prez infinity mafiascum 2016: the general creaks into action

Drench · Post Post #50 (ISO) » Sun Jan 08, 2017 11:07 pm

The Week of November 4th

89 days until Iowa
97 days until New Hampshire
370 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

The papers are released each day in the morning, and describe what happened the previous day. The first day of the cycle is a Wednesday, and the last a Tuesday, but the first newspapers are Thursday's, and the last Wednesday's.

Thursday's papers:

Serduchka's

Dressgate

continues apace, but not without some deft handling by

Serduchka

that manages to tamp down the latest controversy somewhat.

McGriddles

tries to be a serious, competitive candidate, he really does, but the attack ad he crafts backfires in a major way after it misrepresents both his spending record and that of everyone else. It wasn't the only backfire today:

Defender

and

Negarir

also misjudged the electorate, although when the news changes every day, I guess it's gonna happen eventually.

Spire

argues that it should be drones and not the military that intervenes in foreign countries, to the applause and adulation of all. He also does well on Meet the Press, while

Reckoner

showcases how old he is (in a good way) through bragging about his experience with dissident and socialist Stephen Colbert.

Friday:

Reckoner

was SO good on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, that he's literally on again tonight, because I guess all celebrities have quit now.

Defender

is similarly great on what seems to be the weekday edition of Meet the Press--enough so that

Dressgate

is sinking down the headlines, which is good news for

Serduchka

.

Spire

manages with one cable news feature what literally thirteen couldn't for

Reckoner

, and makes this whole

McGriddles

ad fuckup last longer than he wanted. And

Peanuts

, in his infinite courage, declares what few Democrats would: that unions are good.

Saturday:

Reckoner

might've had some bad luck spinning yesterday, but he's damn good at self-promotion, as his Colbert 2.0 spot gets major air time.

Spire

lucks onto the Saturday version of Fox News Sunday to flip the bird to Rupert Murdoch whilst wearing a shirt reading "I <3 Obamacare", and it somehow goes down well.

Serduchka

is finally out of the news,

Mothma

remembers who she drew with in the debate and hits

Negarir

for, somehow, being too right-wing on taxes, and

Defender

realizes that Nevada is holding a caucus, heading on down to the Silver State faster than you can say "Harry Reid will end your career if you ignore him for one day longer".

Sunday:

The Presidents of China and Taiwan have met for the first time ever in a historic diplomatic event. Not that American foreign policy will care.

Spire

inches closer to winning Middle America by declaring that gays should be declared people on a state-by-state basis, and

Reckoner

, shockingly, reveals himself to be a liberal on government spending in front of a packed audience. But the other big news is that multiple Big Names On Country have finally decided to drop the all important e-bomb--the endorsement. The BNOCs include

Fmr. Pres. George W. Bush

for

Khan

;

V.P. Joe Biden

for

Spire

(eat your heart out, DNC);

Fmr. Rep. Ron Paul

for

Abbott

, triggering the creation of the most annoying subreddit in history;

Fmr. Mayor Michael Bloomberg

for

Negarir

, revealing himself to have always been a Tory in disguise; and (finally)

Fmr. V.P. Al Gore

for

Peanuts

. Thank god that's all over. All of them will show up eventually, presumably.

The Presidential Election is in exactly one year.

Monday:

A lead story about

Serduchka

, and it's not a scandal!!! Yes, she literally just made a speech that sounded like it was plagarized from the DNC Platform, but give her a break, and not just because it's my character.

Democrats

are falling behind in the generic presidential poll, and

Defender

acquits himself well on the O'Reilly Factor, with both him and Bill agreeing that collective bargaining and workers' rights at least belong in the recycling bin.

Reckoner

, who really is turning this spin game into an art, makes his speech last far longer in the news than it should've, and

Negarir

lets us know exactly how he will murder the terrorists.

Peanuts

attracts a bit of scorn for being endorsed by a former presidential loser,

Negarir

cops a little bit for only managing a mayor (even if it was of NYC), and it should be self-explanatory why an endorsement from Bush 43 impacts

Khan

a little negatively. We're not leaving out Biden's negative impact on

Spire's

headlines; we're just suppressing it so that one day we too are hired to be honourary chair of the winning candidate's fifty-state strategy. Also

Mothma's

in Virginia good for you Motho.

Tuesday:

Defender

once again steps in it!!! Although it's not that bad right now, the

scandal

basically is that he went to a strip club a few times when he was younger. Yeah, yeah, I know. Fox News Sunday, true to form, is running on a Tuesday, and

Khan

and

Mothma

both do well in the separate areas of "how much will you spend on defense" and "how little will you spend on government".

Serduchka

just cannot catch a break, becoming the latest winner of the weekly Negative Campaign spotlight, which I assume is like WaPo's The Fix except readable.

McGriddles

tries to sway minds with the dangle of some hella-liberal defense cuts, but it's unknown whether people are actually biting. And while he does well on Meet the Press,

Negarir

attracts some negative attention with the news Republicans are up--because it implies he's the next President, of course, and we can't have that.

THE SECOND

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY

DEBATE

Tuesday, November 10th, 2015

This debate mostly made sense, and with a six-person field all desperate to stand out, that's perhaps saying something. Things mostly fell into the pattern set by last week's showdown, but perhaps with no more illusions about what was achievable.

Abbott

was woeful--his boast on his legislative record landed well--but it still didn't manage to lift a performance that was, again, wooden and lifeless. It looked like

Abbott

almost didn't want to be there, and it would've served all parties had he not been.

TSL

, a relatively absent figure on the trail this week, didn't quite bomb as hard, and even managed a solid blow against

Khan

, but still, you can't do much with someone who bitterly refuses to learn the issues, facts, problems, or people she contends with. But the top four were surprisingly equal--

Khan

withstood

TSL

and parried

Negarir

effectively, and so fell just behind the top three performers in this debate. But who expected

Defender

to be the one that took it all? He's been training and preparing for this, more so than, it appears, anyone else, and it showed, with a well-crafted closing argument that elevated

Defender

to the top of the heap. It was a close victory, but a victory nonetheless, leaving

Mothma

and

Negarir

to once again share the podium--this time, for silver.

1. Defender (6 points)
2. Mothma (5 points)
2. Negarir (5 points)
4. Khan (4 points)
5. TSL (1 point)
6. Abbott (0 points)

Headlines, Continued

Wednesday:

Happy Veterans Day!!!!! Also, happy goddamn redemption arc:

Defender

is splashed across the papers today after taking the second debate and performing well on bad awards show host and serial unfunnyman Jimmy Fallon. That, and the declining prominence of

Stripgate

, surely puts a spring in his step.

McGriddles

gets praise showered on him by Rachel Maddow, while

Abbott

, unsurprisingly if I'm honest, is "Rollin' On In Texas". Good stuff everyone.

The Week That Was

I try to sum this week up and make more sense of it.

Candidates matter. Candidate strengths matter. Candidate weaknesses matter. Take the example of

Reckoner

, whose ability to spin the news leads to some seriously positive news coverage, and the momentum to boot. Take also the example of

Abbott

, whose fundamentally weak core debating skill dooms him to the lower debate echelons without improvement, and stalls momentum whenever it might be required. It's still far too early to figure out who's going to win Iowa, who's going to win New Hampshire, who's going to win the nomination, or who's going to win the Presidency. But these strengths and weaknesses matter, and its those fundamentals that are shaping the news coverage they're getting, the spin they're applying, and the momentum they're accruing. It may not always match up, and to explain why, it might help to keep everything in perspective:

Negarir

is running out of steam precisely because he had so much, and

Abbott

gains momentum precisely because he had so little. Once again though, it means nothing until the vote's in the ballot box.

Week in Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all. The ads just tell you who's producing what, and what's being targeted in each. Scandals are self-explanatory. The full picture has basically everything that happened, but unformatted, so you can cry while you read it.

Spoiler: News cycle strength

Spoiler: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

Gaining momentum:

Abbott

,

Reckoner

,

Mothma

Losing momentum:

TSL

,

Serduchka

,

Negarir

MAPS

Ignore McMullin. Leaders of each state are colour-coded; white states means it's too close to call. The percentage list on the right-hand side is the popular vote; the lines and segments down the bottom are PROJECTED delegates. Once delegates start being earned, that will be added separately.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

There's a Democratic debate, and we're close to halfway through the pre-Iowa phase of this thing, which if you don't remember, is roughly the same size as two thirds of the actual primary phase. nice

Drench · Post Post #51 (ISO) » Sun Jan 08, 2017 11:23 pm

just fyi as well: probably 2 updates max during the week, hopefully 3+ on the weekends

Drench · Post Post #52 (ISO) » Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:08 am

The Week of November 11th

82 days until Iowa
90 days until New Hampshire
363 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

The papers are released each day in the morning, and describe what happened the previous day. The first day of the cycle is a Wednesday, and the last a Tuesday, but the first newspapers are Thursday's, and the last Wednesday's.

Thursday's papers:

Negarir

gets a one-two punch, but not all of it is good: he successfully repeats the words "taxes bad, tax cuts good" three times on O'Reilly, but his position on health care (i.e. to ban it) attracts an attack ad from

Defender

. And that's of course not related to the fact that the former is currently leading the polls, no sir.

Abbott's

not having a good time, with his warmonger-y stances being a major target of the

Negarir

campaign. And while

Serduchka

manages to get into the news without even speaking--

Peanuts

slamming her hard on health care--

McGriddles

can't get more than a narration of his education policy speech. Shucks.

Friday:

It's Friday, which means Fox News Sunday must be on.

Mothma

finds favour with her health care policy (it's health week, apparently), while

Reckoner

is so experienced he makes Jimmy Fallon cry tears of joy.

Negarir

calls Obama a terrible leader in a speech, but Republicans love that shit so of course it's a wild success. And

Khan

, dealing with

Negarir's

needling of him in Arizona, hits up Meet the Press and, indeed, meets the press, and does it well.

Reckoner

promises that he knows a lot of stuff,

Spire

tackles the least good of these programs, On The Record, and

Abbott

admits he doesn't actually know where the White House is. And, wouldn't you know it: the pop stars strike, this time serenading

Peanuts

.

Saturday:

Paris is in mourning after a terror attack leaving scores dead. Anyway the top story apart from that is that

Defender

has momentum! Good stuff kid!!

Khan

tries to define his tax policy but embarrassingly ends up just saying numbers until his audience either falls asleep or leaves, which happens fairly quickly.

Abbott

is next on the Negative Campaign merry-go-round, and some protesters get jiggy with it at a

Spire

event. Finally,

Mothma

and

Defender

have the exact same tax policy (consisting of, as aforementioned, "taxes bad"), but that's not gonna stop the former for slamming the latter on tax.

THE SECOND

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

DEBATE

Saturday, November 14th, 2015

Murders were not meant to be witnessed. They're, in fact, illegal, although it seems nobody told

Peanuts

when he glanced over at the sparkling body suit of

Serduchka

. If you ignore that,

McGriddles

probably had the worst night, but you just cannot ignore the complete undermining of

Serduchka's

entire campaign rationale. Here's the problem: we're not even sure, right now, what

Serduchka's

in it for, until we forget

Peanuts'

contribution (and it is easily forgettable--the man is not a good debater), in which case everything snaps back into place. So, yes,

Serduchka

will rebound, but she was the clear loser tonight. No, instead, past that lower tier of three, came two highly skilled debaters who performed admirably.

Reckoner

had obviously done his research, but was clearly too tired to fully capitalize--the result was an admirable and very competent performance, but not one that could overcome

Spire

. Parrying away a

Serduchka

attack with ease, and successfully boasting of his own balanced budgets that still managed to afford hundreds of thousands of strange square gems,

Spire

did not take prisoners. The debate was his.

1. Spire (11 points)
2. Reckoner (9 points)
3. Peanuts (3 points)
4. McGriddles (1 point)
5. Serduchka (-2 points)

Headlines, Continued

Sunday:

Spire

takes the spoils, and it's his victory lap the press are all over--so much so that you'd think

Reckoner

wasn't in the paper at all. Alas, there he is, facing down a

scandal

that alleges various bribes to low-level officials, plus bonuses to those who actively practiced heterophobia. It's terrible--almost as terrible as

Khan's

Fox News Sunday performance was excellent, for once taking place on a Sunday. Meanwhile,

Negarir

swears up and down that

Abbott

is bad news--and speaking of,

Mr. Donald Trump

finally throws his lot behind the latter, hitting the trail in an effort to help

Abbott

to the nomination.

Spire

wins the endorsement of

Bill Maher

, which I'm sure thrilled him;

Defender

likewise earns

Gov. Bill Walker

; and

Serduchka

keeps contending with the debate trainwreck that threatens to make this her third bad, if not worse, week in a row. More endorsement news:

Negarir

gets

Fmr. V.P. Dick Cheney

, and, the big news out of Iowa:

Khan

wins the endorsement of

The Des Moines Register

. Will it matter? Will it win him Iowa? Stay tuned.

Monday:

And they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and

Negarir

scandalously

used his influence to abolish the tipped minimum wage specifically in precincts with restaurants he didn't like and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming.

Abbott

does whatever the fuck you do on On The Record,

TSL

--remember her?--and

Khan

are in South Carolina, and remember how I said how

Reckoner's

really good at spin? Yeah, that

scandal

appears to be fading. Just a good ol' day of retail politics, folks.

Tuesday:

A big day for policy:

Negarir

and

McGriddles

give health care and War on Terror speeches, respectively, to general admiration.

Khan

is ESPECIALLY impressive on O'Reilly, although it is not difficult when you're a Republican, to be fair.

Negarir's

lucky that speech is in the news, because the

wage abolisment scandal

is both not being spun by him and being spun by his opponents, with potentially catastrophic consequences if he doesn't rein it in. Then again, they always seem to fade where he's concerned, so maybe he's onto something we ain't.

Reckoner

declares that Iran must be dealt with through liberal globalist communist neoliberal imperialist ineffective all-powerful body, the United Nations, to not-so-great a response, while

Negarir's

being blamed (big day for him, huh?) for Republicans and Democrats evening up in the generic presidential ballot.

Wednesday:

Spire

does amazing on Fox News Sunday.

Spire

gives a terrific speech on the role of government in peoples' lives. It's been that sort of week. Whilst

Khan's

in Vermont and

TSL's

in Alaska,

Mothma

eschews the states for the day and just has a bit of a quiz with ol' Bill O'Reilly. She scores 8/10 and gets an A+, somehow.

McGriddles

recites verse and chapter of the DNC Platform on Rachel Maddow and gets praised for his effort;

Mitt Romney

goes after

Negarir

on health care in Massachusetts (and he would know), and the latter very same candidate tries to make a policy speech on the very same issue, changing few minds. The

Reckoner

scandal

is dead; the

Negarir

one lives on, but loses steam somewhat. It's deep, but it's getting old.

The Week That Was

We're six weeks in.

Spire, Reckoner,

Negarir,

and

Khan

are the frontrunners, right? Things will obviously change, and every candidate will hang around at least for a while, since they're all polling in double digits, but

Spire

in particular's just scored a second really good week, and this sort of stuff builds. Moving away from airy analysis and into the nuts and bolts of how this simulation works (albeit, still in a very airy way): a little momentum goes a little bit of the way, but if you can have successive good weeks, with good coverage, and good events happening to you, that momentum becomes big, and big momentum goes a lot bloody further than expected. Rally sizes increase. Ads get more traction. Your message is more amplified. Your polling improves. On and on and on. Let's be clear: I'm not suggesting this is

Spire's

world right now. No candidate's gotten a positive feedback loop that big yet. And you gotta remember as well: new scandals emerge every few days--thank each campaign having multiple spies in other campaigns for that--and so none of this is locked in. We haven't seen a negative feedback look that could really cripple someone, either. It could happen to anyone. But you have to admit, there are front-runners right now.

Week in Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all. The ads just tell you who's producing what, and what's being targeted in each. Scandals are self-explanatory. The full picture has basically everything that happened, but unformatted, so you can cry while you read it.

Spoiler: News cycle strength

Spoiler: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

Gaining momentum:

Khan, Defender, Mothma

Losing momentum:

Reckoner

,

Negarir

,

Serduchka

MAPS

Ignore McMullin. Leaders of each state are colour-coded; white states means it's too close to call. The percentage list on the right-hand side is the popular vote; the lines and segments down the bottom are PROJECTED delegates. Once delegates start being earned, that will be added separately.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

Eleven updates until Iowa. We've already gone through, like, seven. It's time to start getting hype.

xRECKONERx · Post Post #53 (ISO) » Mon Jan 09, 2017 6:08 am

eleven is TOO FAR goddammit

Papa Zito · Post Post #54 (ISO) » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:37 am

(ego)

Kublai Khan · Post Post #55 (ISO) » Mon Jan 09, 2017 3:56 pm

Americans for Tax Reform (Grover Norquist)
Fmr. Pres. George H. W. Bush
Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney
Fmr. Pres. George W. Bush
The Des Moines Register

Interesting mix of high-level endorsements pretty early on. Maybe I have a chance at this.

Khan's campaign has been forced to refund thousands of foreign donations under threat of penalty; a scandal indeed.

So, my extended family in Mongolia wants to support me. How could that possibly be wrong? Are you anti-family!?!

Khan tries to define his tax policy but embarrassingly ends up just saying numbers until his audience either falls asleep or leaves, which happens fairly quickly.

Ugh. Don't go intellectual, Khan. Your audience loves dumb warlords. Be the dumb warlord!

ISO · Post Post #56 (ISO) » Mon Jan 09, 2017 5:57 pm

They'll jump ship to me when all of you are hyper-broke and I'm Scrooge McDucking.

Drench · Post Post #57 (ISO) » Wed Jan 11, 2017 12:38 am

just lost a finished update because my laptop's a fuck so depending on morale it'll come in a little bit or otherwise later

Drench · Post Post #58 (ISO) » Wed Jan 11, 2017 1:29 am

The Week of November 18th

75 days until Iowa
83 days until New Hampshire
356 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

The papers are released each day in the morning, and describe what happened the previous day. The first day of the cycle is a Wednesday, and the last a Tuesday, but the first newspapers are Thursday's, and the last Wednesday's.

Thursday's papers:

Right, so, round two of this bullshit week. This will not be as long because fuck rewriting everything.

Negarir

and

Khan

are Republican and get good reviews. The latter gets some blowback from the former and

TSL

though, while the former gets some from

Defender

.

Serduchka

is the next contestant on Negative Campaign HQ, and

McGriddles

faces down a scandal.

Friday:

Massive

Khan

scandal, six extent if you care (see the week that was for me bothering to explain how the news works, finally).

McGriddles

dumps some water on his thing.

Abbott

drops an anti-

Khan

ad but it backfires. The pop stars and

Spire

--a match made in heaven.

Serduchka

gets a second negative campaign story.

Mothma

and O'Reilly are in love.

Saturday:

Khan

continues to suffer.

Negarir

does okay on Hardball, but gets hit by

Khan

lmao.

TSL

and

Abbott

get protesters.

Sunday:

Democrats take the Louisiana gubernatorial runoff, and the party's momentum jumps up.

Khan

is starting to bury the scandal, but it's getting worse content-wise so.

Defender

defends admirably on Meet the Press.

Reckoner

by way of party ID gets enough momentum from the gubernatorial win to have headlines about momentum.

TSL

is an extremist according to

Negarir

, which is a bit extra but also kinda true. Endorsements:

Gov. Jesse Ventura

for

Negarir

,

Gov. Brian Sandoval

for

Khan

,

Gov. Charlie Baker

for

Defender

,

Sec. of State John Kerry

and his chin for

Reckoner

,

George Soros

(lmao) for

Spire

, and

Glenn Beck

(l m a o) for

Abbott

.

Monday:

9 extent scandal for

Mothma

--this is Very Bad.

Khan

does well in a health care speech, but as his scandal fades it gets more scandalous.

Negarir

leads Republican polls, but the generic presidential ballot is even, and he's getting slammed by

Mothma

.

Abbott

and O'Reilly are in love.

Peanuts

likewise with Rachel Maddow, but gets hit by

Serduchka

on the trail.

Reckoner

fucks up Hardball. The Soros, Beck, and Kerry endorsements get negatively spun.

Tuesday:

The reason scandals with massive extents are bad is that while extent rarely increases, it's very easy to increase the other factor: a story's slant. Once again, see below, but believe me, this is truly bad for

Mothma

.

Negarir

and

Spire

have good times in South Carolina and the press, respectively.

Reckoner

screws it again on On The Record,

Khan

gets slammed by Donald Trump of all people, and

Defender

goes after

Abbott

.

Wednesday:

Mothma

is not screwed. But she's had better weeks.

Negarir

is rich AF but apparently too negative, while

Khan

does a good speech apparently, although

TSL

lands a few blows on the trail.

Spire

meets the press, and I've made this "joke" before but it went well.

The Week That Was

Extent mattered a lot this week so let's talk about it. Extent is how widespread the coverage of that event is. Most things that happen in this game have 0 extent, which essentially means they did not make the news. Your candidates are doing a lot every single day; barnstorming, familiarizing with issues, debate preparations, rallies, speeches, fundraising, the lot. Your campaign is also doing a lot, although less visible: ground game, organization, grassroots structuring, targeting, ads, research, oppo, list goes on. The fraction of that stuff that makes the news is what I refer to but more happens underneath. If it gets on the news, it has an extent of at least 1. Most things have extents of 1-3. Good media performances are more 2-3. Barnstorming is rarely over 1. Rallies and speeches run the gamut. Winning debates is usually around 5. When the primaries show up, Iowa and NH will be massive double digit extents, and the rest not so much, just like real life. Scandals can be anything. So far the biggest extent for a scandal was about 6, but Mothma started at 9. Extent falls each turn unless something big happens to increase it, but extent is only one half of What A Headline Does. The other half is slant, which is how good or bad it is for the particular candidate it's about. Slant can be anything, but usually starts between -2 and 2. Slant and extent are multiplied, and the final result is what actually affects you. Mothma started at an extent of 9, with a slant of -1. Each day, other candidates piled on and on, and that became -2, and right now extent is 7 and slant is -3, for an effect of -21, just for that day. Each day is cumulative and builds on the day before. So Mothma's scandal just by itself has done -46 to her news cycle strength. News isn't everything but it's something hey.

Anyway now you know.

Week in Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all. The ads just tell you who's producing what, and what's being targeted in each. Scandals are self-explanatory. The full picture has basically everything that happened, but unformatted, so you can cry while you read it.

Spoiler: News cycle strength

Spoiler: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

Gaining momentum:

Negarir

,

Spire

,

Reckoner

Losing momentum:

Mothma

,

Khan

,

TSL

MAPS

Ignore McMullin. Leaders of each state are colour-coded; white states means it's too close to call. The percentage list on the right-hand side is the popular vote; the lines and segments down the bottom are PROJECTED delegates. Once delegates start being earned, that will be added separately.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

an actually good update, and your FIRST LOOK at how iowa and new hampshire are shaping up. the republican race will surprise you!

ISO · Post Post #59 (ISO) » Wed Jan 11, 2017 2:53 am

In post 58, Drench wrote:Negarir > completed ad > United States > Tilden-St. Leonard/Role of Government.

Everyone is going to be full of REGRETS when I am the last person in politics unmarred by scandal and I cruise to victory.

xRECKONERx · Post Post #60 (ISO) » Wed Jan 11, 2017 3:56 am

sooo the dem race is like a 3 way race right

inspiratieloos · Post Post #61 (ISO) » Wed Jan 11, 2017 4:06 am

Depends on how volatile the numbers are and what happens when someone drops out, if McGriddles drops and endorses Serduchka for example.

Majiffy · Post Post #62 (ISO) » Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:54 am

In post 17, Drench wrote:also if anyone has ideas for hilar scandals and gaffes to use i'll literally throw em in, all the game gives me is "gaffe about issue xyz!!" or "scandal about integrity/corruption!!!" and im like ok...............cool

Donut addiction

Majiffy · Post Post #63 (ISO) » Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:55 am

In post 19, xRECKONERx wrote: also yeah wtf @ every attack on me coming from republicans
im like the hillary of this primary

No I'm a Dem and I attacked

Majiffy · Post Post #64 (ISO) » Fri Jan 13, 2017 9:04 am

In post 37, Drench wrote:
McGriddles
claimed to be the heir to Ronald McDonald's estate!

The real scandal here is that I eat at Burger King instead though

Majiffy · Post Post #65 (ISO) » Fri Jan 13, 2017 9:23 am

In post 50, Drench wrote:
McGriddles
gets praise showered on him by Rachel Maddow

#Golden
#LifeGoals

Majiffy · Post Post #66 (ISO) » Fri Jan 13, 2017 9:32 am

I am willing to drop out for a Cabinet position.

xRECKONERx · Post Post #67 (ISO) » Fri Jan 13, 2017 9:33 am

Drench · Post Post #68 (ISO) » Fri Jan 13, 2017 2:18 pm

last week and this upcoming week are hectic but i'm giving you at least 3 updates each weekend to compensate starting today/tomorrow xo

Drench · Post Post #69 (ISO) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 3:56 pm

The Week of November 25th

68 days until Iowa
76 days until New Hampshire
349 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

The papers are released each day in the morning, and describe what happened the previous day. The first day of the cycle is a Wednesday, and the last a Tuesday, but the first newspapers are Thursday's, and the last Wednesday's.

Thursday's papers:

Something something

Mothma

scandal

, you guys know the drill. But what you don't know is that

Negarir

ABSOLUTELY

hired some hookers to pee on him

!!!! This isn't inspired by real life at all. Anyway that's hilarious and manages to rise above the fact it's literally Thanksgiving.

Negarir

is actually all over the news today--he has a fundraiser and he's rich, but also he tries to do an ad and it does not work??? Yikes. Speaking of ads that don't work, it may be time for

Reckoner

's ad man to find a new job. As well as

Mothma's

. And

Spire's

. Jesus Christ.

Khan

is one of the only functioning candidates today, doing well on Fallon with only a baby rattle and a pacifier to help him, and

McGriddles

campaigns in Tennessee. Fifty state strategy, baybey!!!!

Friday:

I mean, I need oxygen at this point, because

Mothma's

scandal

just keeps rolling and literally will just not die, while

TSL

and

Negarir

duel on their

pissgate

spinning, with that ending in a draw. The latter attacks

Khan

in the vital swing state of Tennessee (I'm sensing a theme), and does really well on Fallon too, so maybe this won't be so bad.

Abbott

has a Negative Campaign (aren't we all?), and

TSL

rocks on in Texas, ranting about Mexicans.

Saturday:

When

TSL

wants something spun, it gets spun.

Pissgate

worsens for

Negarir

as the former's intense attacks start to take their toll.

McGriddles

gets in on the early-bird Meet the Press and "shines" like a diamond.

Spire

and Bill O'Reilly get on like a couple of blokes,

Reckoner

has John Kerry's chin doing some barnstorming in MA, and

TSL

gets down with Oklahoma.

Sunday:

Dude who totally isn't Attorney General-designate

Sen. Jeff Sessions

endorses

Khan

on the strength of his health care plan, while

Spire

snags

Gov. John Hickenlooper

, who is someone I don't know. More endorsements:

Gov. Peter Shumlin

for

McGriddles

, and

Sen. Richard Shelby

for

Defender

, which'll hopefully distract from the bad speech he gave. And yet, there's more:

Negarir

, still dealing with that

scandal

, gets

Rep. Steve King

, and

Peanuts

wins

Gov. Mark Dayton

, so yay for them. And in the ultimate proof he's a meme,

Reckoner

wins the endorsement of

Left-Wing Talk Radio

, which is apparently a thing. Truly, other things happened, but endorsement news tends to crowd everything out.

Monday:

With scandals fading,

Negarir

does well on Colbert, just as

Abbott

soars with O'Reilly.

Khan

stops by Maddow and preaches about integrity, to good effect.

Peanuts

gives a speech but honestly nobody really has a take on it so it's not like it's affecting him right now.

Defender

and

Serduchka

are appaz being real negative

. How good is politics.

Tuesday:

McGriddles

tried, he really did!!! But his speech on how government should control all was, um, not good.

Khan

, on the contrary, talked about how government was a sin, and that went well.

TSL

hit up South Carolina, bless, while

Spire

takes some heat for polls showing the Democrats slipping in the generic.

Wednesday:

I really do feel like this week was news-lite but whatever. Fox News Sunday-on-a-Wednesday sees

TSL

doing well on immigration, and Democrats

Spire

and

Reckoner

take to O'Reilly and Vermont, respectively, to plug their policies.

Peanuts

emerges to talk guns with Greta, and

Defender

vows to deport the non-violent illegal immigrants first, which is obviously a) a mistaken utterance and b) absolutely not being left alone hahaha. And

Spire's

up in New Hampshire, slamming

McGriddles

as the latter's bad speech continues to reverberate.

The Week That Was

Mothma's

failure to unspin her scandal is undoing her. That's really all I've got to say. That, and the fact that some people are just struggling to get positive airtime. Or maybe it just won't matter--who knows?

The Crystal Ball

Let's do this.

The Republicans

1. Negarir (105 points)
2. Khan (43 points)
3. TSL (38 points)
4. Defender (37 points)
5. Abbott (36 points)
6. Mothma (27 points)

Has Negarir cracked the code? A major part of this is his polling, but take that away and he's still on roughly 83~ points in The Crystal Ball. He's got the endorsements, he's got a resonant platform, his ground game isn't superior but it's sufficient--where's the crack? I guess we'll either find out, or we won't.

The Democrats

1. Spire (81 points)
2. Reckoner (50 points)
3. Peanuts (40 points)
3. Serduchka (40 points)
5. McGriddles (28 points)

And is Spire as safe? Logic would say no; he's up about 20 points when you discount current polling. A lot of it is endorsements; is that going to be what does it? Is The Crystal Ball just full of shit? Who knows, folks.

Week in Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all. The ads just tell you who's producing what, and what's being targeted in each. Scandals are self-explanatory. The full picture has basically everything that happened, but unformatted, so you can cry while you read it.

Spoiler: News cycle strength

Spoiler: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

Gaining momentum:

TSL

,

Spire

,

Abbott

Losing momentum:

Mothma

,

McGriddles

,

Defender

MAPS

Ignore McMullin. Leaders of each state are colour-coded; white states means it's too close to call. The percentage list on the right-hand side is the popular vote; the lines and segments down the bottom are PROJECTED delegates. Once delegates start being earned, that will be added separately.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

You're getting another update in half an hour, calm it. IA/NH numbers after the next debate which is in two updates.

Drench · Post Post #70 (ISO) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:46 pm

The Week of December 2nd

61 days until Iowa
69 days (nice) until New Hampshire
342 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

The papers are released each day in the morning, and describe what happened the previous day. The first day of the cycle is a Wednesday, and the last a Tuesday, but the first newspapers are Thursday's, and the last Wednesday's.

Thursday's papers:

San Bernardino. Things are not great.

Defender

has another ad that backfires, as do

Mothma

and

Abbott

, while

Spire

does a thing with Fox News Sunday and it works out.

Negarir

hits up Meet the Press and everyone loves the concept of health care just being less there.

Serduchka's

union policy speech backfires, which sounds like fake news but whatever.

Friday:

Negarir

is good at television interviews, sky is blue, water is wet.

Abbott

now has multiple ads backfiring, which: call your office. And protesters emerge everywhere, from

Negarir

to

Reckoner

to

Abbott

events. Today's news is just a lot of this.

Saturday:

Defender

and Meet the Press are like, perfect buddies.

Spire

pleads for borders to just be a concept that doesn't exist, to the applause of many on Maddow.

Mothma

is the latest to, for some reason, be in Tennessee, while one of her ads on military intervention backfires. I really really am trying to write on every news headline that doesn't involve

Spire

or

Negarir

, but literally, that was it.

Sunday:

Finally, someone politicizes San Bernardino; the only surprising thing is that it took this long.

Serduchka's

policy speech on the War on Terror is top news purely becaues of this, and manages to soar above the endorsement news we have today.

Abbott

wins

Right-Wing Talk Radio

, which at this point I'm assuming means Alex Jones.

Defender

gets

Sen. Lisa Murkowski

, and

Khan

has

Sen. John Boozman

. The frontrunners both get something:

Negarir

has

The Heritage Foundation

, and

Spire

wins the endorsement of

Gov. Maggie Hassan

.

Khan

continues the good vibes with a nice On The Record appearance, and

Spire

is slammed by

Serduchka

in Iowa.

Mothma

talks about the environment somewhere, which is probably the only time it'll get a mention.

Monday:

Jimmy Fallon, an idiot, has

Reckoner

, allegedly not an idiot, on his show, and the latter benefits.

Serduchka's

WoT speech is negatively spun because she has no idea how to actually do politics, tbh. The pop artists invade

Peanuts'

campaign in Iowa and it's all very nice.

Khan

makes it two times in two days the environment gets a yell, and throws in a classic "

Negarir's

an extremist" to boot. Good stuff.

Tuesday:

McGriddles

is the next to get on this terror stuff, to good reviews.

Mothma

, likewise, does this speech thing about government and it's nice, or something.

Abbott

has eaten an onion whole, without taking off the skin or anything, but apparently that's a

massive faux pas and scandal

in America???

Negarir

is, on the one hand, good on Colbert, but also, apparently his campaign is Negative As Fuck, so that kinda cancels out.

Reckoner

gets to know the Granite State, and

Spire

gets some heat for letting the generic Democrat lose ground in the presidential polling.

The next Republican primary debate is in one week.

Wednesday:

Mothma

just can't get a break--her defense spending policy just is not cutting it!!! The

Abbott

scandal

is dying quick but it's still leaving a dent.

McGriddles

is in Iowa, so good for him. That's all.

The Week That Was

If I have to see

Spire

and

Negarir

dominating one more week, I'm going to hurl.

Week in Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all. The ads just tell you who's producing what, and what's being targeted in each. Scandals are self-explanatory. The full picture has basically everything that happened, but unformatted, so you can cry while you read it.

Spoiler: News cycle strength

Spoiler: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

Gaining momentum:

McGriddles

,

Reckoner

,

Khan

Losing momentum:

Serduchka

,

Negarir

,

Spire

MAPS

Ignore McMullin. Leaders of each state are colour-coded; white states means it's too close to call. The percentage list on the right-hand side is the popular vote; the lines and segments down the bottom are PROJECTED delegates. Once delegates start being earned, that will be added separately.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

Debate!

Drench · Post Post #71 (ISO) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:56 pm

smfh honestly at least i'm up in west virginia

xRECKONERx · Post Post #72 (ISO) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:05 pm

#recksurge

ISO · Post Post #73 (ISO) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:22 pm

Reminder I am literally the Anti-Hillary and have zero scandals on me of any kind (I know definitely the Repubs but probably you Dems too) and am by far the richest person in the race. I don't need to do shit. All I need to do is let you degenerates do your degeneracy (both parties) and keep the pressure on for them, outlast you all, and in less than a digital year you'll all be singing along to Taylor at my Inauguration.

In post 69, Drench wrote:When TSL wants something spun, it gets spun. Pissgate worsens for Negarir as the former's intense attacks start to take their toll.

Drench · Post Post #74 (ISO) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:50 pm

The Week of December 9th

54 days until Iowa
62 days until New Hampshire
335 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

The papers are released each day in the morning, and describe what happened the previous day. The first day of the cycle is a Wednesday, and the last a Tuesday, but the first newspapers are Thursday's, and the last Wednesday's.

Thursday's papers:

Serduchka

is SO rich everyone even the newspaper says so.

Defender

gets hit with two attack ads from

TSL

and

Khan

, but their actual impact is uncertain.

Reckoner

barnstorms on terror in Texas, and

Mothma's

latest thing is Iran.

McGriddles

is getting on board this War on Terror theme as well, btw, in between all his speeches on how he's the least corrupt of everyone, totally.

Friday:

Negarir

SCANDAL

and I am actively rooting for his downfall so let's make it a good'un. Not only did

Negarir

misuse government funds, but he used them to literally buy actual cocaine!!! Who knows if anyone will care but dang.

Abbott

is totally being really Australian with his gun policy on FNS and it somehow works out, while

Mothma

literally is so bad at this she tries to do anything and all of a sudden she's "Too Negative". The

Khan

attack ad did not take, but the

TSL

one did, and

Defender

is feeling the effects. Like an overeager twenty year old,

Spire

just keeps getting higher and higher, this time doing well on On The Record. The pop artists like

McGriddles

now, and

Khan

gets events rolling in Wyoming and Colorado.

Saturday:

I truly welcome death, because

Negarir

did real well on Fallon, while

Spire

did likewise on O'Reilly.

McGriddles

forgets the name of that thing where you nominate people to run agencies when you're President, to ill effect, and

TSL's

latest target is

Khan

. The

Negarir

scandal

has intensified, but it's also becoming yesterday's news quick, so, FML.

Sunday:

It's endorsement day! Before we get to that:

more drugs

were bought in the

Negarir

chequegate scandal, so l m f a o. And

Khan

delivers his terror policy, to rapturous applause, while

Abbott

rides the corruption-flavoured wave on Fallon, decrying any person--nudge nudge wink wink

Negarir

--who would just misuse governmental power.

Spire

, by the way, is still wall-to-wall good news, in case you were starting to get hope. Anyway, endorsements.

Negarir

,

Tea Party Express

.

Spire

,

Gov. Terry McAuliffe

.

Khan

,

Sen. David Perdue

.

Defender

,

Sen. Cory Gardner

.

Abbott

,

FreedomWorks

. And finally,

the next Democratic primary debate is in a week.

Monday:

Mothma

tries yet again with a policy speech on Terror.

Reckoner

claims that income tax is currently unfairly and neoliberally flat, which is not true.

Negarir

, to my eternal frustration, is a good candidate and does very well on Meet the Press. Likewise,

Spire

, on Colbert.

Tuesday:

Reckoner

fucks up again, this time being unable to name Daesh's main countries of operation, which is like, something you can Google. But

Negarir

's campaign might be too negative, so he might just sink yet!!! And

McGriddles

is very rich, everyone.

Khan

tries to sell us on his corruption platform while going on On The Record to talk Iran. And, finally, I give you this headline, without comment.

THE THIRD

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY

DEBATE

Tuesday, December 15th, 2015

An interpersonal and, at times, existential debate took place here on Tuesday night, as every single candidate seemed to realize how integral distinguishing themselves really was.

Abbott

was highly successful in boasting of his religiousity and how good it was going to be for the country, and yet

Negarir

was equally as successful in tearing him and his guns policy down, considering that you must love guns to be a Republican, I think. That's not to say that the latter did well. Oh no, that was never happening after

Mothma

brutalized

Negarir

on his innumerate scandals of the past fortnight--scandals that seemed to not be taking hold, and yet were used with devestating effect in this debate. So damaging was the offense that

TSL

, a frequent visitor on those "who lost the debate" articles people do afterwards, ended up being around as good as

Negarir

--although her own boasting certainly helped.

Khan

was a non-presence, and turned in an alright, if not especially stunning performance, whilst

Defender's

contribution was to accidentally make

Mothma

look that little bit better by accusing her of somehow saving too much money in government. But, the latter did not need it. It wasn't a truly stellar performance, objectively, but

Mothma's

issue preparation and familiarity ensured she turned in a knock that was clearly the best of the night.

1. Mothma (5 points)
2. Defender (3 points)
2. Khan (3 points)
4. TSL (2 points)
4. Negarir (2 points)
6. Abbott (0 points)

Headlines, Continued

Wednesday:

Mothma

wins her second debate, and the press is obviously favourable--but is she going to take advantage of it this time?

Negarir

screws it on leadership, and has to deal with that gaffe for a while, whilst

TSL

comes under attack in Minnesota. Away from the debate aftermath,

McGriddles'

healthcare plan is assailed by

Reckoner

, and there are protesters literally everywhere. Like, everywhere.

The Week That Was

please jesus let negarir fall

(We're in the weird space now where candidates aren't setting up their campaigns, but we're not close enough to primaries and caucuses for day-by-day events to matter too much. This should hopefully change in a few game weeks!)

Week in Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all. The ads just tell you who's producing what, and what's being targeted in each. Scandals are self-explanatory. The full picture has basically everything that happened, but unformatted, so you can cry while you read it.

Spoiler: News cycle strength

Spoiler: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

Gaining momentum:

Mothma

,

Khan

,

Serduchka

Losing momentum:

Reckoner

,

TSL

,

Defender

MAPS

Ignore McMullin. Leaders of each state are colour-coded; white states means it's too close to call. The percentage list on the right-hand side is the popular vote; the lines and segments down the bottom are PROJECTED delegates. Once delegates start being earned, that will be added separately.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

The Democrats debate. Also tbh I'm half deciding whether to release the IA/NH numbers now or wait until the dem debate next update (which, if I decide to wait, it'll come today). Let you know in like, ten.