Buchanan gives nod to McVicker for Commerce as her team takes shape

LRP presidential candidate Renee Buchanan has named round 1 opponent Dennis McVicker (RNC) as her choice for secretary of commerce should the contender achieve election on Sept 26. Calling the appointment 'consensus building', Buchanan is the only candidate to have made any headway on establishing a workable government.

"We can work together and there's a lot of space to merge both agendas into one platform", she said.

Responding to questions on campaign disagreements between Republicans and Linardists, Buchanan dispelled the internal wrangling as 'regular'.

"I'm running the campaign for Titulia and following the president's example of leadership to get people together who have ideas and experience to bring", she said. "What's discussed with other parties stays between us and them and I'm not going to comment unless that changes. I'm not interested in partisan game playing and taking Titulia back to the start this is about tomorrow and the future".

When asked why McVicker got the nod for the chief finance officer's role, Buchanan said she 'appreciated the debate'.

Rumour has it that she will be tapping Luxis Avaram (RNC) on the shoulder next for chief of staff.

"Dennis campaigned for a lot of suggestions close to what I want to achieve as president. We both agree there's a lot of work to do to make Titulia attractive to the outside world".

Buchanan said the main attraction issue was the slow uptake of infrastructure by previous administrations.

"Titulia should be more competitive in the online nation market and it's not even close. I have tried to recruit more friends from my rl [real life] political party and the one's that didn't sign up thought it looked like a school yard joke".

She took her hat off to Double D Constructions for its building program.

"This was one example of how government and business worked together and gave some life to the poor state of the city's development".

As secretary for infrastructure Buchanan was the president's point person in developing the first non expiring service packages to keep private enterprise developing the web sites and not letting them go out of date.

"Our sites need to be regularly updated and the service packages come with the expectation that it will now be done. A great result", she said.

A Buchanan-Hock government is taking shape with people in place to fill infrastructure, arts and now commerce. The coveted role of attorney general remains a mystery and unlikely to be taken up before the end of the election.

Reports say outgoing commerce secretary Gerry Brady and chief of staff Reformer (both SDP) declined Buchanan's invitation to serve citing life commitments (Brady) and no reason given (Reformer). Secretary Buchanan wished them well.

There are persistent rumours of a possible legal challenge if Wilberforce is elected, citing that the candidate is in breach of legislation and Admin rulings over failure to declare a vice presidential candidate before the end of nominations. This almost cost President Norton and SDP candidate Reformer in the last election until an allowance was accepted due to the new web site's difficulties with signing in.

The Titulia Admin has since confirmed via their weblog that no other sign in issues have presented and the only remaining issue exists with crossover to the old site. They have supplied an easy fix to that and Titulians have widely known about this for weeks now. As the old site services continue to migrate over, any problems with using the old site are now minimal with not much usage at all since the transition of propositions and polls.

Stay here at the Express for your complete coverage of the September 2010 election!

Ed: thanks to John Baxter and Todd Richards for contributing to this report.