Many people think their vote doesn’t count and that power brokers run the country; now everyone has the power to get their candidate in the White House.  Put down your game pad, guitar controller, or nunchuk.  You can use your gaming mouse but you won’t need its extra horsepower to play President Forever 2008 + Primaries.

President Forever 2008 + Primaries from TheorySpark is the updated version of their original President Forever 2004.  The 2004 version was hailed widely as a very realistic simulator of the 2004 presidential election.  2008’s version (released in January 2007) includes the primary season and features an auto-update feature that supplies real-world data about the candidates in the presidential field.

President Forever 2008 + Primaries is a political wonk’s dream.  It’s a strategy based game that is light on the shooting (unless you are George Wallace ) and long on analysis, knowledge of issues, and instinct.  Sounds boring right?  Like SimCity and the Tycoon series, this game is like watching the monkeys at the zoo, it’s hard to turn away.

As a close follower of politics I often wondered how a campaign is run.  After playing this game for a while, let’s just say running a campaign is as complicated as getting to the moon. However for some candidates in the field, there is a better chance of them getting lunar dust on their shoes than weeding the Rose Garden . 

The graphics ring of a network TV tally board on election night crossed with the screen from Bloomberg Television .  You can select one of the 16 candidates currently in the field (current as of January 2007 that is) and run their campaign or you can create your own candidate (Why not you?).  The main view has a map of the USA with the states color coded based on who is leading in which state.  Flags show where each candidate is campaigning in a given week. 

Click on other map views and it shows the candidate’s momentum for each state (rising or falling), who is running ads in which state, and who is on the ballot.  The lower portion of the screen shows a picture of your candidate and the levels of Command Points,(used to buy services like foot soldiers, research, spin, fundraising etc) money, and physical strength available.  On the right side as you click on each state is the pecking order of the candidates as they are polling during that week of the campaign.  The campaign starts on October 1st, 2007, 57 weeks before the 2008 election; however we all know the campaign started a loooong time ago.

It’s best to start by creating a platform from 22 issues from Abortion to the “War on Terror”.  Then create an election strategy to focus on certain states.  There are other tools including the ability to conduct research, consult polls, organize operations in various states, court endorsements, spin bad and good press coverage, and take advantage of Crusaders (independent campaigners) like Bill Clinton or James Carville for the Democrats and Arnold Schwarzenagger and Ed Koch for the Republicans to work for your campaign which bring you instant credibility.

The game runs in “turns” which are a week long.  Each week you plan what you are going to do:  Barnstorm, make a policy speech, prep for debates, research issues, develop your campaign or rest.  Each activity has consequences.  Barnstorming can make an impact on your poll numbers but don’t visit a state too often or your numbers will plateau.  Spend too much time traveling and you miss out on strategy sessions, or honing stances and knowledge of issues.  I did this very thing and I ran my energy level down so low that I made a gaffe during a stump speech and I got my ass beat in a debate.

Once you have planned your week you press the “Done Turn” button and the game crunches all the strategy inputs and the week is played out.  The map changes colors as candidates win and lose leads in different states.  Then the headlines pop up in the press like, “Obama shines on Letterman Show” and “Richardson hit with pie!”  Depending on the headline you can spin the news to benefit your candidate.  Make the right speeches, win debates, and hold fundraisers and you earn more Command Points than the 15 spotted to you each turn.

Of course all of this costs money (each candidate starts with $10 million).  One review of the 2004 game pointed out that in the real world the candidates never start out with the same amount of money.  With this money you can buy media ads to attack your opponents.  The strategy here is to pick the right issue, the proper opponent to attack, the best states to target, and which medium (Newspaper, radio, or TV). 

The hardest part is having an ad ready in time.  It may take 3-6 days to prepare an ad depending on its sophistication.  I found I needed to really hit Iowa hard in the run-up to the caucus vote but I waited too long to change the focus of the ad. So I had an ad attacking John Edwards on health care when it was Barack Obama who was beating me in Iowa and I needed to attack him on leadership.

In the wake of Miss Teen South Carolina not knowing where North America was during her pageant interview and Idaho Senator Larry Craig giving what James Carville called “The worst performance in the pantheon of political press conferences”; perhaps its time we all got more involved in the political process. We should care more about where we live and who is leading us.  President Forever 2008 + Primaries may not save democracy in America, but it may make it a little more fun.

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