1. Before we get into the real meat of the this event, as always, I want to ask all the candidates—what made you decide to run for the Underhusen or other positions? What do you think should the main goals of our Underhusen and of the wider government of Wintreath?This is a meaty question, but in as simple terms as possible - at one point I had the impression that there was no basis for citizenship in our legislation. That's since been demonstrated to be false, since it's in the statutes, but
given that the
rights of citizenship are outlined in the Constitution, it should also be where the ways in which one can
gain citizenship in the first place are - as is the case for almost all constitutions worldwide, wherein the first section tends to delineate how citizenship is established.
As for the goals of the UH and the government as a whole - I think that the UH should have a light touch, but I think it's also incumbent on the rest of the government as a whole to ensure that they can get things done. As we saw with the citizenship deferral issue this session and the one before, legislation for it was sent up to the OH 3 times, but sentiments about how the legislation was somehow incomplete were not voiced
until such time as the OH brought it to vote, despite UH debate taking place in a publicly visible forum. I think any objections shouldn't hesitate to be raised - whether in the public channels that the Speaker makes available, or in private ones like PMs - for the specific reason of avoiding that kind of debacle where a simple piece of legislation takes so long that the very reason for it being proposed is obviated before it's even done.
2. As has been shown time and again in the annals of history, both in the digital and physical world, to survive and prosper, a community must grow. What do you believe is the best way to return Wintreath to a regime of growth in NationStates and beyond? Do you have any proposals for the growth of Wintreath that you can implement as a government official?Being...involved in the public face of our NS-side of things, the RMB, it's my opinion that the RMB needs to be presented, and thus seen, as a welcoming face of an inclusive region. That, more than anything else, is going to get people to put their foot in the door - because even though we have a lovely community both in forums and discord, the first impression is the most important, and that first impression for people coming from NS specifically is going to be the RMB. Having active moderation is the first layer, but on another level people should be communicating on the RMB reasonable often as well - because
especially as someone who was resolutely only on the RMB for
years, if there hadn't been an active and honestly lovely community of people, I might well have gone somewhere else entirely before deciding to step foot into the forums.
3. What, other than inactivity, do you think is the biggest problem facing Wintreath at this point, either as a NationStates region and or a community (or both!)?We need to decide whether we're going to be actively involved in gameplay, or cut all ties. As it is, we're kind of in this nebulous halfway point, where we sort of care about gameplay things, but have no military or way to project ourselves in any of those groups. Some form of referendum on the subject would probably be the best way to establish a community-level idea of which way we want to head.
4. Do other NS regions have any programs or operations that you think we could emulate to enrich our community here in Wintreath? If so, please share, that we might emulate them!! 
I only vaguely recall this, but I think there was a region called Illuminati(? maybe) that had these increasingly intricate 'signups' of sort as someone progressed throughout the region. I don't know if that's useful - but maybe it could be handy thing for us to implement on a governmental level, where if you're running for office you need to say more than sort of those bare-bones things about yourself that we all did in the citizenship application - so that we don't just know your
platform, but more about you as a
person.
5. Who is your favourite politician (real or fictional) and why?Weirdly, it might be a guy like
"Boss" Tweed. Which, er, doesn't make me look very scrupulous, since he was convicted for corruption and fraud, but I think machine politics were (or really, I suppose, would have been) a precursor to the sort of strong political parties you see in places like Britain or Germany - as opposed to the incredibly weak ones we have here where there hardly seems to be a whip at all. Because if your party has no central direction - well, what the hell do you stand for? Nobody knows. Machine politics ensure that
someone is providing that central direction that gets things
done.
A more scrupulous example might have been
Richard Daly (the elder), but I wanted to point out that there's a lot of unsavory elements to machine politics, as opposed to merely highlighting the general efficiency and administrative success associated with the Chicago Machine's running of the city (at least until the machine collapsed in the late '80s and Chicago lost the plot completely).
6. What is your favourite form of government? Why?I mean, practically speaking, a benevolent dictatorship. The problem is, those don't last very long, and are usually followed up by profoundly
unbenevolent dictatorships.
My preferred one among
practical choices would probably be a semi-presidential democracy, a la France, with the strong-party elements provided by parliamentary systems, while retaining the unifying character of presidential figures.
7. What do you think makes a successful democracy?I'm a fan of more information, not less. The key to note is
information, as opposed to
data - we all have better things to do than trawl through inane babbling drivel, but being able to see the brass tacks so you can get down to them makes everyone make better decisions.
8. Are you capable of being online for the duration of this session of the Underhusen? How "active" do you consider yourself on the forums?Barring unforeseen death or accident, yup. As to activity - I actively lurk and infrequently post, if that makes any sense. But seeing as I'm pretty much always on Discord, if anything suddenly came up I'd be aware of it within sort of 12 hours or so (in the worst-case scenario where I fall asleep and then need to go to summer classes immediately after waking up).
9. Now we're not too formal here. I don't want this to be a a place for candidates to get on their soapbox, but rather a genuine and free exchange of ideas, so: what questions do you feel every candidate should be asked? As this is a bit more of an informal event (it's a steak fry, after all) feel free to engage in debate (but preferably mutually beneficial discussion) with your fellow candidates and upstanding citizens of the Wintreath community! 
I suppose the most prudent question would be 'Are you going to propose any joke legislation'? (The answer to that question: if it were easier, god, yes, I would - but because it's more work to draft joke legislation than I think would provide enough amusement to justify it, I wouldn't). Which, I guess, saves me from cheapening the institution of the UH thanks to the power of laziness. One vice saves me from another.
10. And now, the most important question of all—how would you like your steak?Medium.
