Timothy Taft

== Summary ==
Timothy R. Taft is an American philosopher and politician who was the Founder of MEC and its former Owner. He was active politically on and off since the community's creation up until its death and served in various roles. He retired permanently about a year and a half before the death of the community but re-appeared in its final days to commemorate its passing along with a group of other MEC originals including Jonathan Gathers, Jess Bullard, Gabe Fly, Jason Nicasio (Nic), Maleek Diaz, Adam Daniel (also known as Adam the Gamer and Adam the Nerd) and Ethan Kelly. 
Taft was an experienced player in MEC. He served as the Vice President of the United States, Senator, Representative, White House Chief of Staff, Libertarian Party Vice Chairman, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the MEC Philosophical Society. Taft was also an active lawyer and philosopher as well as a MEC historian (the last being a profession he maintains after MEC's death). This is his story. 
== Founding of MEC ==
In August of 2016 the Reagan Republicans creator and former Owner decided to create an election simulator. Thinking it would be nothing more than a short little experiment he created it with the alt Jack Smith as the Owner. Little did he know that this little community would grow to be the incredibly successful and life changing community, Mock Election.
== Early MEC Career == 
=== Season 1 ===
He left Caleb Andrew in charge of the RR as he began his new project. He announced his bid for President in Season One against the religious Japheth Hilton. He was behind in polls, however, after Caleb Andrew dropped out due to The First Scandal, he gained the majority of his voters and polls evened out. 
He chose Caleb Andrew as his running mate and they began a tight race against Hilton for the Republican nomination, which they lost due to his large base of Christian conservatives (known as Hiltonites). Taft then endorsed Hilton and remained influential throughout the Season 1 campaign.
=== Season 2 ===
During Season 2 after President Hilton announced he would not seek reelection, Taft quickly threw his hat into the ring along with Caleb Andrew the Libertarian Owner of the RR from Minnesota, John Wagner, an aggressive working class candidate from New York, Fernando Diaz a newby at the time from California, And Bill Bryant, an elderly Airforce veteran from Hawaii. Taft rose to the top of the polls quickly and won the Republican nomination and choose Malee Diaz To Be His Vice presidential running mate, however later in the race he dropped out due to the surge of support toward independent conservative Gabe Fly from Tennessee. The democratic nominee Jon Gathers lost with 48% of the vote (It was later found that Gathers had won by several votes when it was discovered that there was voter fraud from among the opposition).
Later on he became inactive for the rest of the season until The Great Rebellion occurred. He surprised many by announcing he would be leaving politics but that promise would not last long. 
=== Season 3 ===
He announced his bid for President in Season 3 of Mock Election. He was almost the Republican nominee, and on Primary day it looked like he had won with a 51% lead, but after the announcement of his victory, Gabe Fly surprised everyone by proving he had three absentee ballots with screenshots of G hangouts messages with Aaron Thimke and others (though it was later revealed that the screenshots were for an entirely different election and were used for the sole purpose of illegally giving the nomination to Ethan Kelly). Taft fought him legally but it was futile and Ethan Kelly won the nomination. 
=== Later Events/First Retirement ===
Feeling he had been cheated out of the Presidency, Taft vowed never to run for President again, and appointed Jonathan Gathers as owner and later 3 term President Ethan Kelly as Owner hoping that the community would die with him. He was made a member of the Moderator Council in the Spring of 2017 and was a very influential member. President Kelly eventually selected Taft to be on his cabinet as Secretary of Defense, in which Taft wrote the "Kelly-Taft Defense Plan" which was never passed due to there being no congress at that time. Taft later ran for the senate and polls showed he was winning but he dropped out due to allegations that him holding a senate seat would be a conflict of interest. After the bitter Season 5 election, Taft left the Mock Election community for good, leaving behind a legacy. 
== Later MEC Career ==
Taft came out of retirement later that year after a failed attempt to start a new political simulator. 
On November 2, 2017, Tim Taft came back to Mock Election due to Nic removing everyone from Taft's community "US Government and Politics Simulator"; which Nic later said "it was to make sure that the people never elect a corrupt individual like Jess in office"; and on November 4th Taft announced his candidacy for the House of Representatives for District 7.
=== White House Chief of Staff ===
On November 6, 2017, Tim Taft's new political career began on MEC when he was selected by President-Elect Ethan Fitzgerald to be the next Chief of Staff under the Fitzgerald Administration. While Taft's tenure as the WH Chief of Staff was short, he helped advise democratic President Ethan Fitzgerald on several different policy issues. 
=== House of Representatives (Nov.-Dec. 2017) ===
On November 18, 2017 Taft resigned from his position as Chief of Staff after he won election to the District 7 seat of the House of Representatives. On his first day in Congress, Rep. Taft proposed "The Border Security and Immigration Act of 2017", which passed the House unanimously and later was passed with a revision in the Senate before getting re-affirmed in the House and then was eventually signed by President Ethan Fitzgerald on December 13, 2017, handing Taft a decisive victory in fulfilling one of his biggest campaign promises.
He also later introduced and passed "The Firearms Protection Act of 2017", which he co-authored with the help of his good friend Secretary Jasir Best(now Monique Henderson)
=== Re-Election Loss/Second Retirement ===
Rep. Taft later sought re-election but lost to former President Kelvin Hawthorne after there was an influx of new democratic voters which handed the democrats a majority in the House of Representatives. Taft retired from MEC later that day.
=== Career Continuation ===
However, Taft came back nearly a year later and was active in politics once again, not running for anything but just actively speaking on important issues (including the threat of electromagnetic pulse that Taft thinks is underlooked as the greatest threat to America of the modern day). He did, however, change his political party from the Libertarian Party to the Republican Party due to the fact that the Libertarian Party of MEC is relatively inactive, though, he still identifies as a Libertarian ideologically. 
=== House of Representatives (March-April 2019) ===
In March 2019, Taft was appointed to fill the vacancy left in District 7, his old seat back in the day, left by Ethan Davis, who had just been elected to the Senate. Taft accepted it and participated in a congressional hearing over articles of impeachment of then-President Easton Wilkins. Taft has also authored the "End the Fed Act of 2019", a bill which seeks to end the Federal Reserve and central banking. It is currently still awaiting a vote in Congress. 
==== Election to Full House Term ====
Taft also filed to run for election to a full-term in District 7. He ran against Democratic Nominee Dave Schnier. On election day Congressman Taft defeated him in a landslide victory. 
=== U.S. Senate ===
Later on, Taft announced that he would not seek re-election to another term in the House of Representatives and instead launched a campaign for the Senate District 3, clenching the Republican Nomination in a landslide and running against democratic nominee, Former President Jon S. Uberfeld, whom is also a personal friend of Taft's. 
As of election day, Taft emerged victorious with a narrow lead at just above 51%. Tim Taft was sworn in as the U.S. Senator for District 3 Class 1 on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. He served 6 weeks in the Senate and co-authored a bill promoting nuclear energy research and a bill to end the war in Afghanistan (which was passed overwhelmingly by the Senate) and co-sponsored a number of other bills. Taft declined to seek a second term and resigned with 2 weeks left in his 8-week Senate term in order to become the Vice President of the United States upon the election of Robert Sanders. 
=== Season 23 Presidential Bid ===
Senator Tim Taft officially announced his bid for the Republican Nomination for President of the United States on May 9th, 2019. He campaigned on a Libertarian Platform and it was speculated due to polling of all potential GOP candidates that Senator Taft would win the GOP nomination as he stood at 40% in GOP nomination polls, but this was never confirmed as Senator Taft dropped out before the primary was held. Senator Taft suspended his campaign after lack of support and being unable to convince members of the democratic establishment to support his campaign. He has announced his intentions to retire from the Senate at the end of his term, however he resigned before then after he won the Vice Presidency on the Sanders/Taft presidential ticket. 
=== Vice Presidency ===
Tim Taft was inaugurated as the Vice President of the United States on June 1, 2019 along with President-Elect Robert Sanders. One of his first tasks was to meet with the Prime Minister of Canada, Ethan Davis. His biggest accomplishment as Vice President was the completion of a bill called the "Electronic Security for America Act", which sought to improve the security of the electrical grids. The legislation passed both the House and the Senate with overwhelming support and was signed by President Robert Sanders on June 24th, 2019. Vice President Taft retired after the end of his first and only term as VP (the Sanders/Taft Campaign declined to seek re-election) and that officially ended his career in MEC. 
=== Post-Career ===
After the end of his tenure in MEC, Tim Taft was known to visit the community from time to time and during its final days he appeared once more to mourn the loss of the community and celebrate its lifespan. Taft, along with several other MEC originals comprising Jonathan Gathers Byers, Jess Bullard, Gabe Fly, Jason Nicasio (Nic), Maleek Diaz, Adam Daniel, and Ethan Kelly formed a hangouts chat and observed the final breaths of the Mock Election Community. 
As of today, Timothy Taft is not politically active in any political simulators and mostly spends his time studying philosophy and theology and reading Walking Dead comics. 
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