The Great (Political) Race

[Tasan]

Well here's another stab at a dynasty. This one is going to be based off the new political sim President Forever, and will simulate a fictional run for the Oval Office this year. Instead of having ol' GW against a yet to be determined Dem, I'm going to go another route for the Repubs to take the race for Bush, who's just tired of the politics. Okay, on to the show.




Dateline: Washington D.C. December 1, 2003

In a stunning development today, the President has decided against running for a second term in office. Citing his growing dislike of the "political game" and his desire to have his family out of the intense national spotlight, Bush decided to go the route only 7 other presidents before him have chosen, and not run for a second term. The Republican party is now having to scramble to get candidates on ballots, with many states reviewing exemptions right now. Several names are being tossed around to fill in the 11th hour, including Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Veep Dick Cheney, although he commented today that he doesn't think he'll persue the nomination.

[Tasan]

Dateline: Sacramento, California, March 3 2004

From the governors mansion in Sacramento, Senator Mark Tredwell of Florida congratulated his campaign workers as Governor Schwarzenegger looked on in the background, having already pledged to support his national campaign. It was been a huge week, some may say year, for Senator Tredwell, having come out of almost nowhere to almost sweep Super Tuesday and make him self a virtual lock for the Republican nomination. Last week he picked up the President's endorsement, and that seemed to carry him through the day Tuesday, locking up California, Ohio, New York, Maryland, Georgia and Minnesota. Added to yesterday's strong showing are big wins in Michigan and Washington, and his key "coming out" victory in New Hampshire, after skipping Iowa. Tredwell has all but secured up the nomination, with the remaining big states of Texas and Florida looking to be picked up next week.

[Tasan]

Dateline: New York City, September 2 2004

It was a rousing accecptance speech from what is turning out to be quite a charismatic new leader for the Republican party. Senator Tredwell gratiously accepted his party's nomination, then took some shots at his opponent, Senator John Kerry and running mate John Edwards. Tredwell also said that he's reached an agreement with Colin Powell to run as his running mate, giving the fairly right wing Tredwell a more centrist second man. With the convention one month later than the democratic convention, Tredwell is going to have to work from behind a little to catch up on the national campaigning, although he had already started to do some of that after sewing up the nomination in May. Most of his campaign speeches after that point were aimed at a larger audience than just the state he was in at the time.




Okay up next, I'll break down where this candidate stands on the major issues the game covers, and the its off to the national campaign trail!

Do I have any readers out there?

[lcjjdnh]

I'll be reading, good luck with the campaign.

[Tasan]

Senator Mark Tredwell, Florida

Tredwell is a 44 year old, 1 term senator from Florida who would be up for re-election this year in the Senate. Swept in during the 1998 elections, Tredwell is a Right-to-center conservative, seen more right wing than Bush was during the 2000 election.


On the following issues, he is all the way to the right on:

Military Intervention - He believes we can and should use our military to further our own interests.
Education - School vouchers for anyone.
Free Trade - All markets should be open.
Abortion - No legal abortions
Affirmative Action - Abolish all federal affirmative action programs.

On the following issues, he is center-right:

Balanced Budget - A balanced budget amendment to eliminate the deficit
Business Tax - Reduce business taxation
Ecology - Economic policies must come before environmental policies
Gun Control - We should be very wary of gun control
Same-Sex Marriage - Marriage is between a man and a woman
Immigration - Reduce legal immigration, crack down on illegal immigration
Military Funding - Increase the military budget, but find ways to be more effieient
Personal Tax - Reduce income tax across the board
Social Security - Let workers privately invest some of their social security payments
Terrorism - We should not hesitate to use military force against terrorism


On the following issues, he is centrist:

Campaign Finance Reform - We need to put more power into smaller donors' hands
Renewable Energy - Renewable and non-renewable energy must be equally researched

On the following issues, he is center-left:

Public Health Care - Universal helath care, whether public or private

Senator Tredwell is not considered left on any issues.



*The opinions next to each issue are what the game says, not my opinion. While I share some the same positions as this fictional character, I do not share them all, nor have the same opinions about these topics. Please no flaming ;- )

[Tasan]

Okay, some setup info. I have chosen to have all 4 parties running in the election, the Republicns, Democrats, Greens, and Libertarians. The Greens and Libertarians only have one option for president and vp each, so they are kind of limited. I'm going to keep the economy option on, as I think that it would effect any Republican candidate running, not just the incumbant in these circumstances. I also leave the abilitiy to use spys on, and fog of war. I haven't used spies so far in my limited number of run throughs, and fog of war just seems right I don't want to know exactly what the polls are.

Now the candidates:

Mark Tredwell, President - Republican
Leadership - 3
Integrity - 4
Experience - 2
Issue Familiarity - 3
Charisma - 4
Stamina - 5
Debating - 5
General Election Fund - $72, 000, 000
How well established in the party? - 5

Colin Powell, Vice President - Republican
+1 to Presidential candidate Experience

John Kerry, President - Democrat
Leadership - 4
Integrity - 3
Experience - 4
Issue Familiarity - 4
Charisma - 3
Stamina - 3
Debating - 3
General Election Fund - $72, 000, 000
How well established in the party? - 5

John Edwards, Vice President - Democrat
+1 to Presidential candidate Charisma

Ralph Nader, President - Green
Leadership - 3
Integrity - 4
Experience - 2
Issue Familiarity - 4
Charisma - 2
Stamina - 4
Debating - 4
General Election Fund - $2, 000, 000
How well established in the party? - 2

Wynona LaDuke, Vice President - Green
+1 to Presidential candidate Integrity

Harold Browne, President - Libertarian
Leadership - 3
Integrity - 3
Experience - 2
Issue Familiarity - 3
Charisma - 3
Stamina - 3
Debating - 3
General Election Fund - $200, 000
How well established in the party? - 2

Art Olivier, Vice President - Libertarian
+1 to Presidential candidate Issue Familiarity

There are your candidates, now on to the race!

[Barkeep49]

I look forward to this dynasty.

[Radii]

i'll be reading!

[Tasan]

USA Today September 15th, 2004

With the election just 7 weeks away, candidates are expected to start kicking things into high gear today on the campaign trail. Currently, Senators Mark Tredwell and John Kerry poll in a suprising tie, with each looking at about 37% of the vote right now. Nader and Browne come in around 2%, leaving 18% of the country undecided. States where Tredwell and Kerry are locked in pitched battles include:

Oregon TIE
Nevada + R
Arizona + R
New Mexico + R
Arkansas + R
Louisiana + R
Mississippi + R
Missouri TIE
Iowa + D
Illinois + D
Wisconsin + R
Michigan + D
Ohio + R
Indiania + R
Tennessee + R
North and South Carolina +R both
Vermont + D
New Hampshire + D
Maine + D
(+R edge to Republicans, +D edge to Democrats, TIE is a virtual tie)

Tredwell is secure for now in the Great Plains states, mid West and South, while Kerry is secure in California, Washington, Minnesota and New England. The highest Browne polls is 7% in California, while Nader brings in 8% in Wisconsin. Looking at the Electoral vote breakdown the race still looks tight, with Tredwell sitting on 157 possible now, Kerry at 155 possible, with 226 still too close to call.

[Tasan]

Tredwell War Room, September 15th 2004

Electoral Strategy - These will be the states we'll focus on the most. They are states that we are either close to leading right now, or have the lead already. The goal is to focus on enough states to put you over the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election. We are going to focus on more than just the 270 though, to try and cover our bases. We pick a total of 317 electoral votes to persue, in the following states:

Idaho - Excellent 4
Wyoming - Excellent 3
Utah - Excellent 5
Alaska - Excellent 3
Montana - Excellent 3
North Dakota - Excellent 3
Nebraska - Excellent 5
South Dakota - Good 3
Oklahoma - Good 7
Alabama - Good 9
Texas - Good 34
Florida - Good 27
Kentucky - Good 8
Georgia - Good 15
Kansas - Good 6
Colorado - Good 9
West Virginia - Good 5
Virginia - Good 13
South Carolina - Good 8
Louisiana - Good 9
Arkansas - Good 6
New Mexico - Good 5
Mississippi - Good 6
Arizona - Good 10
Ohio - Fair 20
Indiana - Fair 11
North Carolina - Fair 15
Nevada - Fair 5
Wisconsin - Fair 10
Tennessee - Fair 11
Missouri - Fair 11
Oregon - Fair 7
Illinois - Fair 21

The ratings Excellent, Good, and Fair all have to do with how much/little of a lead we have in a state. Excellent is 16% and up, Good is 6-15%, and Fair is -5% to 5%. There are poor and very poor, but for now we won't worry with those.

The number next to the rating is the total electoral votes for that state.

As you can see, we have our work cut out for us. We are only good in 5 states (none excellent) with 10 or more electoral votes, and have 7 states in our strategy with 10 or more EVs that are only Fair. We need to hit those states hard early on to try and get some swings.

[Tasan]

Thanks to everyone who is reading so far. I'm really enjoying writing this up, and I think I'll actually make it to the end of this ;- )

[Alf]

is Red : Republican & Blue : Democrats ?

[Radii]

Are you playing this with the demo or the full version? I saw the options you're using in the demo, if there were not a bunch of additional candidates available in the full version I don't know if I'd be interested in it...

[Radii]

dola,

ohhh it looks like you created your guy for presient? so you have the full versoin? did you play the demo first? I'm curious how much more stuff it has available

[Tasan]

Originally Posted by Alf

is Red : Republican & Blue : Democrats ?

Sorry, should have made that clear. Yes, red is republican, nd blue is democrat.

[Tasan]

Originally Posted by Radii

dola,

ohhh it looks like you created your guy for presient? so you have the full versoin? did you play the demo first? I'm curious how much more stuff it has available

I played the demo, then decided to buy the game, its only 12 bucks after all. I didn't notice anything really missing from the demo other than the final bit of the election and the campaign editor, but I didn't really stretch the demo out a lot to be an expert on it. I'd really recommend this game for the price, you'll get your 12 bucks out of it just making fictional candidates and running them.

[robbgmaier]

I'm reading, sounds good so far!

[Tasan]

Same Day, Same Place

Endorsements - The Game gives you 4 main endorsements to persue during the campaign. To win these endorsements, you have to spend political points on each one, and add campaign points as you go to influence them further. You get 10 political points to spend FOR THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN. This is the only place to spend them though, so you only have to worry about using them here. Campaign points are refreshed every turn and are used for many things, I will go into those later.

Each endorser has a key issue and position on it that will influence their decision. Here are the Endorsements:

#1 Abortion, endorser position: centrist; our position: right; closest candidate: 4 way tie
#2 Military Funding, endorser position: center-right; our position: center-right; closest candidate: Tredwell
#3 Balanced Budget, endorser position: centrist; our position: center-right; closest candidate: Kerry
#4 Immigration, endorser position: left; our position: center-right; closest candidate: Nader, Browne

Endorsements 2, 3, and 4 give momentum bonuses to their respective issues, and endorsement 1 gives a $2,000,000 financial bonus.

The Tredwell campaign has decided to focus on issues 1, 2, and 3 and split its political points 3 per issue. Each political point gives us 30 points towards winning the endorsement, which requires 100 points. We'll save our 1 PP in case we want to boost an endorsement later, or if we want to get into the running on 4. We won't spend any campaign points here now, but will come back later and use spare ones as we have them.

I'm a little foggy on how this total is effected outside of political and campaign points, more than likely speaking on the topics and such will influence your total too. The instructions weren't very clear on this point.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by Tasan

Tredwell War Room, September 15th 2004
The ratings Excellent, Good, and Fair all have to do with how much/little of a lead we have in a state. Excellent is 16% and up, Good is 6-15%, and Fair is -5% to 5%. There are poor and very poor, but for now we won't worry with those.

It should be noted that these percentages don't strictly hold throughout the race. It's possible to be Excellent in a state with as low as 8%. The closer you get to the election the easier it is to be solidly entrenched in a state (I believe considering momentum) with-out the strict percentages.

[tucker342]

I'll be reading, but I hope you lose

[StanGunner]

Good read. Can you design your own candidates?

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by StanGunner

Good read. Can you design your own candidates?

Yes. With the full version of the game comes a candidate editor.

[Tasan]

Tredwell War Room

One last duty before heading out on the campaign trail is to call some, for the lack of a better word, famous people to help me out during the race. These folks are known as Crusaders and they take your message to states in your strategy for you for free. Their only cost is 1 campaign point per turn for 10 turns to recruit. After that, they join your fight and carry your message to the people(on your list).

The game randomly picks one from a list that is candidate specific. They don't have any ratings, they just have a percentage chance in each place they visit of helping out your campaign.

Senator Tredwell is scheduled to give a policy speech about his stand on Campaign Finance Reform in Florida where we start off. After that, we board the plane, bound for North Carolina

I'll take this time to talk a little about Campaign Points (CP from here out) and Energy Points (EP). CP is a set amount of campaigning ability you have each day. Tredwell gets 5, I think this is linked to how well he is established in the party, but I'm not even sure I'm reading that rating right. Anyway, each task the candidate and vice candidate can do counts a certain amount of CP. Every day the CP are restored to their max, and they do not carry over if you do not use them up, so it is best to use them all every turn somewhere. The upcoming speech costs 3 CP, leaving him with 1, since we are right now spending 1 per turn on a crusader as well. EP work a little different. Your candidate starts out with 100/100 EP, with each campaigning action the candidate does in a state costing a certain amount. The speech is one of the more expensive things a candidate can do, costing him 4 EP. These points do not automatically recharge, the candidate has to take a day off the campaign trail to restore them. If they get too low, the candidate can commit a gaffe, and bad press will result. Back to the action.

Colin Powell is sent to Illinois, where he'll set up to do some barnstorming tomorrow. This is basic handshaking and baby kissing through as many cities in a state as possible. We are left with 1 CP, and we'll use it to help influence the money endorsement. With that, the day is set and we'll see if we get any good press from this first day.

[Tasan]

Dateline: Miami, Florida September 16, 2004

Tredwell delivered a flawless speech on the hot topic of Campaign Finance Reform today, and was met with rounds of applause. This powerful speech on such a high profile issue is sure to give his campaign a boost.

Tredwell War Room, Aboard Tredwell Air 1

Good press from the speech, with a high profile subject getting a high power rating and a positive spin for us. This means we want to keep it in the press as much as we can, so we'll "spin" it with a CP to try to keep the good press in the news another day. This costs 1 CP per 20% chance of successful spinning, but with our CP total so low, we'll probably be forced to only low spin most headlines. 1 CP for this right now, and its off to planning our day in North Carolina and Illinois.

[Barkeep49]

CP are determined by your candidates leadership rating.

Also you should be aware that I don't think the VP actually boosts any ratings so all they're good for is campaigning, which admittedly is still very helpful.

[Tasan]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

CP are determined by your candidates leadership rating.

Also you should be aware that I don't think the VP actually boosts any ratings so all they're good for is campaigning, which admittedly is still very helpful.

Well wehn you set up the game, they show that the VP boosts one rating, is that not working right? Also, you seem to know a lot about the game. Did you just play it a lot or are you the developer in disguise? ;- )

[Barkeep49]

I've just played it a lot. The reason I say the VP isn't working is because if you have a VP that boosts Leadership you don't get an extra CP as theoretically you should. Although it does seem that in my play John Edwards (and mind you I haven't done any real careful observation here) is more effective as a camapaigner than other VP candidates (reflecting his +1 charisma).