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His Excellency Matthew Rabin | |
|---|---|
| File:Matthew Rabin portrait.jpg President Matthew Rabin, official presidential portrait, shortly after starting his second term in January 1949. | |
| President of Belhavia | |
| In office July 24th, 1945 – January 2nd, 1953 | |
| Preceded by | Oren Asher (legally) Zachary Galarian (unlawfully as "Supreme Autocrat" in his self-declared regime) |
| Succeeded by | Yavin Leibniz |
| Acting President of Belhavia | |
| In office May 23rd, 1945 – July 23rd, 1945 | |
| President of the 1945 Provisa Convention | |
| In office August 21st, 1945 – January 2nd, 1946 | |
| Chairman of the Provisional Constitutional Committee | |
| In office September 25th, 1940 – May 23rd, 1945 | |
| 1940 Presidential Nominee of the Liberal Democratic Party | |
| In office July 15th, 1940 – September 5th, 1940 | |
| Governor of West Dakos | |
| In office January 3rd, 1933 – September 5th, 1940 | |
| Preceded by | Nachmann Ben-Tzi |
| Succeeded by | Yitzchak Gershom (unlawful Galarian appointee) Benjamin Wolf (legally) |
| Attorney-General of West Dakos | |
| In office January 4th, 1929 – January 2nd, 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Seth Werner |
| Succeeded by | Levi Schultz |
| West Dakos Senate | |
| In office June 6th, 1920 – January 4th, 1929 | |
| Preceded by | Jeffrey Grossman |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Silverman |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 19th, 1887 Askariot, Shelvay Free Territory |
| Died | November 8th, 1961 Dakos, North Dakos |
| Nationality | Belhavian |
| Political party | Liberal Party (1903 - 1922) Liberal Democratic Party (1922 - 1961) |
| Spouse | Ahava Rabin |
| Alma mater | B.A., Political Science, Almania College J.D., Imperial Provisa University School of Law |
| Profession | Lawyer, Politician |
Matthew C. Rabin (September 19th, 1887 – November 8th, 1961) was a Belhavian politician, statesmen, and lawyer who served as the XXth President of Belhavia, leading the successful Belhavian government-in-exile that restored constitutional order in the Provisional Government of Belhavia after the Fall of Galarian and his autocratic regime. He oversaw the transition and early years of Belhavia restored to its status as an Empire.
Rabin had a complex and indecisive personality, as noted by numerous of his contemporaries, confidants, and relatives; however, biographers of Rabin believe it was this cautious and reserved temperament that gave him his famous centrist and pragmatic impulses. After the fall of Galarian and as the visible head of the government-in-exile, Rabin became a national hero. He died from natural causes in late 1961.
Early Life and Education
Matthew was born on September 19th, 1887, to Yitzchak and Miriam Rabin. The Rabins were an established, wealthy family from West Dakos who had taken a speculative but successful endeavor to open a plantation-style agricultural enterprise in what was then called the Shelvay Free Territory, currently part of the joint Belhavian-Tippercommoner condominium of Ayton-Shelvay. Matthew's parents were observant Modern Orthodox Jews who became landed gentry due to their land holdings, which were approximately 50 miles outside of Tel Avson, the territorial capital.
The colonial frontier experience was an isolated one, and Matthew grew up, an only child, nicknamed as "the Prince" by the locals, who acknowledged the Rabins as the most powerful and prestigious family in the area. The Rabins brought in some Jewish staff to build a proper home and lifestyle, and for early education, he was taught Judaic subjects by the family's rabbi and secular subjects by a tutor from Tel Avson.
Matthew, as he approached middle school, was sent away back home to West Dakos, where he joined the wealthy boys' yeshiva boarding school of Ohr Torah Chaim. The sons of the local observant wealthy families who had known the Rabins before their move out east were schooled here, and Matthew's parents wanted him to maintain those family connections so as to help him in the future. He scored well, being particularly proficient in Gemara, which aided him later on when he became a lawyer. He disliked sports or large social gatherings, but was liked enough to be elected student president in his junior and senior years. He continued to stay here through his middle and high school years, visiting his parents ever-so-often on breaks and summers.
He took the traditional gap year after he graduated to study in a college-age yeshiva in Dakos, before going to the four-year undergraduate institution of Almania College for a B.A. in Political Science, graduating in 1909. He then went to Imperial Provisa University School of Law for his J.D.
Lawyer & Early Career
Rabin networked well, and he joined the law firm of his yeshiva peer Dovid Weirson's father, Brooke, Silverman, & Weirson. In his college and law school years, Rabin had been attracted to and became a politically-active Liberal supporter. However, this clashed a bit with one of the senior partners, Joseph Silverman, a top Federalist donor. After several months, Silverman pressured his partners to fire Rabin, despite doing satisfactory first year associate's work.
Rabin, during a few weeks as he searched for a new job, visited a friend, Moshe Weinberg, studying at the Freeport Military Academy in late 1913, where he crossed paths with a young, first-year cadet by the name of Zachary Galarian. Years later, Weinberg recalled during the brief interaction between the two that:
Matthew [Rabin] seemed to hold the young [Zachary] Galarian in thinly-veiled contempt. After talking for a minute or two, as Galarian turned away, Matthew leaned in close to me and said, 'What a glib, shallow boy. He wears his ambitions on his sleeve for all the world to see.' I remembered I smiled at that; among my fellow cadets, few regarded [Galarian] as anything but a future bootlicker.
Political Career
West Dakos Senate Campaign
For the next almost 8 years, Rabin worked in the law firm of Feingold & Nesheri, LLC. Becoming bored with legal work, he became more involved in politics. In March 1920, he ran in a special election for a West Dakos provincial senate seat, District 12, that had became vacant in his part of the Navri neighborhood, in the province's capital of Ashkelon. The Navri area was upper-middle-income, filled with Modern Orthodox Jews such as himself, and had a spread out, more suburban feel to it. It leaned Liberal, but the Federalists had been making inroads as more Haredi Jews migrated into the district.
At the time, the West Dakos Senate was deadlocked at 13-13 between the Liberals and Federalists, with 1 un-caucused independent. The 12th District was represented by Independent and former Liberal Jeffrey Grossman, who refused to caucus with either party's coalition in the provincial Senate, becoming the main swing vote to pass or defeat legislation. However, he was an elderly man, and passed away in January 1920, leaving the Senate unable to pass any bill that the parties differed on.
Rabin ran as the local Liberal Party's nominee, facing off against Federalist nominee Simcha Schumacher and Democratic nominee Rafael Saloman for a June election. With the surge for the Federalists in the last two Empirewide elections for the Imperial Senate, in addition to the steady migration of Haredi Jews into the district as the election wore on, Schumacher was given the edge. An April poll by the local Ashkelon Daily Telegraph confirmed this, putting Schumacher at almost 46%, Rabin at 33.5%, and Salomon at about 19%, with 2% for others.
Rabin worked hard to boost his standing with Modern Orthodox Jews, and ventured out to engage the small but growing middle-income Rodarian second-generation immigrant enclave. The Rodarians tended to vote en-bloc Federalist, but Rabin's overtures about supporting industrialization swung them his way. He also pivoted and went to undercut the third-party Democrats, who were stealing Liberal-leaning swing voters. He pledged to support urban city workers and to introduce new provincial regulations on child labor.
By May, another poll funded by the Tanzer Foundation, a major civic organization in Ashkelon, found the candidates at 43% Schumacher, 45% Rabin, and 7% Salomon, with 5% other. In June, Rabin pulled out a thin 2.4% lead, winning 47.9% to Schumacher's 45.5% and Salomon's 5.6% and 1.0% minor candidates.
West Dakos Legislature
Rabin served another three terms in District 12's Senate seat. Parity of party registration in his district narrowed over his years in the West Dakos Senate, and he fought hard to several exceedingly-narrow re-elections. As a provincial senator, indulging his natural centrist and pragmatic inclinations with an eye for carving out a re-election path, he was often a key swing vote and coalition-builder in the chamber across the 1920s.
He sheparded through a prohibition on child labor in 1923 by tailoring a bill that fit most interest groups' and blocs' positions, phasing out the practice by 1928. He supported a business tax cut agreed to by labor-friendly Democrats, business-focused Federalists, and professional elite-oriented Liberals.
In 1922, he won by a slim 1.3% in a crowded 4-way field, winning with 39.4%, 36.7% Federalists, 21% Fascists, and 2.9% Democrats. 1922 featured the wildfire-growing popularity of the Fascists, which broke the static 3-party system of the Liberals and Federalists, with the Democrats gaining marginal support on the left. After this election, the Liberals and Democrats merged into the Liberal Democratic Party, and Rabin switched to the new party as did his fellow party members.
In 1924, he won by 4.7%, 52.3% - 47.6%, against an electorally fused Federalist-Fascist candidate.
In 1926, he beat back a particularly strong challenge from the Federalists, whose nominee was none other than Joseph Silverman, the law firm partner who had arranged Rabin's sacking from his first law job in 1913. Silverman bankrolled his own campaign, calling on his enormous wealth and gregarious personality. After in otherwise-bad year politically for the Liberals and polling behind, Rabin eked out a 0.3% win over Silverman, 43.7%-43.4%, with 11.1% for the Fascists and 1.8% others.
Provincial Attorney-General Campaign
After his improbable win, Rabin caught the eye of major provincial Lib Dem powerbroker Zachariah Teitelbaum. Teitelbaum was the 20+ year mayor and party boss of Ashkelon and a major Liberal Democratic party elder. The early 1920s were hard politically for the Liberal Democrats: after controlling most province-wide elected offices and solid majorities in West Dakos's government for nearly two decades, the Federalists and their Fascist allies had made steady gains, taking control of the Provincial Assembly, the provincial legislature's lower-house, and creating a tie for control of the provincial Senate, as well as controlling 4 of the 6 province-wide offices, including Governor and Attorney-General. Teitelbaum's urban machine operated on the largesse and benefits the legislature awarded to his corrupt friends and enterprises when the Liberals controlled the provincial government, and his power and political relevance was waning the longer the Federalists solidified their gains.
Teitelbaum looked at Rabin and saw a pliable, if competent rising star who could aim his plan to retake the province's political organs in the next couple of election circles. When Rabin won against all odds to be re-elected to his seat in 1926 against Silverman and hold the Liberal's tenuous one-seat majority in the Provincial Senate, he began to court Rabin as a political ally. The province Attorney-General's office, under Federalist incumbent Seth Werner, was investigating Teitelbaum's corrupt urban patronage network, and he wanted a well-placed ally to halt it.
He soon asked Rabin to run as for the position, and his machine - the most powerful in West Dakos Lib Dem politics - would back him. Rabin hesitated, though he soon realized why he was being courted. He agreed, on the conditions Teitelbaum gave him the autonomy to run his own affairs. The former agreed.
In July 1927, he kicked off his campaign. He quickly became known as "Teitelbaum's man," however, and his hard-fought credibility as an independent-minded moderate and consensus-builder shattered as the political class and voters started to view him as just another machine candidate. Entering 1928, his rallies were under-attended, his funds weak for such a province-wide campaign, and he trailed in what few polls local organizations fielded. The Federalist incumbent, Werner, seemed to maintain a strong and confident momentum, and he all but ignored Rabin's candidacy.
By late 1928, however, the national mood turned sour for the Federalists Empire-wide as the 1928-1933 Recession began, and Lib Dem hopes rose as voters tuned in and began to shift towards the center-left party. By November 1928, with overflowing rallies, eager voters who wanted to shake his hand, flush with campaign funds, Rabin victoriously won on Election Day, with 56.4%, ousting Werner, who only garnered 43.1% despite being the popular incumbent, amid a Lib Dem sweep of the nation, including in West Dakos. They recaptured control of the provincial Governor's, Attorney-General's and Treasurer's offices, ousted the Federalist majority in the Assembly for a narrow 4-seat majority, and grew their Senate majority by 6 seats.
Provincial Attorney-General
As the new Attorney-General, he halted the investigation into Teitelbaum's political empire and sought major legal reforms. He pushed and managed to pass universal male suffrage, eliminating the requirements for certain levels of property and education thresholds for provincial and local elections in West Dakos.
He targeted judicial corruption, using the Lib Dem majorities in the legislature to impeach and replace seven notoriously corrupt (and pointedly Federalist-appointed) provincial judges. Their replacements were by-and-large handpicked by Rabin, mostly law school peers he trusted as honest and containing good character.
However, his relationship with Teitelbaum diminished and then became outright hostile as Rabin pushed one reform bill after another. Rabin, fed up with Teitelbaum's patronage and blatant illegality and wrought by his conscience, reversed course and ended their political alliance in May 1930. He re-opened Werner's investigation into the Ashkelon city boss, and used his own party contacts to gain more concrete evidence. In February 1931, Teitelbaum was arrested by Provincial Police after the Provincial Board of Ethics lodged criminal corruption charges against him, at Rabin's behest.
The province's Liberal Democrats splintered into Rabin's and Teitelbaum's camps, with younger reformists siding with the former and older, more corrupt and entrenched interests backing the latter. Among Teitelbaum's supporters was Governor Nachmann Ben-Tzi, considered by his contemporaries as a slovenly womanizer and drunkard with bankrupt judgment and a complete machine politician. Ben-Tzi, who was Haredi, disliked Rabin's more modernist religious lifestyle, and he quickly used his influence to drop the charges against Teitelbaum, leading to an indignant and outraged public.
Sensing an opportunity to bring his reform agenda to a higher level and to rid the political process of corrupt men like Teitelbaum and Ben-Tzi, Rabin announced his gubernatorial campaign in April 1931.
Provincial Gubernatorial Campaign
Rabin had an early lead in the Lib Dem gubernatorial primary as the mainstay of the party attempted to turn their back on Ben-Tzi; however, the adroit Governor quickly started to organize his own side, aided by a retribution-minded Teitelbaum. In August, a poll conducted the provincial party committee found Rabin ahead, 57% to Ben-Tzi's 36%; however, the poll underrepresented urban working males who formed a key base of Ben-Tzi's and Teitelbaum's empires.
By October 1931, Ben-Tzi was calling in favors and giving out bribes to land key groups' endorsements and support. Rabin, aided by the young reformist contingent within the party and by a sympathetic local press corps, emphasized Ben-Tzi's scandalous behavior weekly and sought to blunt his recovering momentum. A more comprehensive poll in December 1931 suggested Ben-Tzi was gaining, with Rabin at 49% and Ben-Tzi at 42%.
For the next few months, each attempted to rally voters, donors, and party interests to support their campaign. As the June primary neared, Ben-Tzi and Teitelbaum engineered a money-for-vote and vote-rigging schemes to ensure victory. On election day, numerous reports of overt vote buying and vote rigging reached Rabin, who refused to concede after Ben-Tzi claimed victory with a "margin" of 51.3%-48.5%. His allies in the Imperial Government dispatched investigators from the Imperial Senate's Office of Ethics and Anticorruption Investigations.
For almost three weeks, they canvassed the province and wrote a report validating Rabin's charge that the results were illegal, and a quick trial before the West Dakos Supreme Court in early August demonstrated prevalent illegal votes, as much as 7% of the primary vote. The Court ruled in Rabin's favor, and overturned the results, making Rabin the 1932 Liberal Democratic gubernatorial nominee. The Senate investigators turned towards Imperial authorities, who arrested Ben-Tzi.
Buoyed by the victories under his belt, the seeming Federalist wave among voters to oust a Ben-Tzi-led Lib Dem party in the province dissipated as Rabin conducted whistlestop tours and barnstormed the province, making reformist and anticorruption pledges, and vowing to take on "rotten elements" within his own party.
Assisted by the coattails of the very good year for the Lib Dems in 1932, Rabin won the governorship with 63% of the vote. He crushed the Federalists and Fascists, who together earned a mere 37% of the vote.
Provincial Governor
Surrounded by allies in the provincial government, including both chambers of the legislature under his party's control and all 6 province-wide offices as well due to the sweep in 1932 - the first time the Lib Dems (or their predecessors, the Liberals) had done so since 1900. He promoted a reformist agenda, including creating a provincial park system (1933), broadening and equalizing the tax base between the cities and country (1933), implementing new, flexible industrial standards and oversight (1935), and other legislation.
Having "broken the machine's back," as his supporters were wont to say, Rabin installed clean, corruption-resistant provincial officers across the government in an effort to consolidate his (somewhat) successful anticorruption campaign. Due to his rising litany of political accomplishments, many Imperial political watchers opined that he would run for president in the 1936 elections. He passed, however, after the 6/5 Affair broke out, demonstrating lingering entrenched corrupt elements. He sought another term, winning an impressive 69% of the vote against nominal Federalist opposition.
Emboldened by his victory, he attempted to impeach several sitting civil bureaucrats (4 Federalists and 1 Fascist), which backfired as many saw it as baseless political attacks. His party fought back in the legislature, and his bureaucracy-packing plan and impeachment bills were defeated by bipartisan coalitions.
Humbled, he coasted throughout 1937 and 1938 without any new major legislation, simply allowing boisterous politicians in the legislature propose and fight over bills, and simply signing or vetoing them as he thought best. In the 1938 elections, the Federalist-Fascist electoral alliance won back seats in both houses of the legislature, thinning his party's majority. They also won the Attorney-General's seat, and began investigating suspicious ongoing by Rabin administration personnel.
Disillusioned, exhausted, and politically spent, Rabin began to suffer from depression and became detached and aloof from most except his family and inner circle. By late 1938, however, he seemed to recover as he began to drift his attention to Imperial politics and the caustic foreign policy debates of the Imperial Senate of the 1930s.
1940 Presidential Campaign
Primary
Rabin supported the idea of the Belhavian Empire in the Grand Colonial Debates, but believed that non-intervention abroad and abandoning a policy of strategic imperialism was needed, adhering to a centrist position within his party at the time. Federalist incumbent President Oren Asher, unable to lead effectively in such a hyperpolarized political climate, announced his intention to retire and not seek re-election in 1940 on July 9th, 1939, sparking wide interest in both parties for the soon-to-be-open Presidential Palace.
Foreign policy and the "Grand Colonial Debate" dominated the presidential contest, though other issues - economic, among others - were also factors. In September, Imperial Senator Reuven Wolfowitz (F-King's Island), a key ally of fellow Sen. Frank Posen (F-Raffen) and Chief of the Imperial Army Zachary Galarian, announced his campaign, running as part of the imperialist right. He received support from the Federalist conservatives and the Fascists. In October, fellow Federalist and Imperial Senator Menachem Mendel Rubin (F-South Dakos) announced, taking a proto-paleo/right-wing anti-imperialist perspective that focused on national interests over perpetual expansionism.
In August, within the Liberal Democrats, Governor Ezra Waxman (Anaheim) announced his presidential campaign, running to the left. He espoused a strongly-held isolationist and decolonization platform. To his right on foreign policy, Sen. Avraham Finkelstein (nicknamed popularly as "Avie") (LD-Tobia), a member of the Lib Dems' conservative-liberal wing, announced in November 1939, promoting a platform of pro-imperialist and -colonialist policies.
Going last of the major candidates, on December 14th, 1939, Rabin announced his candidacy, seeking a centrist position in his party.
While the others squabbled and clashed, Rabin tried to look presidential and dignified by staying above the fray and campaigning on broad, reformist themes. Of the 25 provinces and ten territories at that time, only 14 held primaries and 3 conducted caucuses. The party elites brokered out the national tickets at the convention, usually held in the summer. The primaries and caucuses were reforms from the Liberal dominance of the early 20th century, where many provinces adopted direct elections for the parties at the behest of political reformers between 1899 and 1916.
Rabin contested the first primary, held in North Dakos. He barnstormed the province, taking whistlestop tours across the province's rural areas. He met with local political luminaries, and held a rally in Dakos. Waxman and Finkelstein also hit the campaign trail, with Waxman taking multiday swings through the province's cities and Finkelstein the countryside, where many conservative-liberal voters were congregated. The primary was held on January 28th, 1940, and Waxman cruised to a large victory, maximizing the votes from the large cities. He won 52% to Finkelstein's 31% and Rabin's 17%. However, while Waxman won the hearts of primary voters there, Rabin and Finkelstein had racked up support among the party elites who served as convention delegates. Of 55 delegates, 32 went to Rabin, 19 to Finkelstein, and the rest to Waxman as the primary winner.
Rabin and his adversaries moved to East Dakos, West Dakos, and Raffen, where the three provinces all held their primaries on February 16th. After several public campaign stops, and numerous backdoor meetings with delegates, Rabin won both East and West Dakos provinces convincingly, while Finkelstein won Raffen, a jingoistic stronghold.
The February 21st caucus in Anaheim was won narrowly by Waxman, and Rabin and Finkelstein split the Freeport primary. Going into March, all three were holding their own. The party's elders were nervous as all three camps refused to yield. The moderates stuck with Rabin, the imperialists with Finkelstein, and the dovish anti-colonialists with Waxman.
Between March and June, Waxman won a majority of the primaries and caucuses, while Rabin and Finkelstein won the loyalties of the delegates. With no signs of relenting, all three entered the July convention.
Rabin had been the key prize for both extremes; as the symbolic leader of the centrists, his support could either side a win. Yet he rejected overtures to drop out and endorse either of his rivals and get the Vice-Presidential slot. He viewed both as contemptuously radical and dangerous, and not strong enough to win the general election against the Federalists and Fascists. When the July Convention opened, Finkelstein had a plurality majority of 857 delegates, followed by Waxman at 694, and Rabin at 200. After five rounds of ballots on the first day, the Finkelstein-Waxman slugfest had failed to abate, and neither camp was willing to concede. It was none other than former President Akiva Ben-Cohen, who personally aligned with the centrists but stayed publicly neutral, who started to organize support for Rabin as the consensus candidate that evening. During the second day, delegates from both Finkelstein and Waxman - through favor-trading, out of principle, loyalty to Ben-Cohen, or bribes - quietly started to pledge their support to Rabin.
Later that day, when the sixth ballot opened, Rabin took a narrow lead, 41% to Finkelstein's 34% and Waxman's 25%. The surprising result shocked the convention, and pandemonium broke out. After convention guards broke apart fistfights and heated arguments, the camps retreated to their corners.
