O'Connor/Kaur

[Avenger Assembled]

In 2020, the Democratic Party's nominee was not necessarily anybody's favorite (at least not among people on social media) - a divided primary electorate resulted in the nomination of a glad-handing Irish Catholic septuagenarian from the Acela corridor, the sort of politician who seemed to belong to the past rather than the future. But his vision of common decency and being stronger, together pleased an electorate that likes the idea of bipartisanship and team-building. His close ties to the superhuman community (including a few quasi-endorsements from former members of the Freedom League) helped a lot too. 

 

And so it is that in 2020, former Freedom City Mayor Mike O'Connor was elected President of the United States, having narrowly lost the popular vote (though both candidates got below 50%) but securing a solid majority in the Electoral College. O'Connor rebutted charges of inexperience (having never held office higher than city mayor) by pointing out that he'd been in politics since the late 1980s and that Freedom City is a city as diverse as and big as many small countries. The famous image of him eating a vanilla ice cream cone while waiting for his nomination has been an iconic one - you might not love vanilla ice cream, it might not be your favorite choice, but ultimately most people can agree they'll eat it. 

 

His Vice-President is Kalinda Kaur, formerly the Representative for Wisconsin's 9th Congressional District, a long-gerrymandered district that encompasses the city of Bedlam and its surrounding territories. The daughter of a Sikh immigrant long-haul trucker and an African-American school librarian from Wolverton, she went to law school after her father was gunned down by some joyriding Stark Hill thugs, planning to come back home and fight for justice. When she came back to Bedlam and found work in the public defender's office, it was supposed to be a temporary stopgap - but she quickly realized that defending those who could not defend themselves was a far finer and sweeter way to fight for what she believed in. She soon set her sights beyond just Bedlam, and in 2010 the assistant public defender was elected to Congress, boosted by a city machine that rightly realized that if they gave her a national platform, she'd be less interested in busting their chops. 

She gained a national profile in Congress as a major critic of the Cahill administration and was talked about herself as a long-shot Presidential candidate in 2020 before deciding to stay out of the race. At thirty-eight years old, she is actually younger than President O'Connor's children but she's a young, fresh face in the Democratic coalition and was ultimately an excellent choice to build ties to the party's progressive wing.