My friends and fellow humans,

Tomorrow you will be voting in mid-term elections. And while the office of president is not on this ballot – an office, I would point out, for which the only duly-elected occupant is myself, despite what certain conspiracy theorists would have you believe – I am all too aware that your decision on election day will reflect on my presidency.

And so, in that vein, I am speaking to you today to appeal to your loyalty and to your steadfastness: stay the course in this election. Don’t endorse the cut-and-run policies of Admiral Adama and Laura Roslin. Because such an endorsement would only encourage those who would do us harm.

There are people who say, “But Gaius, New Caprica was a failure. The economy tanked. Thousands died in a pointless military quagmire and a disastrous occupation.”

To them I say, you’ve only heard one side of the story. Media bias. What about the good news on New Caprica? The way the declining population meant shorter lineups at the market. The snazzy outfits worn by our Cylon occupiers. And just ask Kara Thrace how committed we were to the upstanding values of marriage and the family.

Sure, we made some tough decisions. Some people were upset to see terrorists put in jail, and by “jail” I mean secret prisons where they certainly weren’t tortured. Or people who were probably terrorists. Or who might have been terrorists. Because, you know, there’s no proof they weren’t. But I want to reiterate that none of them were tortured, because we don’t do that. I won’t stand for it. Wouldn’t turn a blind eye to it, either, no offense to Col. Tigh.

And I kept promises. I said we would stand down as the Cylons stood up, and as it turned out, that was kind of mandatory.

Yes, I would have liked to achieve more. For one thing, I’d like to be making this speech from somewhere other than the bridge of a Cylon base star. But we go to space in the ships we have, not the ships we wish we had, or wish we were on, or wish to hell we’d never gotten off of.

My point is this. I don’t read polls, which is a good thing because right now they’d be really depressing. I lead from the gut, and my gut says it’s easy to second-guess the guy at the top. It’s easy to say “I wouldn’t have signed that death warrant” or “He shouldn’t have spent so much of the time on holiday before we were invaded”. But what you don’t realize is that handing over humanity to our mortal enemies is hard, hard, hard, hard work, and a little appreciation wouldn’t be out of place here.

So that’s my call to you. Tomorrow, go to the polls and vote for two more years of the kind of leadership that got us where we are today.

Thank you.