prez infinity mafiascum 2016: the general creaks into action

inspiratieloos · Post Post #25 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 10:53 am

I don't even remember what my candidate was supposed to stand for any more. I feel like a real politician already

xRECKONERx · Post Post #26 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:22 pm

who is everyone

Drench · Post Post #27 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:26 pm

In post 26, xRECKONERx wrote:who is everyone

post #3 numpty

xRECKONERx · Post Post #28 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:29 pm

did i submit that pic for me or did u fuckin stalk me

Drench · Post Post #29 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:29 pm

you absolutely gave me that exact pic although i did crop out the rando next to you

xRECKONERx · Post Post #30 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:30 pm

that RANDO is comedian doug benson

Drench · Post Post #31 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:31 pm

xRECKONERx · Post Post #32 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:32 pm

Drench · Post Post #33 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:39 pm

The Week of October 14th

110 days until Iowa
118 days until New Hampshire
391 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:

The world watches and waits to see if

Defender's

scandal[/color] takes hold. It...does not. It's still on the front page of every newspaper in this godforsaken country, but it's fading. Lying will get you places, folks. Elsewhere,

Khan

gives a policy speech on Iran, consisting of the words "get rid of it", to rapturous applause.

Negarir

makes a good impression on On The Record, although I still have no idea who Greta Van Susteren is. Don't even think she has Twitter.

TSL

negativity Questions remain,

Reckoner

successfully paints

Peanuts'

War on Terror policy as nuts without anyone noticing he has the exact same policy, and protesters get their kicks at

Negarir

and

McGriddles

events.

Friday:

The US will have boots on the ground in Afghanistan until 2017, as announced by President Obama today. It's dominating the news, and the issue of military intervention is a hot button issue, but wait!

Defender

is in more hot water!

Reckoner

continues his successful spinning with a roaring attack on

Defender's

integrity, and it makes everything worse--this

scandal

, far from being over like some (me) thought, is now the most damaging news story for any candidate to date.

Spire

continues the debate victory tour with a good showing on The O'Reilly Factor (which: wow), while

Negarir

talks education on Jimmy Fallon (when Fallon isn't laughing at his own jokes) and calls for stronger immigration controls. Which is so out of the ordinary. He's also in Colorado, which would make sense in the general, but not quite now!!! Meanwhile,

Mothma

lets everyone know that unions aren't all bad, to mixed results, and

Abbott

actually seizes on the hot-button issue of the day by way of calling

Khan

a complete warmonger, whereas

Abbott

is only a warmonger during the working week.

Saturday:

Oh my god just someone shove

Defender

in a hole before he makes things worse,

Negarir

ripped him to shreds on the Rachel Maddow show and

Defender

responded and tried to defend??? himself????? which, I guess it's in the name, but this

scandal

is now really, really bad. Anyway,

Negarir

also managed to talk about crushing corruption on TRMS, which, good choice of topic; and

Reckoner

remembered he needed to win the primaries and campaigned on government spending in New Hampshire. It's a Saturday, you can't expect much.

Sunday:

Ding, ding, ding, we have an endorsement! Strongly encouraged by his "businesses need tax cuts to pay for company cars" stance,

Americans for Tax Reform

have endorsed

Khan

wholeheartedly; the momentum is building, and

Grover Norquist

is gearing up to campaign for

Khan's

empire to rise and rise and rise.

Defender's

scandal

is starting to fade, helped in part by both

Khan's

demurring and defending when asked, and

Defender's

own successful speech showcasing his breadth of knowledge on the issues.

Khan

immediately hits the road in Virginia to celebrate, although his surrogate gets hit with some protests at an event; and

TSL's

husband tries to campaign on tax rates for his wife, and also gets protested, because why not. First Amendment, huh!

Monday:

Reckoner

, still in New Hampshire probably, is packing them IN with his fiery rhetoric on government spending (even if it's pretty standard Democratic language).

Spire

who sure isn't around a whole lot after dominating the debate for some reason, shines on Colbert, while

Peanuts

has a go on

Reckoner

-favourite Meet The Press.

McGriddles

completes the Democratic trifecta by doing well on Rachel Maddow, being able to name the top marginal tax rate, unlike some people.

Spire

and

Peanuts

have basically the same healthcare policy, but it ain't stopping the latter for slamming the former for it. And that

Defender

scandal

is in the rear-view mirror...but how much damage has it done?

Tuesday:

A big day for

Negarir

, in both ways: people seem to like his vision of an unfettered, overbudgeted military, but

TSL

attacked him from the left in light of the Afghanistan announcement. The recent parity in

general election polling

turns into bad news for

Negarir

, as

Khan

spins it into a failing of the current polling leader (

Negarir

) to lift that number higher. And

Serduchka

makes an appearance, poking just enough holes in

Spire's

Colbert performance for it to be left behind in the news cycle.

Wednesday:

Peanuts

couldn't tell Fox News Sunday, of all people, whether he supported the Second Amendment (he does, but in a mainstream Democratic way, you feel), so no matter how bad your day is, at least it ain't that. Two duelling speeches get coverage today; those of

Serduchka

who gets mixed reviews for her cookie-cutter Democratic government intervention platform, and

Defender

, who did better in articulating what essential programs should be cut and how brutally it should be done.

Khan

tried to slam him on exactly that issue, but it did minimal damage at best--and the

Defender

scandal

is officially over.

The first Republican primary debate is in seven days.

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:

Peanuts, Spire, McGriddles

Losing momentum:

Negarir, Defender, 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!:

Can Spire keep it up? Will Defender recover from his polling slump? And who will win the first Republican primary debate???

xRECKONERx · Post Post #34 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:48 pm

spire: has weak news cycle, has +23 momentum

N · Post Post #35 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:53 pm

abbott keeps going under the radar; time to eat a raw onion

Drench · Post Post #36 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:55 pm

In post 34, xRECKONERx wrote:spire: has weak news cycle, has +23 momentum

news strength =/= momentum; news strength is literally the sum of your positive and negative stories, and a debate win story usually is both very positive and lasts a long time
i'd say probably 80% of that +23 is the debate win

spire's momentum on the other hand is +1.1, which is okay, but not extraordinary, and not first

national momentum on the right, and if u got an upward arrow in a state it means u got momentum there too

so basically news is one component of momentum, it also increases or decreases via ads for you and ads against you, the actual actions you and your surrogates are taking, organizational strength, what exactly it is you're saying and whether the issues you're focusing on have room to grow for you or don't.....it's a lot
momentum is also a delayed thing; it takes time to build momentum from stories, and it takes time for poll numbers to be affected by momentum.

and in the end, momentum is only great if it's helping you win
polling numbers are more important imho

Drench · Post Post #37 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 4:13 pm

The Week of October 21st

103 days until Iowa
111 days until New Hampshire
384 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

A day by day analysis of what's making the news. 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:

TSL

is ROLLING in the dough and, true to form, she wants you to know about it.

Serduchka

finally decides to do something and drops the hottest ad of 2015, or something, attacking

Spire's

pinko commie only-slightly-further-left-than-she-is health care plan.

Negarir

talks about gun control with Fox News Sunday and you can guess what the tone of it was, probably.

Reckoner

gives a major speech decrying American military interventionism, without realizing his audience are all hawks, so you can probably guess how that played.

Defender

is content to slam

Mothma's

maybe-free-trade-is-good stance, and, oh, did we mention the corruption

scandal

that's just broken over

Serduchka's

head? I know it's just a Chicago thing, but you just can't accept designer clothes, turn around, and refuse to prosecute designer clothing manufacturers for visa fraud. You just can't.

Friday:

Fmr. Sec. Clinton, who turned down a second bid at the Presidency after seeing the extremely strong Democratic field, testified for eleven hours before the House Committee on Benghazi. Also, the

scandals

are POURING IN!

Negarir

plagarized parts of his authorized biography!

McGriddles

claimed to be the heir to Ronald McDonald's estate!

Scandals

, everywhere.

TSL's

fundraising has been spun out of existence by

Abbott

, while

Serduchka

tries to put her

scandal

to rest for good with a surprisingly strong showing on Jimmy Fallon.

Spire

seems to be the only one out in the field right now, with a poignant speech on why the tax code is fine as it is. Maybe poignant isn't the right word.

Saturday:

A lot of coverage today, but not much in the way of good OR bad news; just neutral will do.

Khan

and

Defender

put forward two competing speeches; the first on how government should be really really tiny probably, the second on how the Iran Deal is probably bad; both made little splash. What influential news came was minute at best--

TSL

continues to campaign on ~exporting democracy~ in Iowa;

McGriddles'

scandal

only gets attention from

Reckoner

, and

Negarir

seems to be slipping his

scandal

under the rug as we speak, or, at least, he's managed to not make it get bigger. Politics, she is fickle.

Sunday:

It's a big Sunday. Two effective moments from both sides of the aisle today:

Serduchka

, seemingly no longer troubled by bad news, nailed Fox News Sunday even when the question turned to why Democrats were sinful for wanting to expand government.

Negarir's

philosophy of "bomb first, ask questions later" also hit its mark. So effective were those two stories, they nearly buried what might otherwise be big news: three major endorsements from across the spectrum.

Spire

won the endorsement of

Fmr. Pres. Jimmy Carter

, who hits the trail immediately;

Khan

himself added to his endorsement collection with

Fmr. Pres. George H. W. Bush

, who likewise is really excited to campaign for some reason, and

McGriddles

wins Actually Good Billionaire

Warren Buffett

. Oh, but there's more, and not just because I clicked down;

Mothma

has won major Republican cash cow

Sheldon Adelson

, which can't be anything but a major cash infusion for her campaign. Elsewhere,

Spire

talked education with Rachel Maddow, and did well;

Negarir

proved some leadership credentials on On The Record, and

Khan

mocked

Defender's

promise to cut one government spending program a day, calling it "really dumb" and "some sort of game show thing, I don't know".

We also present this headline, without comment.

Monday:

Scandals

just aren't blowing up and going viral this week, but maybe this'll be different, because as it turns out,

Mothma

deliberately avoids buying things that were Made in America. Shameful.

Peanuts

, meanwhile, was the next contestant on Jimmy Fallon and he did well!

Abbott's

fundraising coup with the onion lobby hits the headlines, and positively;

Reckoner

talks government spending on Colbert; and I regret to inform all that the pop stars are at it again, this time for

Negarir

.

Grover Norquist

is busy attacking

Negarir's

leadership skills in Texas (maybe that's why he needed the concert), and there's just a little bit of protesting at a

Khan

event.

Tuesday:

There's been a massive and tragic 7.5 earthquake in Hindu Kush, sharply bringing leadership ability into focus. Not much else is registering because of that news;

Peanuts

loves to talk about education in front of crowds, apparently, and

Negarir

does some local campaigning in Alaska, but everything else tends to wash out. Of the major

scandals

, none have blown up in the way that

Defender's

did last week, but they're still there and percolating without intensification or fade. Various people are tryinng to keep those

scandals

alive (specifically,

Reckoner

on

McGriddles

,

Negarir

on

Mothma

, and

Reckoner

again on

Negarir

), but at best, they're just humming at the same energy level. Lastly,

Defender's

surrogate takes it to

Mothma

and her health care plan (a reminder: no burn units).

Wednesday:

Abbott

and Bill O'Reilly get on famously on the Factor, and he keeps bringing in even MORE money, so it's a good day for him.

Spire

passionately calls for greater government spending in peoples' lives, but whether anyone thinks better of him for it is up in the air.

Reckoner

mixes easily with the fine people of Nevada, who love the military to not intervene, and

McGriddles

does somewhat well on The Rachel Maddow Show, promising to find savings in Defense.

Serduchka

drops her hot take on same-sex marriage (the take is: gays are people), and a

Khan

barnstorm on energy is briefly interrupted by protesters. As for

scandals

, they're not getting much coverage any more, but people like

TSL

and

Reckoner

are ensuring that when they do occasionally get aired, it ain't pretty for

Negarir

and

McGriddles

, respectively.

It's Wednesday morning;

the Republican primary debate is tonight.

The Week That Was

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

The wound may be small, but if you don't treat it, it'll fester. That's the lesson learned by some more than others this week. The mass of scandals were mostly contained, but containing is not enough, and while those scandals might've dropped off the front page fairly quickly, they still got a paragraph in the back. People like

Mothma

and

Defender

are suffering now because of it, despite any of the other good work they did. But, most of the

Republican

field was tained with scandal, and so it's not so much that some are losing momentum, as it is that the untainted (

Abbott

) are gaining. The promising progress of the

Democrats

almost became the antithesis in that; the momentum tracker below will show that

Peanuts

and

Serduchka

are gaining momentum without

Reckoner

doing the same, but the truth is that they're all within 0.1 of each other in the momentum scale. That's what good campaigning gets you, and that's what consistent campaigning gets you, not to mention proper crisis management.

Serduchka's

gain tells us two things particularly: that killing a scandal quickly is better than hoping it'll go away, as she did; and that a week is a very long time in politics, and if you use it, you can make a bad start turn into an excellent end. The

Democrats

, overall, are proving just how fleeting and inconsequential news coverage can be: they got the headlines, but it's the ground game that's pushing them up. Just don't let a scandal fester, and don't let that momentum go to waste.

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

,

Serduchka

,

Peanuts

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!:

The Republican debate is TONIGHT. I'm probably doing a special post just for that, and then the third update of the day. But will there be more???

Kublai Khan · Post Post #38 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 4:31 pm

The real question is why was Reck a Republican on Thursday? (wrong color

)

Drench · Post Post #39 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 4:35 pm

thank u

xRECKONERx · Post Post #40 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:07 pm

this is amazing ty drench

ISO · Post Post #41 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:12 pm

Looks like I am about to reverse my momentum fortunes despite SOME PEOPLE (Abbott) thinking they can talk shit.

In post 37, Drench wrote:
TSL
is ROLLING in the dough and, true to form, she wants you to know about it.

Poors BTFO.

N · Post Post #42 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:54 pm

In post 41, AniX wrote:SOME PEOPLE (Abbott) thinking they can talk shit.

you bet you are you bet i am

Drench · Post Post #43 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:10 pm

there's an update 3/4ths done but i've been interrupted so expect it in a couple hours i guess

"but drench why are you rushing through this" we're still three months from iowa

Vijarada · Post Post #44 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:38 pm

boy your election campaigns are way too long.

Drench · Post Post #45 (ISO) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:57 pm

The Week of October 28th

96 days until Iowa
104 days until New Hampshire
384 days until the Presidential Election

THE FIRST

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY

DEBATE

October 28th, 2015

Both sides have roughly the same number of candidates, but it's clear that while the Democrats were less focused, these six came prepared. Some preparations fell flat, of course:

TSL

did no favours with her provably false claim that she was, in fact, the richest woman in the world. Unlike some others we may know, she is not a good liar--

Negarir

didn't let her off the hook, and it exposed both

TSL's

exaggeration and her utter lack of preparation on the issues. But others did not fare much better.

Abbott

,

Defender

and

Khan

, while all slightly better than

TSL

, were similarly woeful.

Khan

at least managed to claim plausible credit for the sustainability of the Mongol Empire, but

Abbott's

expertly crafted takedown of

Khan's

entire record as a public servant will be remembered for a very, very long time. It's a pity

Abbott

couldn't use the same skills to help himself, turning in a wooden and uninspiring performance.

Defender

looked petty when he once again went after

Mothma's

health care plan, as if it were the only thing he could think about; to her credit,

Mothma

used the opportunity to weave a convincing, energetic argument for her election. It was, in the end, hers and

Negarir's

debate. We're just not sure who was better.

1. Negarir (8 points)
1. Mothma (8 points)
3. Khan (3 points)
4. Defender (2 points)
5. Abbott (1 point)
6. TSL (-2 points)

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:

The debate brings no good fortune to anyone as the draw settles in. In fact, there's bigger news: a $200 million runaway blimp with a 6,700ft cable is above Maryland and Pennsylvania. This is apparently a thing that happened.

Khan

puts out an attack ad and it really horribly falls flat.

Defender

goes for

Mothma's

health care policy again, while

Negarir

tries to attack ad

Abbott

into submission. Who knows how any of that will turn out?

McGriddles

does one of those dumb parlor games on Jimmy Fallon and he's okay at it, whilst

Khan

and

Negarir

make good impressions on On The Record.

Reckoner

continues his campaigning in Nevada, whilst

TSL

, feeling the heat over her debate gaffe, tries to shift focus with a corruption-themed barnstorm. It's a messy and chaotic day after an inconclusive debate.

Friday:

Paul Ryan

has been elected Speaker of the House! Good job, him.

Serduchka

is busy decrying Ryan's attitudes to Social Security with known communist Colbert, whilst

McGriddles

holds a very successful fundraiser.

Mothma

looks to capitalize on her drawn first with a speech tying herself to

Paul Ryan's

leadership, except, you know, what a dumb fucking idea, of course that backfires. It's a chat show sorta day:

Khan

does well on Fallon, and

Reckoner

rants about spending cuts satisfactorily on Rachel Maddow.

TSL

claws back some ground with some nice health care rhetoric in New Hampshire, which sounds suspiciously like a

Democratic

platform. And the attacks continue, with

Reckoner

slamming

Serduchka's

softness on immigration. Fucking bleeding heart liberals.

Saturday:

Massive, massive

Serduchka

scandal

. Multiple designer handbag manufacturers have accused

Serduchka

, in an almost coordinated fashion, on placing massive orders of designer handbags with them and failing to pay the bill. It dominates the news, even over the ordering of fifty special ops to Syria by the Administration. That's not all:

Negarir's

scandalous

shady almost-insider-trading was revealed in spectacular fashion, as leaked documents splashed across the front page of the New York Daily News revealed significant interests in companies he voted in tax cuts for. Then again, he's a

Republican

, so the tax cut thing is a bit expected. And it's not over!

Khan

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

scandal

indeed. Probably the only time anyone will care. Elsewhere,

Spire

rolls in the dough,

McGriddles

takes "tough questions" on Fallon, which I assume means Fallon asked him what his favourite movie was or something, and

TSL

does a good on Meet The Press.

Serduchka

tries to fight back with some positive coverage of her speech asking why the rich deserve to keep their money, and

Peanuts

and Rachel Maddow somehow agree on Social Security.

Sunday:

A Russian airliner has gone down, and a bombing is suspected. Moving on,

Serduchka's

damage control is in full flight as both she and

Reckoner

try to control her

scandal's

narrative. The thing is still across every channel, but it's only moderately damaging, and

Serduchka

manages to do well on Meet the Press, so.

Khan

gives a mildly received speech on how all countries must tremble before the might of the U.S. military immediately, and

Mothma

tries to argue that people losing jobs to free trade is Good, with bad results. More endorsements fly in, and they're kinda big:

Khan

has won the favour of

Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney

, who hits the trail with no fanfare nor applause; not only does

Spire

deliver a well-received speech on Social Security and parries well on Rachel Maddow, but he also wins

Fmr. Pres. Bill Clinton

! Can't wait to hear him on the trail, or something. Meanwhile, the twin

scandals

of

Khan

and

Negarir

continue to percolate and build without pushback from the respective campaigns, which prompts the question: did they learn nothing?

Monday:

Serduchka

continues her active damage control, and it's the only thing not ending her right now, although

Peanuts

and

Reckoner

are trying hard to mitigate that. The Royals defeat the Mets, but who cares.

Negarir

manages to neutralize his

scandal

and has a blisteringly good night on Fallon, who needs to get over himself with all the political guests for fucks sake, and

Reckoner

takes some time off from trying to destroy

Serduchka

to deliver a well-received speech on how trade is evil.

TSL

is spotted in the Palmetto State (South Carolina, and yes, I'm showing off, thank you), actually campaigning.

Tuesday:

Serduchka

Scandal

might be the title of her next album but it's also the headline that enters its fourth straight day of being the top news story. It's slowly dying because

Serduchka

keeps trying to kill it, but where she goes,

Reckoner

is right behind her, spinning just as hard. Speaking of him, he made an excellent speech on why America should not immediately go to countries and shoot things, had a good day in Colorado, and then immediately turned around and claimed America wasn't in debt. Can't win 'em all. Integrity being in the news,

Negarir

capitalizes, holding a packed rally, barnstorming for small government in Oklahoma, and capping it off with a not-totally congruent talk on free trade with idiot in chief Jimmy Fallon. Indeed, more candidates are starting to campaign on the ground, with

Defender

chasing

Abbott

again on military interventionism, except now in the crucial first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa. And

Mothma

finally has some good news, making a good impression in South Carolina.

Statewide and municipal elections are today.

A Republican debate is in seven days.

Wednesday:

The

Republicans

have a good night, and win the keys to the Kentucky Governor's Mansion. Meanwhile,

Serduchka

has stepped in it. After days of claiming she would pay promptly, it's been revealed she sent lawyers after the designer handbag claimants, which makes this

scandal

very bad indeed. Momentum is now starting to build, especially where

Negarir

and

TSL

are concerned, to the point where they get news stories about it.

Negarir

takes the humanitarian but still pretty prohibitive position on immigration in South Carolina, and is showered with praise;

McGriddles

, is the latest target of Questions Have Been Asked Over The Campaign's Negativity, and this week, the pop artists strike

Peanuts

, but in a good way.

Serduchka

ups her activity, and does well in both talking on being prepared and Chris Matthews' Hardball, and

Spire

comes under fire for not wanting to welcome all immigrants immediately and without delay.

The Week That Was

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

It's a weird week. A debate that didn't have a winner, a scandal that neither overwhelmed nor was neutralized, and candidates getting much more negative coverage than the headlines might suggest, but also a lot more momentum than the headlines suggest. Some weeks won't mean anything, but this was a week in which the race was wide open for candidates to continue defining themselves. Some, like

Neganir

and

Serduchka

, did so, for better or worse. Others, like

Abbott

and

Mothma

just shrunk into the background, even despite the latter's debate draw. There was also a lot more news this week, and some of it was buried on A22, but it still existed. Don't forget the power of those stories to still influence voters:

Khan

may have had some good stories, but he also had an active scandal and a lot of little things that don't make the front page. As such, his momentum's amongst the weakest of the

Republicans

, and while that's nothing compared to the anemic

Democratic

field, you have to remember two things: the other party is only your enemy after you clinch the nomination; and of course, one side had a debate this week and the other did not. No wonder the momentum's imbalanced.

The Crystal Ball

Larry Sabato here, to tell you what's up.

The Republicans

1. Negarir (107 points)
2. Khan (55 points)
3. TSL (44 points)
4. Abbott (41 points)
5. Defender (35 points)
6. Mothma (28 points)

Let's be clear: right now, Negarir's doing well. But there are dangers. Khan has a superior ground game. TSL has vast amounts of cash. And his momentum could be stymied at any moment. It's not looking dire for anyone, but Defender and Mothma do need to get something going. There's only three months until Iowa.

The Democrats

1. Spire (71 points)
2. Serduchka (51 points)
3. Peanuts (47 points)
4. Reckoner (39 points)
5. McGriddles (37 points)

Don't be fooled: this is a two-tier race. It's Spire's game right now, with money, endorsements, and both a strong candidate and ground game helping him along. But one false move dooms you, and everyone else has advantages that others don't. On the Republican side, Khan was leading in the first Crystal Ball, and now he trails by fifty points, otherwise known as nearly twice the margin between 1st and 5th here.

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, TSL, Defender

Losing momentum:

Serduchka, Peanuts, McGriddles

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!:

Another debate! Can Negarir keep it up? Is Mothma going to wake up? Are the Democrats screwed? No, yes, no, because Christ, there's literally so long to go, but there's a debate.

ISO · Post Post #46 (ISO) » Sun Jan 08, 2017 6:34 am

In post 45, Drench wrote: 1. Negarir (8 points)
1. Mothma (8 points)
3. Khan (3 points)
4. Defender (2 points)
5. Abbott (1 point)
6. TSL (-2 points)

xRECKONERx · Post Post #47 (ISO) » Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:20 pm

@DRENCH: does the simulator also do vp picks and stuff

Drench · Post Post #48 (ISO) » Sun Jan 08, 2017 3:37 pm

In post 47, xRECKONERx wrote:@DRENCH: does the simulator also do vp picks and stuff

yes, and contested conventions if it arises

xRECKONERx · Post Post #49 (ISO) » Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:47 pm

make it so