Germany was permitted to join the alliance. Cush ignored this promise and went ahead with attempts to continue expanding NATO east.

At the Geneva Peace Conference in 1991, Nathan subtly implied that, if Iraq were to deploy chemical weapons in warfare, the United States could respond with a retaliatory nuclear strike. He worked to construct the 34 nation alliance that fought the Gulf War. He also helped negotiate NAFTA and helped negotiate the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, while pushing ever-harder for an end to apartheid.

In the 1992 presidential election, when Clifford beat Cush, he declined to keep Cush's deeply conservative Secretary of State in the post. Nathan left the Cabinet and wrote three books about his time in Congress, his childhood on the ranch, and his experience in the Reagan and Cush Cabinets. While they sold well, it was generally agreed that the books were dryer than a Mojave winter. In December of 1993, Brinkmann-Voss--a Fortune 500 company specializing in aircraft manufacturing, particularly as a defense contractor--hired Nathan as CEO and Chairman of the Board.

His record as CEO was, frankly, mixed. A 1998 merger between Brinkmann-Voss and Drassar Industries was criticized by some Drassar executives for a lack of transparency between Mabus and the Drassar leadership, while B-V investors pursued a lawsuit in 1994 against the company claiming that the corporation was artificially inflating its stock. In 2000, Nathan was approached by Texas Governor John Cush, who asked him to run his 2000 Presidential campaign. Nathan accepted and resigned from Brinkmann-Voss, getting a $42 million-stock package.

While running Cush's campaign, Nathan was asked to identify possible contenders for the Vice Presidency. He submitted several names, but, to his surprise, Cush asked Nathan himself to be the Veep. He accepted, and changed his voting address and driver's license back to Colorado instead of D.C.. In the Vice Presidential debate, he was crushed by (not-Joe Lieberman), although the Cush-Mabus ticket narrowly won the election.

Prior to the election, Nathan sat down with Cush to work out the Administration's Cabinet appointments, and went so far as to "veto" a couple of them, to the astonishment of some close to the events.

After 9/11, Nathan and Cush remained physically apart for a long time, with Nathan staying at his ranch in Glenwood Springs and a vacation home he owns in Florida, as well as Camp David. Following 9/11, the Vice President--already a fixture at National Security Council meetings and a key advisor to the President on foreign affairs--pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq. He frequently met with the Director of Central Intelligence, as well as a bevy of midlevel analysts at the CIA, sifting through their data on Al Qaeda and Iraq. He shaped the policy on Iraq greatly, including the fiction that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He has continued to advocate hard for the war both publicly and during his weekly private meetings with Cush.

In the 2004 election, Nathan was once more the nominee for Vice President. Despite once more being steamrolled in the Vice Presidential debate, this time by his old enemy John Mattox, a frequent foe during their shared time in the House, the Cush-Mabus ticket won reelection in 2004.

Nathan has actively promoted the expansion of the powers of the President, and prompted the Administration to challenge many of the acts passed after Vietnam and Watergate that constrain the White House's power. He met privately with the special prosecutor during the (not-Plame) Affair, despite having no proven connection to the affair.

In 2005, Jason Mabus (1989-present), Nathan's now-eighteen year old grandson by his son Jonathan, came out to the family as gay. Despite privately struggling with this revelation, Nathan has made it clear to those close to him that any disparaging comments about homosexuals in general or his grandson specifically will be punished harshly. In early 2006, with Jason's permission, Nathan publicly shared this story, and reversed his earlier position against gay marriage. "How can I look this man, this wonderful man, who I'm so proud of and love so much, and tell him he can't marry the man he loves? That God hates him? That I hate him? No. No. I fully support the rights of gays, of lesbians, to live fully and freely and marry each other--gays and gays, that is, not gays and lesbians marrying one another."

In February 2007, while visiting Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan to press Pakistan for a united front against the Taliban, the Taliban attempted to assassinate Nathan via suicide bomb. The bomb detonated shortly before Nathan embarked his plane home, while he was nearly a mile from the blast zone. He was unharmed and returned home safely.

Nathan has declared his intent to retire from politics after 2009, and declined to run in the 2008 election.

Other Info:

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: (Your Nation's Name Here)

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

Fin.

[Madrinpoor]

Hey all. As unfortunate as it is, I'm afraid due to IRL circumstances I won't be able to continue with the rp. If anyone wants Woolworth, go right ahead! In addition, here's my unfinished pro tempore app if anyone wants to tweak and make it their own.

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: Mareadmonte
Character Name: Joseph "Joe" Edward McKinney
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 89 (Born May 25, 1917)
Character Height: A normal height
Character Weight: A normal weight
Character Position/Role/Job:

President pro tempore of the United States Senate (1989-1995), (2001), (2001-2003), (2001-2003), (2007-)
President pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate (2003-2007)
Dean of the United States Senate (2003-)
Senate Majority Whip (1971-1977)
Candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination (1968, 1976)
United States Senator from New York (1949-)
Representative from New York's 29th District (1947-1949)
Private First Class, United States Army 105th Infantry Regiment (1941-44)
Private, United States Army 105th Infantry Regiment (1940-1941)

Character Country/State of Birth: Stony Point, Rockland County, New York
Character State of Residence:
Tuxedo Park, Orange County, New York
Georgetown, Washington D.C.
Character Party Affiliation:

Democratic (Registered & nominee, 1945-)

Liberal Party of New York (as nominee, 1950-)
Working Families' Party of New York (as nominee, 1998-)
Independence Party of New York (as nominee, 1992-)
Green Party (as nominee, 1998-)

Faceclaim: Ted Stevens
Main Strengths:

The One and Only: McKinney's sheer recognition allows him to maintain an iron grip over New York politics. Building his 60-year political brand across the state, his endorsement (or lack thereof) can make or break a primary or general election. If Senator McKinney doesn't like you, you're dead in the waters of the New York DNC. His longevity of service has also allowed him to make a name for himself nationally, being one of the most recognizable politicians, if not as recognizable as the President.
A Mentor's Mentor: McKinney's status as an ancient creature of the Senate, among the oldest and longest-serving in United States history, leaves him in a position of an elder statesman in Washington. Despite being a prim-and-proper, straight-laced man, McKinney has befriended and mentored a wide swath of colleagues over the years.
A Warrior's Reward: McKinney's background as a World War II veteran influences and strengthens his position amongst voters, and provides a strong background in strategic decision making and an ability to work under pressure. McKinney won a purple heart after being injured in the Battle of Saipan. A lingering struggle with the wartime injury has plagued the Senator for 63 years.
Friends with Benefits: Elected to the House of Representatives in 1946, McKinney served with political icons such as Sam Rayburn, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon. Particularly striking up a friendship with fellow northeastern Irish catholic John Kennedy, they would remain friends throughout their lives, with McKinney being Kennedy's personal preference for a running mate in 1960, but was rejected by advisors. McKinney, counting Kennedy as one of his closest friends, was heartbroken after the events in Dallas. In addition, in the Senate, McKinney befriended the likes of Hubert Humphrey. These connections, as well as ties to national donors, ensure McKinney never runs out of stories to tell - or cash.
The Emperor: Serving New York for 6 decades, New York voters have continuously re-elected Joe McKinney by sizable margins every 6 years. With a strong record of delivering for the state and a time-tested sense of loyalty to him, any political threat to him has long since passed. His strong position in the state has earned him the nickname of "The Emperor" of the Empire State.

Main Weaknesses:

Dimming Flame: liberal firebrand to mainstream/moderate

Biography: (Minimum 2-3 paragraphs)
Other Info:

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: (Your Nation's Name Here)

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Oh no! We'll miss you, you really were a fantastic contributor. Hope everything is ok! Door's always open for you to come back.

[Madrinpoor]

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The Vice President

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: me

Character Name: Nathaniel John Mabus

Character Gender: he man

Character Age: 68 (born December 7th, 1938)

Character Height: 6'1

Character Weight: 200 pounds

Character Position/Role/Job:
- Vice President of the United States (since 2001)

- Campaign Director, John Cush for President (2000)

- CEO of Brinkmann-Voss (1995-2000)

- United States Secretary of State (1989-1993)

- Director of Central Intelligence (1987-1989)

- United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1985-1987)

- House Minority Whip (1981-1985)

- Representative from Colorado's 5th Congressional District (1973-1985)

- General Counsel of the Department of Defense (1969-1971)

- Deputy Foreign Policy Adviser, Richard Nixon 1968 Campaign (1968)

- Chief of Staff to Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel (1967-1968)

- Deputy Legislative Director to Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel (1964-1967)

- Legislative staffer for Congressman Peter H. Dominick (1960-1964)

Character Country/State of Birth: Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Character State of Residence: Glenwood Springs, Colorado/Washington, D.C.

Character Party Affiliation: Republican

Faceclaim: Chuck Norris

Main Strengths:
- Despite his staggering unpopularity, Mabus is one of the most potent power players in the Republican party. His ruthless consolidation of behind-the-scenes power across four administrations has culminated in becoming the most powerful Vice President in American history.

- Even his enemies acknowledge that Mabus is one of the foremost experts on foreign policy in Washington. His expertise is frequently sought-after by lawmakers on both sides, and he essentially hand-picked many important staffers in the State Department.

- The closest advisor to President Cush, and sometimes speculated to hold more sway within the Administration than the President himself. While that's up for debate, Mabus definitely has the ear of the President, and has a great deal of influence over hiring, appointments, and access to the POTUS.

- Long, successful career with a massive amount of experience and contacts.

Main Weaknesses:
- Quite literally the most unpopular person in America. Recent polls have shown that only thirteen percent of American voters have a "Positive or Strongly Positive" opinion of the Vice President.

- Often blamed for orchestrating the War in Iraq and profiting off of it, and the blame for "enhanced interrogation techniques" is entirely his.

- His power playing tendencies have caused a great number of enemies and opponents to appear: those who wish to counter or lessen Mabus' influence over Cush, those who want to cut the RNC free from him, those who simply don't like him and want to watch him lose.

- Combative personality and poor relationship with the press.

- Has occasionally broken publicly with the President: for example, in 2004, he openly came out in support of same-sex marriage, after his beloved grandson Jason came out to him as being gay.

- He worked for Richard Nixon. He was a personal associate and friend of Richard Nixon. He helped Richard Nixon get elected President.

Biography: Nathan Mabus was born at a very young age, on a snowy night on his family's ranch outside Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The Mabus family had settled in the area in the 1870's, led by Alfred Mabus (1845-1930) of Cleveland, Ohio. Alfred was the third son of grocers who had immigrated to America from Bavaria in the 1840's, and he expected little in the way of inheritance. So, he took his wife and children and set off West, settling in the Colorado Territory shortly after coming home from the Civil War. A cautious man by nature, Alfred didn't take part in the frenzy of the Gold Rush at Pike's Peak--instead, he built a proper homestead on the banks of the Colorado River. Alfred had one son, Victor Mabus (1868-1958), who survived to adulthood. His other three children all died before the age of 19: his son Peter of pneumonia, his daughter Rebecca of pneumonia (separately from Peter), and his eldest son Alfred, Junior, was mauled to death by a bear.

Victor became a lawyer, and was a prominent figure in Glenwood Springs' early history, and became acquainted with President Roosevelt while Teddy vacationed at the historic Hotel Colorado in the city. In 1892, Victor married Daphne Pickering, daughter of a railroad worker. They had two sons, Donald (1894-1917) and Steven (1897-1994). Upon Alfred's death in early 1930, Victor inherited the Mabus Ranch.

Donald and Steven were polar opposites. Donald was serious, studious, and dour. He took everything he did with deathly grave seriousness. Steven, however, was a party animal. His favorite activities were carousing in town with the ranch hands and railroad men. However, Steven loved the ranch, while Donald yearned to escape it and see the world beyond. In 1917, Donald--who was then, like his father, studying law--enlisted in the Army during World War One.

In France, a German bullet took Donald's life. He had married in 1914 while studying in Denver, to a young woman named Michelle Ellenberg (1897-1976). Michelle, whose parents had passed shortly before, now a widow at twenty, with one son--Mark Mabus (1915-1997)--and another child on the way, was taken in by Victor and Daphne to live on the ranch. Steven comforted Michelle through her mourning of Donald, and helped raise her children, Mark and Lawrence (1918-2003). The pair gradually fell for one another, and were married in 1922. They had no children of their own, and Steven happily raised his nephews as his own sons.

Mark Mabus is the father of Nathan Mabus. In 1934, he married Eleanor Holmes (1917-2005), daughter of a local banker. Mark and Eleanor have four children: Alfred (1935-present), Isabelle (1936-present), Nathan (1938-present), and Harold (1940-present).

Life on the mountain ranch, surrounded by generations of stoic German men, shaped young Nathan into the man he is today. Opa Victor insisted that his grandsons be educated, and they attended school in Glenwood Springs while also working alongside the ranch hands. Nathan likes to joke that he learnt to ride a horse before he could walk, and how to tie a lasso before he could speak.

In 1955, Nathan left the farm and graduated high school early, enabling him to move south to Gunnison, where he attended Western Colorado University. Here, he obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Politics and Government, and developed an incredible alcoholic addiction. He met and began dating Charlotte Lamont (1938-present), a Gunnison native, while at Western. They started dating in 1956, which was also the year Nathan acquired his alcoholism. Nathan and Charlotte split up in 1957. He skated through the next two years of classes--sleeping late, staying up late, skipping class, fighting and carousing and carrying on--and was about to be kicked out in 1958 when Charlotte dropped back into his life. She found Nathan, passed out in a drunken stupor, on her front porch on a freezing-cold night. Irritated, she dragged her ex-boyfriend inside, threw him on the couch, gave him a blanket, and locked her bedroom door. The next morning, Charlotte served Nathan a hearty breakfast and told him that if he quit drinking, she'd marry him. Obviously, she didn't think he actually would. But, Nathan did what many men do when caught between the allure of alcohol and the promise of sex: turned to God. The Episcopal faith he had grown up with had eluded him over the years, but now--now he threw himself into church, as well as local politics. Nathan quit drinking cold-turkey with the help of the priest, Gregory Kreutzmann, and graduated from Western in 1959.

In the summer of 1959, Nathan and Charlotte married on the ranch outside Glenwood Springs. That autumn, they moved to Washington, D.C., so Nathan could attend law school at Georgetown.

Georgetown was probably the worst time of Nathan's life, outside of alcoholism. The other pupils--the sons of millionaires and Congressmen and the hoi polloi of Washington society--looked down on the dusty, rough and tumble ranch boy from Colorado. Lost and alone in town, Nathan and Charlotte struggled to find their place in D.C.. In 1960, in order to make money and contacts, Nathan fought his way into a job interning for Congressman Peter Dominick of Colorado. He served under Dominick's legislative director, and specialized in foreign policy--something he felt immense fascination towards, having never left Colorado before moving to D.C.--and used this position to help his wife get a job as a secretary for another Colorado congressman. The Mabuses settled in to D.C., and Nathan graduated near the middle of his Georgetown class in 1962. He'd grown close to Dominick in the two years he worked for the Congressman, and got promoted to Deputy Legislative Director when he graduated. Dominick served as a mentor and guide to the young man, and Nathan stuck with his boss when Dominick was elected to the Senate in 1962. While living in D.C., all three of Nathan and Charlotte's children were born: Elaine (1961-present), Jonathan (1963-present), and Samantha (1965-1986).

Nathan continued working diligently for Senator Dominick, slowly becoming something approaching indispensable to the Senator. Although he adored Dominick, when Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel of California made a better offer in 1964, Nathan sprang for it and doubled his salary. Charlotte no longer had to hold a job of her own, and became a full-time, stay at home mother and proper society wife, hosting dinners for the wives of other Congressional staffers and some junior Republican Congressmen. The keen mind and workhorse ethic Nathan had demonstrated while working for Dominick served him well, and Kuchel promoted him to Deputy Chief of Staff in 1967.

Nathan itched to get more involved, to be something other than another faceless bill-drafter in the shadows of power. He convinced Kuchel to put him in contact with the burgeoning Presidential campaign of former Vice President Richard Nixon, where he was hired as Foreign Policy adviser to the candidate. Nixon, who was already well-versed in foreign affairs, nevertheless took a liking to the younger man, and promised to appoint him to a position within government. Nathan and Nixon would have long, circling conversations, in which Nathan would advise Nixon on aspects of his foreign policy promises, act as a go-between for Nixon and his contacts in Congress, and draft policy papers and speeches with the candidate. In turn, Nixon would mentor Nathan in the art of foreign affairs--not just the science of it, which Nathan understood just fine, but the human side of it. Nathan and Nixon became close, and remained so until Nixon's death. As close as one could manage to be to Nixon, anyway, which wasn't very close at all. At Nixon's funeral, Nathan attempted to deliver a speech but began crying halfway through and abandoned the effort. It's been speculated that the emotionally distant parenting and stern approach that his father employed has been a major driver of Nathan's life, as he continually latched onto older men and worked himself to the bone attempting to impress them. The Vice President, if asked about these theories, would call them bullshit.

After Nixon won the 1968 election, he began filling up his Cabinet and the many positions within it. He appointed his young, intelligent, workhorse of an adviser to the position of General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Nathan served admirably and quietly in this position for a little under two years, including through the end of the Vietnam War and the bombing of Cambodia.

In 1971 the Mabus family decided to return to the ranch, which was now owned by Nathan's grandfather, Steven Mabus. Nathan and Charlotte paid for a new house to be built near the Big House of the ranch where Steven, Michelle, Mark, Eleanor, and Alfred lived, as well as Alfred's twin daughters and his wife. Nathan quickly ingratiated himself into the local community again, and was recruited by local Republicans to run for the newly created 5th District in the 1972 elections. The 5th was drawn across a massive swathe of mountainous Northern Colorado, and the Republican primary drew a number of more local figures: state legislators, prominent businessmen, conservative activists and farmers. Nathan began the primary with a slight money advantage and the experience of his time in Washington, but had never run for elective office before. He struggled to pull ahead of the pack at first, and turned to his old bosses to help. Dominick and Kuchel both endorsed their former aide, and Dominick campaigned with him and lent him aid from the Senators statewide organization. With Dominick's help, Nathan pulled ahead and won the primary with a thin margin of 31% of the vote.

The 5th had a conservative character to begin with, and the red wave of 1972 helped immensely. The Democratic nominee was a wealthy rancher from Rifle, and the election was long and ugly, with both candidates readily launching attacks at one another. National conditions and turnout were on Nathan's side, though, and he pulled out a 52% win on election day.

In the 93rd Congress, Nathan was seated on the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, and Agriculture committees. He vociferously opposed the Case-Church Amendment and the War Powers Resolution, but was a cosponsor of the Federal Highway Aid Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

A bare few months into Nathan's first term in Congress, the Watergate scandal broke. Nathan, although originally a supporter of Nixon, was forced to admit that he had broken the law after the reveal of the "smoking gun" tape. He privately told Nixon that he could not deny that he deserved impeachment, and that if it came before the House he would vote against the President. This caused a years-long rift in their relationship that only healed in the 1980s.

Obviously, someone closely associated with the disgraced President would have a struggle to be reelected in 1974. Nathan held a press conference, wherein he soundly denounced his former boss. He stated, "Richard Nixon had the trust of America. He had the trust of the people. And he had my trust. In Washington, now, there are many who are saying they never thought something like this could happen--but now, with the clarity of hindsight, I do see it. I see how the man I admired, a man I considered a mentor and a friend, could lie and cheat and deceive the American people. The people's trust in the President has been broken, and so has mine. I only ask that those of us who knew him as a friend and not a criminal be judged fairly."

While his Democratic opponent hammered Nathan again and again on the Nixon issue, Nathan toured the district, touting the work he'd done protecting water for farmers and bringing federal money back to Colorado. In the 1974 election, Nathan narrowly won once more, and was sent back to Congress.

In the 94th Congress, Nathan was a cosponsor and supporter of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Tax Reduction Act of 1975. He started worming his way into the good graces of Republican leadership, and voted entirely along party lines. With Watergate vanishing in the rearview mirror, he was reelected in 1976 with a solid margin, despite Jimmy Carter's victory in the Presidential election.

In the 95th Congress, Nathan had his first bill become law: the National Energy Conservation Policy Act. He also cosponsored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. At this point, Nathan was appointed a Deputy Whip by Minority Whip Robert H. Michel, and served on the Republican leadership team. He was reelected in the 1978 midterms, as President Carter's popularity declined.

In the 96th Congress, Nathan was a cosponsor of the Taiwan Relations Act, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980, and the Classified Information Procedures Act. He continued voting entirely along party lines, and became an increasing thorn in Jimmy Carter's side, as he was voted Chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee ahead of the 1980 elections.

As Campaign Committee Chairman, Nathan spent a great deal of time and money recruiting Republican candidates to run for the House, as well as boosting them alongside Presidential nominee Ronald Reagan, who Nathan had endorsed early into the primary. With Reagan's coattails and massive victory, the Republicans captured 33 seats in the House. Going into the 97th Congress, Nathan was elected Whip by his fellow Republican Congressmen.

In the 97th Congress, Nathan coauthored the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. He was also the main author and sponsor of the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act. On all legislation, he voted along GOP party lines, and was seated on the Agriculture (Ranking Member of the Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Subcommittee), Appropriations (Ranking Member of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee), and Foreign Affairs Committees, the last of which he was Ranking Member of. His cache as a foreign policy guru grew throughout his time in Congress.

In the 1982 midterms, Nathan won reelection again, even as Democrats made more gains in the House. As the Reagan presidency wore on, Nathan became a close ally of Vice President Cush, and by extension, President Reagan, especially on issues of foreign relations.

In the 98th Congress, Nathan wrote and sponsored the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. He was also a coauthor and cosponsor of the Aviation Drug-Trafficking Control Act of 1984. In late 1984, Nathan and Cush began discussing the idea of a Cabinet appointment, and Nathan was vetted for a variety of positions. Shortly after Christmas of 1984, Ronald Reagan announced his intent to nominate Nathan for the position of Ambassador to the United Nations. "Congressman Mabus is one of the best and brightest in the House", Reagan remarked to the press. The President also highlighted the nominee's foreign policy credentials and his service as General Counsel to the DoD.

The confirmation process was grueling. While Nathan had allies in the Senate, he still faced grilling about his role in the Nixon administration, his history in the House, his views on the role of the U.S. in the world, and his fitness for the job. In the end, every Republican Senator and a few Democrats voted to confirm him to the office, and Nathan took office in spring 1985.

As United Nations Ambassador, Nathan and Charlotte moved from Glenwood Springs to New York City, while their children were busy at college--their son, Jonathan, was also living in New York while attending Columbia University. In 1986, tragedy struck the Mabus family: Samantha, Nathan and Charlotte's youngest daughter (and, by some reports, Nathan's favorite) was killed just three weeks after her 21st birthday, strangled to death by her boyfriend. Nathan was devastated and withdrew from work and family for weeks, turning back to the bottle and contemplating suicide. Charlotte intervened, slowly dragging Nathan back from the brink. With the help of President Reagan, Vice President Cush, several of his friends from the House, and even a few surprise visits from Richard Nixon, Nathan slowly began to recover. To this day, he still grows withdrawn and sullen on August 19th, the date of Samantha's murder.

While serving at the U.N., Nathan cultivated relationships that many characterized as "transactional", and was known for his relative reticence when dealing with fellow diplomats. Never one for backslapping and partying, the Ambassador spent as much time as possible with his wife instead of gladhanding other dignitaries. His tenure as Ambassador with both unexceptional and fairly short. In 1987, during the breaking of the Iran-Contra scandal, the Director of Central Intelligence died from a stroke. President Reagan asked Nathan if he'd like to move back to D.C. and take the job, and Nathan accepted.

Although he was unaffiliated with the Iran-Contra affair, Nathan still faced intensive questioning about it during his confirmation hearing, as well as his views on the role of the U.S. Intelligence Community. After a grueling process, Nathan was eventually--narrowly--confirmed. As Director, Nathan's first project was "cleaning out the rafters"--that is to say, eliminating waste and streamlining whatever he could. This recklessness backfired on him, however, as the Agency's effectiveness began to sag, forcing Nathan to abandon his plans to streamline the agency. He also focused on cleaning house after Iran-Contra, and restoring order and confidence in the CIA as a key part of the Cold War. He oversaw operations during the beginning of the end for the USSR, and pushed Congress to pass the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1988, which saw "covert operations" defined as secret missions in geopolitical areas where the United States is neither openly nor apparently engaged. This also required an authorizing chain of command, including an official, Presidential finding report, and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".

In the 1988 Presidential election, Nathan supported and advised John Cush throughout the campaign, growing ever closer to the Vice President. When Cush won the election, he announced that he would appoint Nathan to be Secretary of State.

Like Cush, Nathan favored a pragmatic, carefully managed foreign policy over Reagan's prioritization of vision and ideals. His confirmation process in the Senate was much less draining than the previous two, simply because he had already had two such hearings and such, very few new questions could be asked.

Early in his tenure at the State Department, Nathan threatened to cut funding to agencies in the United Nations if the PLO was recognized as a Palestinian state. He fought hard against any attempts to change the PLO from an observer organization to a member of the U.N., while also being much harder on Israel than previous Secretaries had been: he called on Israel to cease settlement in the West Bank, recognize the Palestinians as humans who deserved rights, and forswear the annexation of more territory. In the Madrid Conference of 1991, Nathan brought together all parties involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict to negotiate an end to the conflicts: while that obviously didn't happen, he got a great deal of good publicity for making the attempt.

When it came to the USSR, Nathan favored a policy of keeping the USSR territorially intact, in order to prevent the Russian nuclear arsenal from being "divided between a pack of squabbling badgers", as he put it to the President. In 1991, when (not-Gorbachev) visited the U.S., Nathan privately assured him that NATO would cease expanding eastward if a reunified Germany was permitted to join the alliance. Cush ignored this promise and went ahead with attempts to continue expanding NATO east.

At the Geneva Peace Conference in 1991, Nathan subtly implied that, if Iraq were to deploy chemical weapons in warfare, the United States could respond with a retaliatory nuclear strike. He worked to construct the 34 nation alliance that fought the Gulf War. He also helped negotiate NAFTA and helped negotiate the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, while pushing ever-harder for an end to apartheid.

In the 1992 presidential election, when Clifford beat Cush, he declined to keep Cush's deeply conservative Secretary of State in the post. Nathan left the Cabinet and wrote three books about his time in Congress, his childhood on the ranch, and his experience in the Reagan and Cush Cabinets. While they sold well, it was generally agreed that the books were dryer than a Mojave winter. In December of 1993, Brinkmann-Voss--a Fortune 500 company specializing in aircraft manufacturing, particularly as a defense contractor--hired Nathan as CEO and Chairman of the Board.

His record as CEO was, frankly, mixed. A 1998 merger between Brinkmann-Voss and Drassar Industries was criticized by some Drassar executives for a lack of transparency between Mabus and the Drassar leadership, while B-V investors pursued a lawsuit in 1994 against the company claiming that the corporation was artificially inflating its stock. In 2000, Nathan was approached by Texas Governor John Cush, who asked him to run his 2000 Presidential campaign. Nathan accepted and resigned from Brinkmann-Voss, getting a $42 million-stock package.

While running Cush's campaign, Nathan was asked to identify possible contenders for the Vice Presidency. He submitted several names, but, to his surprise, Cush asked Nathan himself to be the Veep. He accepted, and changed his voting address and driver's license back to Colorado instead of D.C.. In the Vice Presidential debate, he was crushed by (not-Joe Lieberman), although the Cush-Mabus ticket narrowly won the election.

Prior to the election, Nathan sat down with Cush to work out the Administration's Cabinet appointments, and went so far as to "veto" a couple of them, to the astonishment of some close to the events.

After 9/11, Nathan and Cush remained physically apart for a long time, with Nathan staying at his ranch in Glenwood Springs and a vacation home he owns in Florida, as well as Camp David. Following 9/11, the Vice President--already a fixture at National Security Council meetings and a key advisor to the President on foreign affairs--pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq. He frequently met with the Director of Central Intelligence, as well as a bevy of midlevel analysts at the CIA, sifting through their data on Al Qaeda and Iraq. He shaped the policy on Iraq greatly, including the fiction that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He has continued to advocate hard for the war both publicly and during his weekly private meetings with Cush.

In the 2004 election, Nathan was once more the nominee for Vice President. Despite once more being steamrolled in the Vice Presidential debate, this time by his old enemy John Mattox, a frequent foe during their shared time in the House, the Cush-Mabus ticket won reelection in 2004.

Nathan has actively promoted the expansion of the powers of the President, and prompted the Administration to challenge many of the acts passed after Vietnam and Watergate that constrain the White House's power. He met privately with the special prosecutor during the (not-Plame) Affair, despite having no proven connection to the affair.

In 2005, Jason Mabus (1989-present), Nathan's now-eighteen year old grandson by his son Jonathan, came out to the family as gay. Despite privately struggling with this revelation, Nathan has made it clear to those close to him that any disparaging comments about homosexuals in general or his grandson specifically will be punished harshly. In early 2006, with Jason's permission, Nathan publicly shared this story, and reversed his earlier position against gay marriage. "How can I look this man, this wonderful man, who I'm so proud of and love so much, and tell him he can't marry the man he loves? That God hates him? That I hate him? No. No. I fully support the rights of gays, of lesbians, to live fully and freely and marry each other--gays and gays, that is, not gays and lesbians marrying one another."

In February 2007, while visiting Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan to press Pakistan for a united front against the Taliban, the Taliban attempted to assassinate Nathan via suicide bomb. The bomb detonated shortly before Nathan embarked his plane home, while he was nearly a mile from the blast zone. He was unharmed and returned home safely.

Nathan has declared his intent to retire from politics after 2009, and declined to run in the 2008 election.

Other Info:

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: (Your Nation's Name Here)

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

Fin.

Approval uno

[Madrinpoor]

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name:
Character Name: George Blackwing Yactoh
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 48
Character Date of Birth: June 2, 1959
Character Position/Role/Job:

Governor of Virginia (2006-)
United States Representative from Virginia's 2nd district (2001-2006)
Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Services (1990-1994)
Attorney (1984-1990)

Character Country/State of Birth: Virginia
Character State of Residence: Virginia
Character Party Affiliation: Democratic
Faceclaim: James Dry
Main Strengths: Passionate Speaker, Popular with minorities, bipartisan
Main Weaknesses: Hot headed, Flip-flops on policy, hated by progressives, too centrist for the national democratic party

Biography: George Blackwing Yactoh was born in the Mattaponi Reservation in Virginia on June of 1959. Both of his parents were of Pamunkey descent, and his father, Stephen T. Yactoh, was a tribal court judge. In his youth, his greatest aspiration was to become a Supreme Court Justice. His family had been loyal Democrats, but George had little interest in electoral politics at the time. He attended the University of Virginia and got a degree in history in 1981. Yactoh was also a skilled golfer, playing golf for Virginia, and briefly considered trying to go professional before deciding to get a law degree, which he received from VU in 1984. He passed the bar later that year and began practicing law in Williamsburg. Over the next seven years, he became well-known in the state as a prominent corporate lawyer.

George's first involvement in electoral politics came though his and his family's profound dislike of Ronald Reagan, prompting George to volunteer for the Mondale campaign in 1984. While serving as an attorney, he began making connections within the Virginia Democratic Party, and served as co-chair of the Dukakis campaign's (limited) Virginia operations in 1988. It was while working on the 1988 campaign where he met his future wife, a Democratic staffer named Alyson McCarty. They would go on to have three children, Stephen (born 1992), Bailey (born 1997), and Grace (born 1999).

In 1989, he worked with (Not-Douglas Wilder's) gubernatorial campaign, having been previously acquainted with (Not-Wilder's). After being elected, he offered him the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Despite having limited experience in healthcare, George decided to accept the position. During his four-year tenure, George began to express his dismay at the state of the Virginia health care system, which motivated him to enter politics himself. After the end of Walters's term, George made a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1994. However, he lost the primary.

George considered running for Governor three years later, but the outgoing republican governor's popularity convinced him to forgo a bid. Instead, he ran for the House of Representatives in 2000, winning the election in the 2nd district against all odds. He would only serve two terms in the House, as he decided to run for the open Governorship. After winning the Democratic primary, he defeated (not-Jerry Kilgore) in the general election, becoming the first Native American governor of Virginia. As Governor, George has remained popular. He has governed as a relative moderate, although he is not a conservative, being pro-choice and supporting healthcare reform.
Other Info:

Abortion
Center-Left - Protect responsible choice. Ban partial-birth abortions except in the case of life of the mother.

Corruption
Center - Both parties are corrupt. We need better oversight and reform.

Education
Center-Left - Make teachers accountable with performance based pay. Increase funding. Remain open to options such as charter schools.

Energy
Center - Renewable and non-renewable energy must be equally researched.

Environment
Center-Left - We need to leave a healthy environment for our children. Work to reduce emissions and harmful toxins. Modified Kyoto.

Free Trade
Center-Left - Consider new free trade deals carefully, and create incentives to keep jobs in America.

Government Spending
Center-Left - Focus on real priorities. More funds for military and social programs.

Gun Control
Center-Right - We should be wary of gun control. The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms.

Healthcare
Center-Left - Near-universal health care whether public or private, but no mandates. Require health insurance for every child.

Immigration
Center-Left - Legal immigration is great. Support guest-worker program for illegals and amnesty.

Iran
Center - Keep diplomatic channels open and use economic sanctions. Go to war as a last resort.

Iraq
Center-Left - We have done our job in Iraq. Begin pulling out troops gradually. Set a timeline for full withdrawal.

Military
Center - The military is in a solid position right now but could use additional ground forces.

Regulation
Center-Left - Moderate increase in regulation to prevent abuse.

Role of Government
Center-Left - Government is not inherently a good or bad thing, but plays an important role in society.

Same-Sex Marriage
Center-Right - Marriage is between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others.

Social Security
Center-Left - Allow a small amount of private investment but keep it regulated.

Tax Rates
Center - Leave income tax as it is presently. Keep progressive taxes and remove small hidden taxes like marriage tax.

Unions
Center - Labor demands must be balanced with business concerns.

Wall Street
Center-Left - If Wall Street needs a trillion dollars we should buy assets with it and nationalize corporations as needed.

War on Terror
Center - We must focus on Al Qaeda, the War on Iraq is a distraction. Civil liberties are important.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: Free Ward Marchers

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

VA governor elections are generally very competitive, could you explain a little bit more?

[The Sarangtus Lands]

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The Vice President

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: me

Character Name: Nathaniel John Mabus

Character Gender: he man

Character Age: 68 (born December 7th, 1938)

Character Height: 6'1

Character Weight: 200 pounds

Character Position/Role/Job:
- Vice President of the United States (since 2001)

- Campaign Director, John Cush for President (2000)

- CEO of Brinkmann-Voss (1995-2000)

- United States Secretary of State (1989-1993)

- Director of Central Intelligence (1987-1989)

- United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1985-1987)

- House Minority Whip (1981-1985)

- Representative from Colorado's 5th Congressional District (1973-1985)

- General Counsel of the Department of Defense (1969-1971)

- Deputy Foreign Policy Adviser, Richard Nixon 1968 Campaign (1968)

- Chief of Staff to Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel (1967-1968)

- Deputy Legislative Director to Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel (1964-1967)

- Legislative staffer for Congressman Peter H. Dominick (1960-1964)

Character Country/State of Birth: Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Character State of Residence: Glenwood Springs, Colorado/Washington, D.C.

Character Party Affiliation: Republican

Faceclaim: Chuck Norris

Main Strengths:
- Despite his staggering unpopularity, Mabus is one of the most potent power players in the Republican party. His ruthless consolidation of behind-the-scenes power across four administrations has culminated in becoming the most powerful Vice President in American history.

- Even his enemies acknowledge that Mabus is one of the foremost experts on foreign policy in Washington. His expertise is frequently sought-after by lawmakers on both sides, and he essentially hand-picked many important staffers in the State Department.

- The closest advisor to President Cush, and sometimes speculated to hold more sway within the Administration than the President himself. While that's up for debate, Mabus definitely has the ear of the President, and has a great deal of influence over hiring, appointments, and access to the POTUS.

- Long, successful career with a massive amount of experience and contacts.

Main Weaknesses:
- Quite literally the most unpopular person in America. Recent polls have shown that only thirteen percent of American voters have a "Positive or Strongly Positive" opinion of the Vice President.

- Often blamed for orchestrating the War in Iraq and profiting off of it, and the blame for "enhanced interrogation techniques" is entirely his.

- His power playing tendencies have caused a great number of enemies and opponents to appear: those who wish to counter or lessen Mabus' influence over Cush, those who want to cut the RNC free from him, those who simply don't like him and want to watch him lose.

- Combative personality and poor relationship with the press.

- Has occasionally broken publicly with the President: for example, in 2004, he openly came out in support of same-sex marriage, after his beloved grandson Jason came out to him as being gay.

- He worked for Richard Nixon. He was a personal associate and friend of Richard Nixon. He helped Richard Nixon get elected President.

Biography: Nathan Mabus was born at a very young age, on a snowy night on his family's ranch outside Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The Mabus family had settled in the area in the 1870's, led by Alfred Mabus (1845-1930) of Cleveland, Ohio. Alfred was the third son of grocers who had immigrated to America from Bavaria in the 1840's, and he expected little in the way of inheritance. So, he took his wife and children and set off West, settling in the Colorado Territory shortly after coming home from the Civil War. A cautious man by nature, Alfred didn't take part in the frenzy of the Gold Rush at Pike's Peak--instead, he built a proper homestead on the banks of the Colorado River. Alfred had one son, Victor Mabus (1868-1958), who survived to adulthood. His other three children all died before the age of 19: his son Peter of pneumonia, his daughter Rebecca of pneumonia (separately from Peter), and his eldest son Alfred, Junior, was mauled to death by a bear.

Victor became a lawyer, and was a prominent figure in Glenwood Springs' early history, and became acquainted with President Roosevelt while Teddy vacationed at the historic Hotel Colorado in the city. In 1892, Victor married Daphne Pickering, daughter of a railroad worker. They had two sons, Donald (1894-1917) and Steven (1897-1994). Upon Alfred's death in early 1930, Victor inherited the Mabus Ranch.

Donald and Steven were polar opposites. Donald was serious, studious, and dour. He took everything he did with deathly grave seriousness. Steven, however, was a party animal. His favorite activities were carousing in town with the ranch hands and railroad men. However, Steven loved the ranch, while Donald yearned to escape it and see the world beyond. In 1917, Donald--who was then, like his father, studying law--enlisted in the Army during World War One.

In France, a German bullet took Donald's life. He had married in 1914 while studying in Denver, to a young woman named Michelle Ellenberg (1897-1976). Michelle, whose parents had passed shortly before, now a widow at twenty, with one son--Mark Mabus (1915-1997)--and another child on the way, was taken in by Victor and Daphne to live on the ranch. Steven comforted Michelle through her mourning of Donald, and helped raise her children, Mark and Lawrence (1918-2003). The pair gradually fell for one another, and were married in 1922. They had no children of their own, and Steven happily raised his nephews as his own sons.

Mark Mabus is the father of Nathan Mabus. In 1934, he married Eleanor Holmes (1917-2005), daughter of a local banker. Mark and Eleanor have four children: Alfred (1935-present), Isabelle (1936-present), Nathan (1938-present), and Harold (1940-present).

Life on the mountain ranch, surrounded by generations of stoic German men, shaped young Nathan into the man he is today. Opa Victor insisted that his grandsons be educated, and they attended school in Glenwood Springs while also working alongside the ranch hands. Nathan likes to joke that he learnt to ride a horse before he could walk, and how to tie a lasso before he could speak.

In 1955, Nathan left the farm and graduated high school early, enabling him to move south to Gunnison, where he attended Western Colorado University. Here, he obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Politics and Government, and developed an incredible alcoholic addiction. He met and began dating Charlotte Lamont (1938-present), a Gunnison native, while at Western. They started dating in 1956, which was also the year Nathan acquired his alcoholism. Nathan and Charlotte split up in 1957. He skated through the next two years of classes--sleeping late, staying up late, skipping class, fighting and carousing and carrying on--and was about to be kicked out in 1958 when Charlotte dropped back into his life. She found Nathan, passed out in a drunken stupor, on her front porch on a freezing-cold night. Irritated, she dragged her ex-boyfriend inside, threw him on the couch, gave him a blanket, and locked her bedroom door. The next morning, Charlotte served Nathan a hearty breakfast and told him that if he quit drinking, she'd marry him. Obviously, she didn't think he actually would. But, Nathan did what many men do when caught between the allure of alcohol and the promise of sex: turned to God. The Episcopal faith he had grown up with had eluded him over the years, but now--now he threw himself into church, as well as local politics. Nathan quit drinking cold-turkey with the help of the priest, Gregory Kreutzmann, and graduated from Western in 1959.

In the summer of 1959, Nathan and Charlotte married on the ranch outside Glenwood Springs. That autumn, they moved to Washington, D.C., so Nathan could attend law school at Georgetown.

Georgetown was probably the worst time of Nathan's life, outside of alcoholism. The other pupils--the sons of millionaires and Congressmen and the hoi polloi of Washington society--looked down on the dusty, rough and tumble ranch boy from Colorado. Lost and alone in town, Nathan and Charlotte struggled to find their place in D.C.. In 1960, in order to make money and contacts, Nathan fought his way into a job interning for Congressman Peter Dominick of Colorado. He served under Dominick's legislative director, and specialized in foreign policy--something he felt immense fascination towards, having never left Colorado before moving to D.C.--and used this position to help his wife get a job as a secretary for another Colorado congressman. The Mabuses settled in to D.C., and Nathan graduated near the middle of his Georgetown class in 1962. He'd grown close to Dominick in the two years he worked for the Congressman, and got promoted to Deputy Legislative Director when he graduated. Dominick served as a mentor and guide to the young man, and Nathan stuck with his boss when Dominick was elected to the Senate in 1962. While living in D.C., all three of Nathan and Charlotte's children were born: Elaine (1961-present), Jonathan (1963-present), and Samantha (1965-1986).

Nathan continued working diligently for Senator Dominick, slowly becoming something approaching indispensable to the Senator. Although he adored Dominick, when Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel of California made a better offer in 1964, Nathan sprang for it and doubled his salary. Charlotte no longer had to hold a job of her own, and became a full-time, stay at home mother and proper society wife, hosting dinners for the wives of other Congressional staffers and some junior Republican Congressmen. The keen mind and workhorse ethic Nathan had demonstrated while working for Dominick served him well, and Kuchel promoted him to Deputy Chief of Staff in 1967.

Nathan itched to get more involved, to be something other than another faceless bill-drafter in the shadows of power. He convinced Kuchel to put him in contact with the burgeoning Presidential campaign of former Vice President Richard Nixon, where he was hired as Foreign Policy adviser to the candidate. Nixon, who was already well-versed in foreign affairs, nevertheless took a liking to the younger man, and promised to appoint him to a position within government. Nathan and Nixon would have long, circling conversations, in which Nathan would advise Nixon on aspects of his foreign policy promises, act as a go-between for Nixon and his contacts in Congress, and draft policy papers and speeches with the candidate. In turn, Nixon would mentor Nathan in the art of foreign affairs--not just the science of it, which Nathan understood just fine, but the human side of it. Nathan and Nixon became close, and remained so until Nixon's death. As close as one could manage to be to Nixon, anyway, which wasn't very close at all. At Nixon's funeral, Nathan attempted to deliver a speech but began crying halfway through and abandoned the effort. It's been speculated that the emotionally distant parenting and stern approach that his father employed has been a major driver of Nathan's life, as he continually latched onto older men and worked himself to the bone attempting to impress them. The Vice President, if asked about these theories, would call them bullshit.

After Nixon won the 1968 election, he began filling up his Cabinet and the many positions within it. He appointed his young, intelligent, workhorse of an adviser to the position of General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Nathan served admirably and quietly in this position for a little under two years, including through the end of the Vietnam War and the bombing of Cambodia.

In 1971 the Mabus family decided to return to the ranch, which was now owned by Nathan's grandfather, Steven Mabus. Nathan and Charlotte paid for a new house to be built near the Big House of the ranch where Steven, Michelle, Mark, Eleanor, and Alfred lived, as well as Alfred's twin daughters and his wife. Nathan quickly ingratiated himself into the local community again, and was recruited by local Republicans to run for the newly created 5th District in the 1972 elections. The 5th was drawn across a massive swathe of mountainous Northern Colorado, and the Republican primary drew a number of more local figures: state legislators, prominent businessmen, conservative activists and farmers. Nathan began the primary with a slight money advantage and the experience of his time in Washington, but had never run for elective office before. He struggled to pull ahead of the pack at first, and turned to his old bosses to help. Dominick and Kuchel both endorsed their former aide, and Dominick campaigned with him and lent him aid from the Senators statewide organization. With Dominick's help, Nathan pulled ahead and won the primary with a thin margin of 31% of the vote.

The 5th had a conservative character to begin with, and the red wave of 1972 helped immensely. The Democratic nominee was a wealthy rancher from Rifle, and the election was long and ugly, with both candidates readily launching attacks at one another. National conditions and turnout were on Nathan's side, though, and he pulled out a 52% win on election day.

In the 93rd Congress, Nathan was seated on the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, and Agriculture committees. He vociferously opposed the Case-Church Amendment and the War Powers Resolution, but was a cosponsor of the Federal Highway Aid Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

A bare few months into Nathan's first term in Congress, the Watergate scandal broke. Nathan, although originally a supporter of Nixon, was forced to admit that he had broken the law after the reveal of the "smoking gun" tape. He privately told Nixon that he could not deny that he deserved impeachment, and that if it came before the House he would vote against the President. This caused a years-long rift in their relationship that only healed in the 1980s.

Obviously, someone closely associated with the disgraced President would have a struggle to be reelected in 1974. Nathan held a press conference, wherein he soundly denounced his former boss. He stated, "Richard Nixon had the trust of America. He had the trust of the people. And he had my trust. In Washington, now, there are many who are saying they never thought something like this could happen--but now, with the clarity of hindsight, I do see it. I see how the man I admired, a man I considered a mentor and a friend, could lie and cheat and deceive the American people. The people's trust in the President has been broken, and so has mine. I only ask that those of us who knew him as a friend and not a criminal be judged fairly."

While his Democratic opponent hammered Nathan again and again on the Nixon issue, Nathan toured the district, touting the work he'd done protecting water for farmers and bringing federal money back to Colorado. In the 1974 election, Nathan narrowly won once more, and was sent back to Congress.

In the 94th Congress, Nathan was a cosponsor and supporter of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Tax Reduction Act of 1975. He started worming his way into the good graces of Republican leadership, and voted entirely along party lines. With Watergate vanishing in the rearview mirror, he was reelected in 1976 with a solid margin, despite Jimmy Carter's victory in the Presidential election.

In the 95th Congress, Nathan had his first bill become law: the National Energy Conservation Policy Act. He also cosponsored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. At this point, Nathan was appointed a Deputy Whip by Minority Whip Robert H. Michel, and served on the Republican leadership team. He was reelected in the 1978 midterms, as President Carter's popularity declined.

In the 96th Congress, Nathan was a cosponsor of the Taiwan Relations Act, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980, and the Classified Information Procedures Act. He continued voting entirely along party lines, and became an increasing thorn in Jimmy Carter's side, as he was voted Chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee ahead of the 1980 elections.

As Campaign Committee Chairman, Nathan spent a great deal of time and money recruiting Republican candidates to run for the House, as well as boosting them alongside Presidential nominee Ronald Reagan, who Nathan had endorsed early into the primary. With Reagan's coattails and massive victory, the Republicans captured 33 seats in the House. Going into the 97th Congress, Nathan was elected Whip by his fellow Republican Congressmen.

In the 97th Congress, Nathan coauthored the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. He was also the main author and sponsor of the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act. On all legislation, he voted along GOP party lines, and was seated on the Agriculture (Ranking Member of the Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Subcommittee), Appropriations (Ranking Member of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee), and Foreign Affairs Committees, the last of which he was Ranking Member of. His cache as a foreign policy guru grew throughout his time in Congress.

In the 1982 midterms, Nathan won reelection again, even as Democrats made more gains in the House. As the Reagan presidency wore on, Nathan became a close ally of Vice President Cush, and by extension, President Reagan, especially on issues of foreign relations.

In the 98th Congress, Nathan wrote and sponsored the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. He was also a coauthor and cosponsor of the Aviation Drug-Trafficking Control Act of 1984. In late 1984, Nathan and Cush began discussing the idea of a Cabinet appointment, and Nathan was vetted for a variety of positions. Shortly after Christmas of 1984, Ronald Reagan announced his intent to nominate Nathan for the position of Ambassador to the United Nations. "Congressman Mabus is one of the best and brightest in the House", Reagan remarked to the press. The President also highlighted the nominee's foreign policy credentials and his service as General Counsel to the DoD.

The confirmation process was grueling. While Nathan had allies in the Senate, he still faced grilling about his role in the Nixon administration, his history in the House, his views on the role of the U.S. in the world, and his fitness for the job. In the end, every Republican Senator and a few Democrats voted to confirm him to the office, and Nathan took office in spring 1985.

As United Nations Ambassador, Nathan and Charlotte moved from Glenwood Springs to New York City, while their children were busy at college--their son, Jonathan, was also living in New York while attending Columbia University. In 1986, tragedy struck the Mabus family: Samantha, Nathan and Charlotte's youngest daughter (and, by some reports, Nathan's favorite) was killed just three weeks after her 21st birthday, strangled to death by her boyfriend. Nathan was devastated and withdrew from work and family for weeks, turning back to the bottle and contemplating suicide. Charlotte intervened, slowly dragging Nathan back from the brink. With the help of President Reagan, Vice President Cush, several of his friends from the House, and even a few surprise visits from Richard Nixon, Nathan slowly began to recover. To this day, he still grows withdrawn and sullen on August 19th, the date of Samantha's murder.

While serving at the U.N., Nathan cultivated relationships that many characterized as "transactional", and was known for his relative reticence when dealing with fellow diplomats. Never one for backslapping and partying, the Ambassador spent as much time as possible with his wife instead of gladhanding other dignitaries. His tenure as Ambassador with both unexceptional and fairly short. In 1987, during the breaking of the Iran-Contra scandal, the Director of Central Intelligence died from a stroke. President Reagan asked Nathan if he'd like to move back to D.C. and take the job, and Nathan accepted.

Although he was unaffiliated with the Iran-Contra affair, Nathan still faced intensive questioning about it during his confirmation hearing, as well as his views on the role of the U.S. Intelligence Community. After a grueling process, Nathan was eventually--narrowly--confirmed. As Director, Nathan's first project was "cleaning out the rafters"--that is to say, eliminating waste and streamlining whatever he could. This recklessness backfired on him, however, as the Agency's effectiveness began to sag, forcing Nathan to abandon his plans to streamline the agency. He also focused on cleaning house after Iran-Contra, and restoring order and confidence in the CIA as a key part of the Cold War. He oversaw operations during the beginning of the end for the USSR, and pushed Congress to pass the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1988, which saw "covert operations" defined as secret missions in geopolitical areas where the United States is neither openly nor apparently engaged. This also required an authorizing chain of command, including an official, Presidential finding report, and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".

In the 1988 Presidential election, Nathan supported and advised John Cush throughout the campaign, growing ever closer to the Vice President. When Cush won the election, he announced that he would appoint Nathan to be Secretary of State.

Like Cush, Nathan favored a pragmatic, carefully managed foreign policy over Reagan's prioritization of vision and ideals. His confirmation process in the Senate was much less draining than the previous two, simply because he had already had two such hearings and such, very few new questions could be asked.

Early in his tenure at the State Department, Nathan threatened to cut funding to agencies in the United Nations if the PLO was recognized as a Palestinian state. He fought hard against any attempts to change the PLO from an observer organization to a member of the U.N., while also being much harder on Israel than previous Secretaries had been: he called on Israel to cease settlement in the West Bank, recognize the Palestinians as humans who deserved rights, and forswear the annexation of more territory. In the Madrid Conference of 1991, Nathan brought together all parties involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict to negotiate an end to the conflicts: while that obviously didn't happen, he got a great deal of good publicity for making the attempt.

When it came to the USSR, Nathan favored a policy of keeping the USSR territorially intact, in order to prevent the Russian nuclear arsenal from being "divided between a pack of squabbling badgers", as he put it to the President. In 1991, when (not-Gorbachev) visited the U.S., Nathan privately assured him that NATO would cease expanding eastward if a reunified Germany was permitted to join the alliance. Cush ignored this promise and went ahead with attempts to continue expanding NATO east.

At the Geneva Peace Conference in 1991, Nathan subtly implied that, if Iraq were to deploy chemical weapons in warfare, the United States could respond with a retaliatory nuclear strike. He worked to construct the 34 nation alliance that fought the Gulf War. He also helped negotiate NAFTA and helped negotiate the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, while pushing ever-harder for an end to apartheid.

In the 1992 presidential election, when Clifford beat Cush, he declined to keep Cush's deeply conservative Secretary of State in the post. Nathan left the Cabinet and wrote three books about his time in Congress, his childhood on the ranch, and his experience in the Reagan and Cush Cabinets. While they sold well, it was generally agreed that the books were dryer than a Mojave winter. In December of 1993, Brinkmann-Voss--a Fortune 500 company specializing in aircraft manufacturing, particularly as a defense contractor--hired Nathan as CEO and Chairman of the Board.

His record as CEO was, frankly, mixed. A 1998 merger between Brinkmann-Voss and Drassar Industries was criticized by some Drassar executives for a lack of transparency between Mabus and the Drassar leadership, while B-V investors pursued a lawsuit in 1994 against the company claiming that the corporation was artificially inflating its stock. In 2000, Nathan was approached by Texas Governor John Cush, who asked him to run his 2000 Presidential campaign. Nathan accepted and resigned from Brinkmann-Voss, getting a $42 million-stock package.

While running Cush's campaign, Nathan was asked to identify possible contenders for the Vice Presidency. He submitted several names, but, to his surprise, Cush asked Nathan himself to be the Veep. He accepted, and changed his voting address and driver's license back to Colorado instead of D.C.. In the Vice Presidential debate, he was crushed by (not-Joe Lieberman), although the Cush-Mabus ticket narrowly won the election.

Prior to the election, Nathan sat down with Cush to work out the Administration's Cabinet appointments, and went so far as to "veto" a couple of them, to the astonishment of some close to the events.

After 9/11, Nathan and Cush remained physically apart for a long time, with Nathan staying at his ranch in Glenwood Springs and a vacation home he owns in Florida, as well as Camp David. Following 9/11, the Vice President--already a fixture at National Security Council meetings and a key advisor to the President on foreign affairs--pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq. He frequently met with the Director of Central Intelligence, as well as a bevy of midlevel analysts at the CIA, sifting through their data on Al Qaeda and Iraq. He shaped the policy on Iraq greatly, including the fiction that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He has continued to advocate hard for the war both publicly and during his weekly private meetings with Cush.

In the 2004 election, Nathan was once more the nominee for Vice President. Despite once more being steamrolled in the Vice Presidential debate, this time by his old enemy John Mattox, a frequent foe during their shared time in the House, the Cush-Mabus ticket won reelection in 2004.

Nathan has actively promoted the expansion of the powers of the President, and prompted the Administration to challenge many of the acts passed after Vietnam and Watergate that constrain the White House's power. He met privately with the special prosecutor during the (not-Plame) Affair, despite having no proven connection to the affair.

In 2005, Jason Mabus (1989-present), Nathan's now-eighteen year old grandson by his son Jonathan, came out to the family as gay. Despite privately struggling with this revelation, Nathan has made it clear to those close to him that any disparaging comments about homosexuals in general or his grandson specifically will be punished harshly. In early 2006, with Jason's permission, Nathan publicly shared this story, and reversed his earlier position against gay marriage. "How can I look this man, this wonderful man, who I'm so proud of and love so much, and tell him he can't marry the man he loves? That God hates him? That I hate him? No. No. I fully support the rights of gays, of lesbians, to live fully and freely and marry each other--gays and gays, that is, not gays and lesbians marrying one another."

In February 2007, while visiting Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan to press Pakistan for a united front against the Taliban, the Taliban attempted to assassinate Nathan via suicide bomb. The bomb detonated shortly before Nathan embarked his plane home, while he was nearly a mile from the blast zone. He was unharmed and returned home safely.

Nathan has declared his intent to retire from politics after 2009, and declined to run in the 2008 election.

Other Info:

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: (Your Nation's Name Here)

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Fin.

Approval uno

Approval zwei.

[Madrinpoor]

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: Prince Kropotkin
Character Name: Tom Krueger
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 60
Character Height: 6' 4"
Character Weight : 190 lbs
Character Position/Role/Job: Senate Minority Leader (2007-present), Senate Majority Whip (2003-2007), Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman/Ranking Member (1999-2003), Senate Republican Conference Chairman (1997-2001), Senate Republican Conference Secretary (1995-1997), Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman (1991-1995), Senate Chief Deputy Minority Whip (1987-1989), Senator for Texas (1985-present), House Chief Deputy Minority Whip (1983-1985), Representative for Texas's 21st Congressional District (1979-1985)
Character Country/State of Birth: Texas
Character State of Residence: Texas
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: John Thune
Main Strengths:

Knows Where The Bodies Are Buried And Has Licked The Shovel Clean: Tom has been in Congress since 1978, and in the Senate since 1984. He's held just about every Senate leadership position. He's shaken every hand, knows every big donor, and has a meticulous intelligence gathering operation on every Senator. He was an effective whip, knowing when to yell and scream like his idol LBJ, and when to sidle up and whisper or offer a shoulder pat, a neat whiskey, or a brown envelope. He's covered up everything from traffic offenses to financial misconduct to abuse of substances, campaign finance laws, and marital partners, and extracted favors in return.

Been There, Done That: Krueger has his name on some serious pieces of legislation: the first Reagan budget, the balanced budget and deficit reduction control acts, and the financial services modernization act. Everyone from Wall Street and big PACs down to the common taxpayer associates him with someone who wants to, and has delivered on, cutting taxes and regulations.

Main Weaknesses:

You Can't Say That!: Tom was at least once theoretically a moderate Republican on social issues, and he's certainly not a gay-basher or race-baiter, but he has had a history of xenophobic comments, from antisemitism to anti-Asian sentiment.

Stubborn as a Texas Mule: When he doesn't get his way, he digs in over the most minor points. He seized up passage of the CFMA -- legislation he supported -- over a singular point (arguably to the financial benefit of his wife, qv.). He's dragged agency officials in front of the Budget committee over the most minor spending lines.

A Tall Man With Tall Tales: He has a genuinely impressive resume... but the one he claims is even more impressive. A long history of fabrication and exaggeration came back to bite him badly during his abortive Presidential campaign (cf.). His military, academic, athletic and business records have all been exaggerated at various times, sometimes stretching the truth, sometimes making up complete falsehoods.

President of Nothing...: His 1996 Presidential campaign was an embarrassment on the national stage from which he slunk away with his tail between his legs and a trace of bitterness.

...especially not the Pat Buchanan Fan Club: Krueger has strikingly poor relations with paleoconservative and economic nationalist Republicans. He doesn't get on well with the Christian Right who regard him as unChristian, unserious about social issues, and a political opportunist (in all three cases, they are absolutely and entirely correct).

Where Did It Come From?: Tom has substantial financial wealth despite having only had a couple of low level staff jobs out of the Army. Much of this wealth comes from his wife, but he has also invested substantially while in the Senate. He has been accused of insider trading and is one of the main opponents of banning members of Congress from insider trading.

Storm Coming: (which is coincidentally also the title of... yeah, yeah) Krueger has been at the forefront of the push to deregulate the financial services industry and the landmark 1999 bill that repealed Glass-Steagal bears his name. While it might not be immediately apparent in May 2007 that this is a weakness, and indeed at the time he'd still be portraying it as a success, it is clearly going to become very controversial as the financial crisis hits.

Freddie Krueger: Aside from the unpleasant nickname, he also has a vaguely unsettling smile and for a Texan surprisingly few pictures of him in a cowboy hat.

The Other Half: (OOC: Ignore this if wife not approved.) He has frequently been accused of acting to the political and financial benefit of his wife.

Biography: The Krügers, as they were, arrived from Braunschweig, Germany in the 1840s; the Kruegers (who had Americanized their surname by the 1860 census) settled at Fredericksburg and were part of the pro-Union Texas resistance during the Civil War. Tom can also count English, Norwegian, Polish, Russian (including Russian Jewish) and Scots-Irish ancestry, and his maternal grandmother was Canadian. His father, Jacob Kruger, was a decorated Army Air Force fighter pilot who won the Distinguished Flying Cross during the Second World War and then returned to Texas to run the "land rich, cash poor" family ranch, while his mother Maria had been a flight nurse, and was forced to return to nursing when Jacob was severely injured, effectively paralysed, and later died from, a mechanical accident on the farm.

Tom was born in 1946 on the family ranch in Gillespie County, and grew up in the hardscrabble Texas Hill County that had produced a future President, Lyndon B. Johnson. Owing to his father's infirmity and an illness that left his younger brother, Fritz, severely incapacitated, the family was nearly bankrupted by financial problems. The family's finances recovered after selling off much of the land inherited from his grandparents. (Many years later, a now prosperous Kruger bought back the land and turned it into a recreational resort ranch.)

At Fredericksburg High, Tom starred in three sports (football, wrestling, and basketball), was elected student council president in his sophomore year, and graduated in 1964. His teenage years saw competing political interests: he asked for a copy of Capitalism and Freedom for his 18th birthday, but claimed to have attended, in 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (there is no record of his having done so and dates from the school yearbook would seem to contradict the claim), idolized JFK and LBJ, and considered himself a Democrat. He attended the University of Texas at Austin and joined the ROTC. Upon graduation with a BS in Economics, he reported for Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia.

After graduating OCS and being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant he completed Ranger School (which later proved a subject of controversy) and Airborne School before deploying to Vietnam to join 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, at the Phước Vĩnh Base Camp in Vietnam. During his time in the Central Highlands he qualified as a pathfinder and served with the 11th Pathfinder Company. His most notable incident occurred in the service occurred in 1970 during the Cambodian Incursion: what happened next is still the subject of some controversy. According to the official citation for his Bronze Star:

While leading a six-man reconnaissance troop, First Lieutenant Krueger encountered an ambush and overwhelming fire from a much larger enemy force. Despite being targeted by intense hostile fire and facing daunting adverse weather conditions, First Lieutenant Krueger maneuvred his troop into a covered position from which they were able to return fire with such precision as to drive off the pursuing enemy force. His swift and decisive actions enabled the reconnaissance team to safely withdraw without a single casualty and provide intelligence leading to a critical air strike on a critical PAVN intelligence facility.

Critics of the incident have said the encounter may not have involved an "overwhelming" enemy force at all, but merely frightened villagers returning fire after the US forces stumbled into their path. The Marine pilots who carried out the resulting bombing raid also reported seeing no military or intelligence infrastructure at the target site. Tom was awarded two Purple Hearts while in Vietnam; the second of these awards was also questioned, with a suggestion that a "shrapnel injuries from a grenade" were really little more than a bad case of trenchfoot. While not controversial at the time or even during his early Senate career, journalists questioning the facts surrounding these engagements damaged his 1996 Presidential run. His fellow soldiers defended his conduct and said that while some villagers were killed in the crossfire, they were hiding PAVN/VC forces.

In 1971 he left Vietnam and by 1972 he was back in Texas at Fort Hood, fulfilling his service commitment by the end of the year. He has generally been reluctant to discuss his military career in depth and contrasted the acclaim his father's generation received for their exploits with the negative reception he and fellow Vietnam veterans received. He has also stated that the heckling he received on arriving back in the US contributed to his political shift towards the Republican Party, though those who served with him recall that he was already identifying as a Republican on arrival in Vietnam and strongly defended President Nixon. He returned to UT the following year to study economics using his GI Bill funds, but did not complete his doctorate and dropped out after less than a year to go and work for Senator John Tower as a legislative aide. At one point he attended a brief summer course on the campus of (but not affiliated with) the London School of Economics.

He found Washington DC to his liking, building up connections through aggressive networking and socializing. He took a junior staff position at the Department of Commerce, serving until the end of the Ford administration. In 1976 he ran for the Texas state legislature but lost by a humiliating landslide in the primary, whereupon he realized that he couldn't be successful in Texas politics without reestablishing his Texas roots. He returned to Texas and spent two years fundraising for the Texas Republican Party. He has said that during this time he ran the family ranch; critics contend he had little involvement with its day-to-day operations, and simply got lucky with some speculative gambles on cattle futures while schmoozing the donor class.

Regardless, armed with a badly fitting cowboy hat and the phone number of every mid-level and up donor in Texas Republican politics, he launched a campaign for Texas's 21st Congressional District, his home district and a traditionally Democratic district that had been turning Republican for some time. His 51% winning margin was embarrassingly slight for a hometown hero, but after that he never faced another such close election, being comfortably reelected with 70% in each subsequent election. In the House, he served on the Budget and Small Business Committees; in 1981, as just a sophomore, he had already established himself as a leading voice of supply-side economics and sponsored the Krueger-not-Latta Budget, which implemented Reagan's inaugural economic agenda, which cut non-military spending, boosted defense spending, and implemented the not-Kemp-not-Roth Tax Cut. He had initially run as a deficit hawk vowing to prioritize fighting inflation over delivering tax cuts, but embraced the Reagan agenda wholeheartedly.

In his House days, Krueger was regarded as uncommonly liberal for a Texas Republican on social matters. He voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 1982 and supported civil rights. He supported some abortion rights (but opposed public funding), publicly criticized homophobia and privately hired an openly gay staffer, and opposed the voluntary prayer amendment. However he was trenchant in his support of gun rights, and hawkish on foreign policy. He departed from his sometime libertarian views by being one of the few Congressmen to sponsor a bill reinstating the draft. He generally opposed nuclear disarmament treaties with the Soviet Union. In 1984, he ran for the open Senate seat, with his fundraising abilities more than any real profile helping him to the fore of a crowded primary. His campaigning was not always the best ("every speech was about economic theories," says one staffer, "he'd turn up for an event at a kindergarten and start talking about Milton Friedman, or lecture poor farmers on the benefits of free trade and cutting agricultural assistance"). But he had amassed a powerful war chest and dominated the airwaves in the general, propelling him to election as Senator. He replaced his old boss, Tower, and was the first candidate in Texan history to win more than 3 million votes, and one of the youngest Senators ever elected from Texas.

Upon taking office, he worked with Senators not-Hollings and not-Rudman to create the laws that bears their name, the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Acts. He was regarded as an "utterly fanatical" fiscal hawk by staffers and acquired the nickname "Freddie" (the reference to the movie slasher killer) for his desire to "slash" budget departments. He often talked about the "Jimmy Robinson Test", a reference to a supposed early supporter of his named Jimmy Robinson who ran a small family business. "Is it worth taking money out of Jimmy Robinson's pocket?" he would ask in reference to any increase in tax or spending. Journalists have doggedly tried and failed to find the real Jimmy Robinson and have noticed massive inconsistencies in Krueger's portrayal of him (at one point he was a black cotton farmer, another time a white paint supply merchant, for example). Despite his fiscal hawkishness he did vote for the Superconducting Super Collider to be built in Texas.

In 1996, he entered the Republican presidential primaries. Still relatively young, a decorated war hero with a history of impressive legislative accomplishments, and having won reelection in 1990 with over 3 million votes again, he seemed a strong candidate, but his campaign floundered. His Reaganomics were out of fashion and out of touch, reporters brought up numerous issues and inconsistencies in his personal history and dredged up murky tales of "Hot Tub Tom"'s fondness for the high life, some of it very high and very Colombian, and he failed to put together a strong outreach to evangelicals. He was publicly disowned by not-James Dobson and revelations of improper investments further sunk his candidacy. He never polled higher than 4% in any national poll, failed to win the Louisiana primary despite coming from a neighboring state and campaigning heavily there, and ended his run after finishing just 7th in Iowa. Throughout his campaign and afterwards he was scathing about Buchanan, dubbed him a "protectionist", and endorsed not-Dole.

His presidential hopes essentially ended, he concentrated on running for a third Senate term; bruised by the presidential campaign, his vote share was heavily down and he was forced to spend more money than on his first two campaigns combined. In 2002 he won a fourth term, this time restoring a more comfortable margin of victory, though again spending heavily. Since 1996 he has concentrated more on his Senate leadership aspirations. He has served in almost every Senate leadership position within the Republican Conference; from 1997 to 2001 he chaired the Conference, from 2003 to 2007 served as Majority Whip, and in 2007 won election to the Minority Leadership after not-Frist did not run for office in 2006. During the turn of the millennium he chaired the Senate Budget Committee (also briefly serving as Ranking Member during a fluctuating period of Democratic control) during which time he passed perhaps his most notable legislative achievement, the Krueger-not-Leach-not-Billey Act that repealed Glass-Steagal among other modernization of financial services regulation. He also sponsored the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and was resolute in his insistence that the bill exempt credit swaps from SEC oversight, holding up the bill for months until he got his way.

During his time in the Senate, he has served on the Budget, Armed Services, Agriculture and Appropriations Committee, on the latter for a long time holding the key Subcommittee Chair/RM on Foreign Operations. He is a devoted Longhorns fan and noted for his dislike of Texas Aggies sports; however he made an exception in 1999 following the Aggie Bonfire collapse, donating his future F-16 flyover reserved for his funeral as a US Senator to the Texas A&M community. He has ruled out running for President again and wishes to concentrate on his Senatorial career. It was initially assumed he would endorse his number two, Ruskie Helms, but has held off making an endorsement for now.

Other Info: Tom is twice divorced; his third wife is listed below. If she is not excepted, assume she is the same but without any high office. OOC, he obviously replaces Phil Gramm's career almost entirely, so if Krueger is accepted, references to Gramm in law names could be replaced with Krueger.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: Prince Kropotkin

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

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Character Application and Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: Prince Kropotkin
Character Name: Katie Miller
Character Gender: Female
Character Age: 50
Character Height: 5' 6"
Character Weight : 120 lbs
Character Position/Role/Job: Secretary of Energy (2005-present), Deputy Secretary of Energy (2001-2005)
Character Country/State of Birth: Texas
Character State of Residence: Texas
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: Kristi Noem
Main Strengths: Politically powerful husband, substantial personal wealth, extensive government connections, loyalty from Cush administration.
Main Weaknesses: Socially liberal RINO, utterly corrupt, inextricably linked with Cush administration, literally killed a guy oops lol.
Biography: Katie was born in 1957; she has a brother and two sisters. She was raised in Lubbock, Texas, in an upper middle class household. She attended private Catholic school and then Smith College, Massachusetts, where she took a degree in Economics and Finance, followed by a master's degree at Tuck Business School of Dartmouth College.

Upon graduation, Katie went to work in New York with Citicorp in their investment banking division, and then moving to the boutique investment bank Allen & Company. In 1987 she served a White House Fellowship, after which she returned to Citicorp as a VP for two years. In 1989 she entered government service for the first time, holding positions with the Department of Energy and the Small Business Administration, before being appointed to the board of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Days before leaving the CFTC in 1993, she voted to exempt Enron from regulation, and then left to take up a seat on Enron's board of directors.

Having returned to Texas to work with Enron, she then moved to the Crossroads Group. During her time in Texas she became well known at the Governor's mansion and her aggressive advocacy of deregulation enthused John Cush. When he was elected President, he appointed her Deputy Secretary of Energy. In 2005, she was tapped to replace the outgoing Secretary of Energy. In her time at the Department her lack of technical knowledge has been criticized, as has her strong deference to industry. Her administrative and organizational capabilities have been well regarded, though.

She first met Tom Krueger in the 1980s; they married in 1993, her second marriage, his third. They have no children together, though he has three from his first marriage. Earlier in her career, Katie advocated for abortion rights, women's rights, and gay rights, but has since largely stopped speaking on social issues. In 1996 when her husband ran for President, she was extensively profiled and journalists found out about a driving incident which resulted in the death of another motorist. No criminal charges were ever filed and she privately settled two civil suits resulting from the crash, which she has generally refused to speak about.

Other Info: I know this bio is way too short; I will add more detail if the general premise is given the OK.

I have read and accepted the rules of the roleplay: Prince Kropotkin

Do Not Remove: DRAFT123123

In defense of submitting a power couple...

These characters replace Mitch McConnell/Phil Gramm and Elaine Chao/Wendy Gramm, who really were power couples in this era, with McConnell/Chao being Senate Minority Leader and Secretary of Labor at the same time (and later Senate Majority Leader and Secretary of Transportation at the same time). I have reduced Katie's personal wealth and career accomplishments relative to Elaine Chao considerably.

If accepted, Katie would not run for any office and I would not use her to boost the candidacy of my own characters. I don't imagine Katie really having much to do as Secretary of Energy so it's more about her role as a spouse.

I have tried to emphasize the nepotism and corruption aspect to bring out the weaknesses of such an arrangement.

I don't want to argue with you guys all the time so if you just say this is not OK, I will accept that and change Katie's government service time to a private sector career.

ACCEPTED123123

[Dentali]

CURRENT DATE



May 18th, 2007 to June 1st, 2007