prez infinity mafiascum 2016: the general creaks into action

October 13th, 2015

Where to start with this debate? It was clear that one natural candidate came to play, three more came to try (and fail), and one didn't come at all. Maybe we should've seen

McGriddles'

complete non-event of a performance coming, given his low debating experience. But his claim of improving health outcomes in Augusta (the only thing he had to lean on) was lost amidst the fireworks happening up top, along with

Peanuts'

more creative (yet still oddly acceptable) claim of being good-looking and thus qualified. True,

Reckoner

had a lot to do with the spectacle--shooting

McGriddles'

policy (the Augusta one) down before it even got in the air, and humiliating the latter in the process--but it was

Serduchka's

fierce and at-times overly-aggressive attacks on

Spire

that may have been the game-changer we've been waiting for. Nobody expected

Serduchka

to act the attack dog, but she did, and it didn't suit, with her accusations of

Spire's

policy mendacity falling flat. It wasn't even needed--both

Reckoner

and

Serduchka

were otherwise competent, delivering answers as expected, if without flair and precision. It was, in the end, that contrast that helped

Spire

to a commanding win--a win that didn't need

Serduchka

, but certainly would use her help anyway.

Spire

was calm, confident, knowledgeable, prepared, and charismatic; in amongst the rest of them, he stood out. It was a thumping, a true blowout, and it gets you wondering: will the other four candidates wise up to avoid being embarrassed again?

Final Results

1st: Spire (14 points)
2nd: Reckoner (7 points)
3rd: Serduchka (6 points)
4th: Peanuts (3 points)
5th: McGriddles (-1 points)

Headlines, Continued

Wednesday:

Yes,

Spire

triumped in the debate. However, we've got bigger fish to fry, in the form of leaked memos showing

Defender

very clearly changing positions on nearly everything he believes in not through ~evolution~, but for political expediency. It's a

massive scandal

(six points, to be exact, which is the biggest news story since game start). While he enters damage control,

Khan's

in the corner delivering a "stirring" speech about government spending, somehow, and more Shadows are Being Cast over

TSL's

"negative" campaign.

Negarir

and

Peanuts

both put forward their War on Terror policies, and surprisingly, the Democrat was left-wing about it and the Republican was right-wing about it.

Spire

also had things to say about education and it was good and fine but it's been a big news day.

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 I would hope. 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:

Neganir

,

Spire

,

Khan

Losing momentum:

TSL

,

Defender

,

Reckoner

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!:

Will Defender's scandal fade away or blow up in his face? Can Spire capitalize on his debate performance, and will McGriddles recover from his? Will Republicans stop attacking Reckoner?

Drench · Post Post #17 (isolation #12) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:18 am

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

Drench · Post Post #20 (isolation #13) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:31 am

fuck if i know how momentum works
all i really understand is that it makes rallies bigger

i played carly fiorina in 2016 redux last night though and her momentum was shit and she's president now so like whatever

Drench · Post Post #27 (isolation #14) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:26 pm

In post 26, xRECKONERx wrote:who is everyone

post #3 numpty

Drench · Post Post #29 (isolation #15) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:29 pm

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

Drench · Post Post #31 (isolation #16) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:31 pm

Drench · Post Post #33 (isolation #17) » 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???

Drench · Post Post #36 (isolation #18) » 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 (isolation #19) » 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???

Drench · Post Post #39 (isolation #20) » Sat Jan 07, 2017 4:35 pm

thank u

Drench · Post Post #43 (isolation #21) » 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

Drench · Post Post #45 (isolation #22) » 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

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.

Drench · Post Post #48 (isolation #23) » 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

Drench · Post Post #50 (isolation #24) » 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

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 (isolation #25) » 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 (isolation #26) » 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

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.

Drench · Post Post #57 (isolation #27) » 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 (isolation #28) » 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!

Drench · Post Post #68 (isolation #29) » 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 (isolation #30) » 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 (isolation #31) » 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 (isolation #32) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:56 pm

smfh honestly at least i'm up in west virginia

Drench · Post Post #74 (isolation #33) » 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

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.

Drench · Post Post #75 (isolation #34) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:56 pm

okay folks, one more update, and a roundup afterwards

Drench · Post Post #78 (isolation #35) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:34 pm

The Week of December 16th

47 days until Iowa
55 days until New Hampshire
328 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:

God

Negarir

is not having a good one. This time, he's using government offices--that cost money to rent, mind you--as a clearinghouse for an underground fake Rolex thing. I don't know what those words mean, I'm low on creativity, but just know that the extent is 6 and it's a

scandal

.

Khan

is filthy rich, and releases an attack ad on

Defender

.

Reckoner

calls for only gays to be permitted marriage licenses, which gets him in a bit of hot water, but his immigration speech is okay so that's cool.

Mothma's

win is still in the news, as

TSL

and

Negarir

meet the voters and pundits.

Friday:

The

Negarir

scandal (they're calling it

RoLax

because he was lax about record keeping or something, I don't fucking know) is building in intensity, even as he tries to deflect with some interviews on O'Reilly.

Abbott

gets heat from a

Negarir

surrogate in Nevada, whilst

Serduchka

is really negative, or something. There are also protesters in places, I don't know.

Saturday:

Khan

literally appointed prostitutes he enjoyed to governmental positions in the Mongol Empire.

Scandal

almost seems like a weak way to put this. Not that

Negarir's

shit is disappearing either, that is also Very Bad. In normal news,

Peanuts

is that rare liberal who does poorly on O'Reilly, and

TSL

trades barbs with

Negarir

on the trail, impacting them both.

Serduchka

calls for whatever it is Democrats want in military intervention nowadays to rapturous applause. Anyway let's get to this debate.

THE THIRD

Saturday, December 19th, 2015

Everyone left

McGriddles

alone. That's the first thing you need to know about this debate: that everyone left the clear fifth-placer alone. And they weren't wrong:

McGriddles

did not do well, having no specific thing that even interests or that differs from any other. There were three tiers in this debate; the aforementioned holding one, the winner holding the other, and the middle three. Of them,

Serduchka

[/color and

Peanuts

fought to a draw--true, the former did try to knock the latter, but it did nothing but improve the latter's standing.

Peanuts

, riding off that, didn't convert into a winning performance, nor did his attack on

Spire

work at all. Neither did

Reckoner's

, leaving the golden boy to soar to a highly convincing win.

1. Spire (15 points)
2. Reckoner (6 points)
3. Peanuts (4 points)
3. Serduchka (4 points)
5. McGriddles (-1 point)

Headlines, Continued

Sunday:

The

Khan

and

Negarir

scandals

threaten to overwhelm all else, but some things are still poking through.

Spire

rides a high from the debate win, while

McGriddles

stumbles a bit after his own performance. And it's the traditional endorsement day, so here they are:

Negarir

,

Sen. Mark Warner

;

Defender

,

Sen. Johnny Isakson

(and he spoke well on corruption as well);

Khan

,

Sen. Chuck Grassley

;

Abbott

,

Fmr. Gov. Sarah Palin

(lmao); and in a move that'll be a big emotional blow to some:

Peanuts

,

Sen. Bernie Sanders

.

Monday:

Khan

continues to drown.

Negarir

starts to get some clear air for some well-received policy speeches, while a new

scandal

begins to emerge, this time for

Defender

.

Khan

, to be fair, is still out there, doing things in New Hampshire and on TV to relatively good reviews, but, like. Come on.

Tuesday:

TSL

keeps bringing in that dough, while

Khan

would be having a good week if it weren't fort his massive fucking

scandal

that overwhelms all else.

McGriddles

is having a not-very good week after claiming pre-existing condition protections are economically bad and therefore fully bad--as a Democrat, in a Democratic primary--while

Reckoner

keeps on in Virginia. Good stuff.

Wednesday:

Spire

gives a stirring speech blah blah blah is there anything he can't do please kill me.

Khan

continues to suffer.

Negarir

and

Reckoner

both get accused of being too negative, while

Mothma

decides campaigning is important and appears on Meet the Press, doing well in the process.

Defender

gets hit by

Negarir

on the trail; the latter's real busy today, also appearing on O'Reilly and giving a speech on free trade, to good reviews. What a week.

The Week That Was

Ironically, the Democratic primary appears more settled, but the proportional nature of Democratic delegates makes a contested convention far more likely than the inversely settled Republican primary. Anyway, this is me begging this game to make it closer.

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:

Spire

,

Abbott

,

Serduchka

Losing momentum:

Peanuts

,

Negarir

,

Khan

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!:

We are six updates away. It's time to start getting hype.

Drench · Post Post #80 (isolation #36) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:51 pm

The First-In-The-Nation Roundup

40 days until Iowa
48 days until New Hampshire

Let's check this out, because national polling =/= state by state polling. Everything under spoilers because there are eight images here.

The Republicans

Spoiler: Iowa

Spoiler: New Hampshire

The Democrats

Spoiler: Iowa

Spoiler: New Hampshire

40 days out. 28 of those days will be taken up by the next four updates. As we get to the last week and a bit, I may do day by day updates, which will obviously be shorter and therefore faster to produce, to Increase Suspense (and also to get day-by-day maps and polling lmao).

Drench · Post Post #82 (isolation #37) » Sat Jan 14, 2017 7:04 pm

i mean SOMEONE's leaking them and it ain't the candidate themselves

i personally expect the really big ones to drop in the fortnight before, i would bet money that campaigns are holding onto the big ones to leak at the opportune times

Drench · Post Post #99 (isolation #38) » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:13 pm

i literally said ahead of time this week was busy for me, hold ur horses

Drench · Post Post #101 (isolation #39) » Sat Jan 21, 2017 7:18 pm

The Week of December 23rd

40 days until Iowa
48 days until New Hampshire
321 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:

Welcome back! Where were we. Yeah so,

scandal

for

Khan

, obviously.

Abbott

tries to drop a lit attack ad, and he fucks it up.

Reckoner

jerks off to government intervention, and is applauded. Then again, he takes a hit on the whole integrity thing, so, your mileage may vary.

Spire

continues to be perfect and I hate it.

Peanuts

chats with Greta, and does it well

McGriddles

gets slammed for his government spending plans, and

Negarir

both does well with his free trade thing and also gets owned by the media for being negative.

Friday:

It Christmas.

Khan

continues to suffer his

scandal

.

Reckoner

LOVES to intervene government-wise.

Spire

gives another stirring speech aksudfhaiusdf ugh.

Mothma

hits the trail in Tennessee, and that's it. How good are Fridays.

Saturday:

Peanuts

is on Fallon and says words and it's all really great yay!!! Also

Khan

is still having a rough one.

Serduchka

is up and getting on with it in New Hampshire, which is good because there's less than seven weeks to go.

Defender

gets some pop artists on his side, while people protest

Mothma

.

Sunday:

Abbott

does really well with Colbert, somehow, and

Mothma

welcomes immigrants in a speech which goes very poorly in re the Republican base. Anyway let's get these endorsements out of the way.

Sen. Jerry Moran

,

Khan

;

Rep. Trey Gowdy

,

Negarir

;

Ann Coulter

,

Abbott

;

Sen. Michael Bennett

,

Spire

;

Sen. Pat Roberts

,

Defender

.

Monday:

Oh no!!!

Negarir

has to contend with a

scandal

now yikes. And Democrats are up in the generic ballot.

TSL

emerges from the darkness, does well on Fallon, and then I have no idea what. Oh actually no then she goes to talk a good talk on free trade so that's great.

Abbott

goes on Colbert and while he leaves a good impression, there's a gaffe on abortion (that they shoot the babies in the womb apparently) that's gonna ring out for a bit.

Serduchka

and

McGriddles

get protested, while

Khan

hammers

Negarir

for being a War on Terror extremist.

Tuesday:

That

Negarir

scandal

is expanding, and fast, and there's also a NEW one that's even worse!!! But at least he did well on Fallon.

Reckoner

does O'Reilly and somehow they don't scream each other to death about unions??

TSL

keeps on truckin' in Nevada, while

Spire

gets some heat as the leading Democrat in the race...just because, I think.

Wednesday:

While

TSL

continues mingling in Colorado, and

Abbott

cops some flack for being too negative,

Negarir

's

scandals

continue to multiply.

Spire

is ready to fight corruption, and

Khan

gets more protests in a protesty week.

The Week That Was

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

,

Reckoner

Losing momentum:

Negarir

,

Mothma

,

Khan

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!:

SO CLOSE

Drench · Post Post #102 (isolation #40) » Sat Jan 21, 2017 8:15 pm

The Week of December 30th

33 days until Iowa
41 days until New Hampshire
314 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:

It New Year's Eve. Happy New Year's Eve.

Defender

is just nailing it talking about the War on Terror, while

Negarir

is rrrreallly suffering, his good showing on Fox News nonwithstanding.

Spire

talks tax on O'Reilly, to good effect, as does

Serduchka

.

TSL

gets the knife stuck into

Negarir

on the trail, while

Abbott

tries to solidify his position in New Hampshire.

Friday:

TSL

is RICH babes!!!!

Negarir

continues to take hits, while

Khan

cops it a bit for being negative.

Reckoner

is on the end of a harsh

McGriddles

attack ad, as

Mothma

finds herself confronting protesters at an event.

Saturday:

Defender

? Meet the Press? A match made in heaven.

Negarir

both does well on O'Reilly and continues suffering elsewhere. And a lot of people did a lot of things and it had no effect whatsoever. So, like, whatever.

Sunday:

Lookit,

Khan

did super well on Meet the Press, and

Serduchka

gives a speech that moves no needles.

Abbott

is probably hoping for that after a badly received speech on integrity, and

Peanuts

gets along with Maddow. And, endorsements.

Gov. Robert Bentley

,

Abbott

;

Gov. Asa Hutchinson

,

Negarir

;

Sen. Rand Paul

,

Khan

;

Sen. Mitch McConnell

,

Defender

.

Monday:

Democrats continue to beat Republicans in the generic, while

Reckoner

barnstorms in Minnesota.

Khan

has a new

scandal

to deal with, and slams

Defender

's leadership.

Negarir

gets protested, but his plan for The Gays is applauded.

Tuesday:

Abbott

runs into a minor

scandal

about the legitimacy of his onion bite.

Khan

hops onto Maddow and doesn't fuck it.

Defender

loves corruption but in that way where you hate it except for how it gives you higher poll numbers.

Negarir

gets slammed on the campaign trail, and

Spire

enjoys a concert put on just for him.

Wednesday:

Defender

and

Mothma

: too negative? Apparently, yes.

Negarir

gets protested, and

Abbott's

scandal

continues. Etc etc etc.

The Crystal Ball

Hey things have changed, huh.

The Republicans

1. Negarir (91 points)
2. Abbott (63 points)
3. Defender (46 points)
4. Khan (41 points)
5. TSL (30 points)
6. Mothma (28 points)

Well, Negarir's hold on the lead has softened, and that's great for fans of close elections. His entire advantage here is his endorsement strength, so unless that really puts a dent in anyone else's plans, it looks like this thing is wide wide open.

The Democrats

1. Spire (76 points)
2. Reckoner (45 points)
3. Serduchka (40 points)
4. Peanuts (39 points)
5. McGriddles (23 points)

Okay so Spire still has some advantage here. It's mainly that as a candidate, he is just very very good, and his polling is solid. But, you take just one of those away, and this is very close. So there's a tightening going on.

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:

Reckoner, McGriddles, Peanuts

Losing momentum:

Negarir, Defender, Mothma

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!:

asdlfihasiudfh the republicans are literally going apeshit and there's 4 weeks until iowa keep it COMING

Drench · Post Post #103 (isolation #41) » Sat Jan 21, 2017 8:46 pm

The Week of January 6th, 2016

26 days until Iowa
34 days until New Hampsire
307 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:

Wew lads! It's 2016 which means we are literally less than four weeks from Iowa. So.

Serduchka

gives a speech.

Reckoner

tries to go on the attack and fails.

Peanuts

is protested. That's actually it, what a boring day. Oh, and the

next Republican debate is in a week.

Friday:

Reckoner

and

Negarir

are stumping in the early states, to good effect.

Reckoner's

attack ad causes a couple more problems for him.

Spire

gives an unnoticed speech.

TSL

apparently only attacks other people nowadays; this time being on

Negarir's

back.

Saturday:

Reckoner

gets protested

so does

TSL

But, on the bright side,

Abbott's

gun control policies (aka be sane) are a hit on Fallon. That

Spire

speech gets spun a little negatively by

Reckoner

. Literally this week is so slow.

Sunday:

Serduchka

manages to arrive at the Fox News Sunday studios on an actual Sunday, so we're all very proud. Also her campaign is too negative apparently so asodiufhbasiudofas.

Reckoner

is good on Maddow, as well, but we're really here for the weekly endorsements.

Sen. Dean Heller

,

Defender

;

Gov. Matt Bevin

,

Abbott

;

Sen. Kelly Ayotte

,

Khan

;

Sen. Dick Durban

,

McGriddles

;

Gov. Nathan Deal

,

Negarir

; and

Sen. Joe Donnelly

,

Serduchka

.

The next Democratic debate is in a week.

Monday:

Negarir

is being a bit negative, yikes! Dems are still ahead in the generic, while

Mothma

lets everyone know that she's got the most integrity.

Spire

is slammed by

McGriddles

, and both

Abbott

and

TSL

are protested at their events. And

Reckoner

gets a concert!

Tuesday:

Khan

just can't stop having

scandals

!!! Although this one is kinda minor. Both

Negarir

and

McGriddles

are quite good on Meet the Press.

Mothma

fumbles a speech on experience, while

Serduchka

and

Reckoner

are good with Greta.

Spire

makes a keynote speech on gun control, but also takes some heat for not being better in the generic against Republicans.

Wednesday:

The

Khan

scandal

continues apace, although it's slowing.

McGriddles

hits up Virginia, and surprisingly well, too. That is all the new news apparently.

The Week That Was

for some reason this was a super slow week but i'm not complaining because spire got owned
i root for close elections thanks

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:

Reckoner, McGriddles, Serduchka

Losing momentum:

Negarir

,

Spire

,

Khan

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!:

things......are......getting..................lit

Drench · Post Post #104 (isolation #42) » Sat Jan 21, 2017 11:49 pm

The Week of January 13th

19 days until Iowa
27 days until New Hampshire
300 days until the Presidential Election

less than three weeks. take a fucking sip, babes

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:

Let's roll.

Defender

is out on the streets decrying corruption (which only Democrats do anyway) and hitting up Colbert about free trade. And yikes for

Abbott

; a

scandal

is taking hold, although it seems minor. We've got protesters at

Negarir

and

Serduchka

events, whilst

Khan

cops a spray from

Mothma

. And

McGriddles

has an okay run on Meet the Press. So basically, the stage is set for this debate.

THE FOURTH

Thursday, January 14th, 2016

There were four pretenders and two actual debaters on that stage. The four were, in no particular order:

Defender

, whose attack against

Mothma

fell flat;

Abbott

, who tried to make

Negarir

look bad, and both

Khan

and

TSL

, who were both able to at least make themselves look a little bit better.

TSL

was a surprise to see do competently: her issue familiarity is an Achilles' heel in this format, but she managed to cope regardless. But, obviously,

Negarir

and

Mothma

stole the show, and were both able to highly successfully boast about their own achievements. Preparation trumps talent, though, and

Mothma

came out on top.

1. Mothma (10 points)
2. Negarir (8 points)
3. TSL (3 points)
3. Khan (3 points)
5. Abbott (0 points)
6. Defender (0 points)

Headlines, Continued

Friday:

Mothma

has another favourable news cycle, but here's the thing: can she finally capitalize on it? History suggests no, but she's got a boost in the news for the time being.

Negarir

is back out, talking on the issues (literally just how much he knows about the issues), and

McGriddles

awkwardly says he doesn't have integrity.

Abbott's

troubles are fading as expected,

Spire

gets some protesting, and yep. That's all.

Saturday:

Negarir

leads the papers with a well-received speech on how killing terrorists is good.

Reckoner

hits up Vermont and its proclivity to spend money, while also calling for unions to continue existing, which people are into. And

Mothma

has not tried to further spin her debate win, so wow, colour me shocked.

Sunday:

Negarir

leads again! Except, this time, for being too negative, so yikes.

Peanuts

and

Mothma

both do well on Meet the Press and Colbert, respectively, while

Defender

does a good barnstorm on integrity. And now, endorsements.

Gov. Terry Branstad

,

Abbott

;

Sen. Jim Inhofe

,

Khan

; and

Sen. Ed Markey

,

Serduchka

. Is it going to affect the debate? Probably not, but eh.

THE FOURTH

Sunday, January 17th, 2016

Wew lads. You know how like, when

Reckoner

gets mad and he just shouts a lot? And you know how that's usually like, a little bit offputting? This time, it was not, and

Peanuts

had no chance because of it. Obviously,

McGriddles

languished near the bottom, with no standout moments. As usual. But

Peanuts

ended up performing really badly, and it was to the benefit of both

Reckoner

and

Serduchka

, who ended up beating expectations (not that it counts for much, I guess).

Serduchka

did try to pile on

Peanuts

, and it did backfire, but she was obviously energized in a way she hadn't been in previous debates. And

Reckoner's

own charisma and energy also contributed to an impressive performance. But, oh look, what a shock,

Spire

takes it, in part with mighty natural debating skills and intense preparation on the issues.

I suspect this is the last debate before Iowa. If not, we'll see you there; if so, that was the last parting shot before the sprint. Good luck.

1. Spire (10 points)
2. Reckoner (7 points)
3. Serduchka (5 points)
4. Peanuts (2 points)
5. McGriddles (0 points)

Headlines, Continued

Monday:

Spire

won, so I welcome death now.

Negarir

is raising an absolute fuckton of money and that's good for him, especially since questions about his negativity remain.

Mothma

does pretty well on Colbert, and

Serduchka

suffers some protesters at an event.

Tuesday:

Negarir

is just having a really big week. The fundraiser is still news, and a really good run on Fox News Sunday is bumping him up a lil bit more.

Spire's

debate win has been spun into uselessness, to the delight of many, and

Serduchka

gives a rallying cry consisting of the words "let's spend more money".

Wednesday:

Khan

will not be outdone!!! He has also made money.

Abbott

is being too negative, and

Reckoner

hits up Nevada. And a lot of sniping's going on as well.

Peanuts

cops it from

Serduchka

, and

Defender

targets

Mothma

, while

Peanuts

tries for

McGriddles

in Minnesota.

The Week That Was

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, Khan, Mothma

Losing momentum:

McGriddles, Spire, Peanuts

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!:

Next update is the last weekly one before Iowa. Also your last update on the numbers in Iowa.

Drench · Post Post #106 (isolation #43) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 12:03 am

your candidate is like, maxed out on the key character attributes (leadership/experience/integrity), and your campaign is maxed out on corruption (1, i.e. least corrupt), so it's definitely a matter of allocation
the problem is that it didn't leave room for much else but it doesn't seem to be hurting right now because your attributes are weighted towards winning the primary (literally, in primary rather than general), so i think it'd be super interesting to watch the general if you do get up

Drench · Post Post #110 (isolation #44) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 2:05 pm

idk man

hey iowa's gonna happen by midnight est get rowdy

Drench · Post Post #112 (isolation #45) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 3:08 pm

The Week of January 20th

12 days until Iowa
20 days until New Hampshire
293 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:

Twelve days.

Peanuts

is hard at work attacking

McGriddles

via advertisement, while the latter shines on Meet the Press.

Khan

keeps earning money, which is great, but also Iowa is in 12 so like, priorities. And to his credit, he's got a surrogate out in Massachusetts (of all places), but there are protesters there, so.

Mothma

endures a few protesters, while

Negarir

is also flush with cash and makes a nice impression on FNS.

Reckoner's

John Kerry is up in Nevada,

Abbott

is accused of being too negative, and

Mothma

hits a bum note in a speech on corruption.

The next Republican primary debate is in a week.

Friday:

khan

rich good rich.

Mothma

is nailing it on integrity, which is nice. More protests at

Defender

events in Tennessee,

Peanuts

goes double in Iowa, and

Spire's

speech on integrity is not that enthralling but is in fact the opposite.

Saturday:

Someone's been mining the oppo mines today folks!!! TWO

Abbott

scandals[/b]

AND a

Peanuts

scandal[/b]

drops today, and wow, they're all pretty meaty. I have no clue what actually happened but I'm gonna assume that they all did pretty sordid stuff like have orgies or something because it's integrity all the way down folks. Away from that catastrophe,

TSL

does well with Greta, and

Mothma

continues her positive press with a good speech on government spending.

Serduchka

gaffes on corruption, calling it "good", while

McGriddles

slams

Reckoner

as an extremist on the War on Terror, somehow.

Sunday:

Well, congrats to

Abbott

, who had so much bad press that nobody bothered to spin it. No congratulations to

Peanuts

, for whom that is not applying.

Khan

goes in on military intervention on FNS, while

Negarir

gets some heat for his negativity

Also,

Reckoner

is chilling in Alabama for some reason, and he hates

McGriddles

right back about the War on Terror. And we also have the second last round of endorsements before Iowa, folks.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren

,

McGriddles

;

Sen. Lamar Alexander

,

Khan

;

Sen. Lindsey Graham

,

Mothma

;

Gov. Sam Brownback

,

Abbott

; and

Gov. Jerry Brown

,

Negarir

(!). And lastly, this headline is presented without comment.

Monday:

I can't deal with the front page. Literally it's just

Abbott

,

Abbott

,

Peanuts

. Sucks to suck.

Negarir

continues battling questions of negativity.

Serduchka

and

Peanuts

both are good on the pundit shows, and now, Republicans have drawn level with Democrats in the generic.

TSL

gets attacked by

Negarir

(how negative!), and

Spire

comes under fire from Sec. of State John Fucking Kerry in Arkansas.

Defender

keeps on keepin' on in Oklahoma, and Hardball welcomes good performer

Reckoner

.

Tuesday:

God, I mean,

Peanuts

apparently has negative momentum. No shit.

Khan

does well on FNS as Iowa inches closer, while those

scandals

are still a few days from disappearing.

McGriddles

tries his best to talk about education on Maddow, and mostly succeeds, while

Abbott

tries to push past all other questions and talk about immigration instead on On The Record. He's also in Vermont, where he gets protested; so does

Khan

at a Bush 43 event.

There is one week until Iowa for the Republicans and Democrats.

Wednesday:

TSL

is rich!!!! Sky is blue!!!!! Water is wet!!!!!!!!!! As if he couldn't handle more bad news,

Peanuts

royally fucks a speech on tax, while

Reckoner

keeps on with education.

McGriddles

, not to be outdone by the latter, tries also to make a great speech, and fails dramatically

Negarir

lays out how he's got the most integrity, or something, and

Mothma

attacks

Abbott

for being a terrible leader who'll probably get rolled in six months.

See you in Iowa.

The Week That Was

I literally have no fucking clue what's going to happen. Four in ten voters on the Democratic side are undecided in Iowa. Abbott's got a pretty solid lead, but there's five days for this momentum to play out. Who knows. Far out.

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, TSL, Mothma

Losing momentum:

Peanuts

,

Abbott

,

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!:

So, up next, your last look at Iowa in depth before the election happens. Then, we go day-by-day. And, five day-by-days later, Iowa is in. whew

Drench · Post Post #113 (isolation #46) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 3:12 pm

and here are the iowa maps, five days out

34.2% undecided aosidufhasdfuoabsdf literally anyone could win

abbott probably has this, probably

and last thing i'll say: polling in this game is never 100% accurate. expect deviation

Drench · Post Post #114 (isolation #47) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 3:27 pm

January 27th

5 days until Iowa
13 days until New Hampshire
286 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

Five days. The

scandals

have not disappeared for

Abbott

and

Peanuts

.

TSL

holds a fundraiser, does well on Meet the Press, but gets attacked for being too negative.

Spire

is pretty good on Fallon.

Peanuts

, too, does it good on Meet the Press, but he did fuck up that speech on tax, so. Protesters are spotted at

TSL

,

Mothma

and

Negarir

events. Endorsements, now.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar

,

Serduchka

;

Sen. John Cornyn

,

Khan

;

Sen. Bob Corker

,

Mothma

; and

Gov. Nikki Haley

,

Abbott

.

The next Democratic primary debate is in a 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, Mothma

Losing momentum:

Peanuts

,

Abbott

,

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!:

The last debate before Iowa.

Drench · Post Post #115 (isolation #48) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 3:39 pm

January 28th

4 days until Iowa
12 days until New Hampshire
285 days until the Presidential Election

THE FIFTH

The last debate before Iowa, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, especially the five other people who weren't the winner.

Abbott

did predictably badly, owing to his usually terrible charisma, and landed in the negatives.

TSL

tried her best to at least make a dent, but her attack on

Defender

was successfully parried, and her issue familiarity once again is a massive weight around her neck. But, that's not to say

Defender

did great either, because he tried to boast and it just fell flat. Where it didn't fall flat was

Khan

and

Mothma

, who both at least managed to get words in the right order when talking about their own achievements. But, that leaves one, who soared above the rest, and managed to put

Khan

in his place;

Negarir

. Of course, Iowa has always been

Abbott's

to lose, despite his bad debate performances. Is it going to matter?

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

Headlines

Four days.

Negarir

gets a much-needed boost from his debate win.

Khan

and

McGriddles

both do especially well on the pundit shows.

TSL

faces down more questions about negativity.

Abbott

still faces a minor hiccup from his debate faux pas.

Serduchka

has surrogates all up in Vermont, while

Mothma

is still getting protested.

Defender

has stuff going in Tennessee, and there's a lot more endorsements.

Sen. John Barrasso

,

Khan

;

Gov. Bill Haslam

,

Abbott

;

Sen. Al Franken

,

McGriddles

; and

Sen. Mike Enzi

,

Mothma

.

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, Mothma, Khan

Losing momentum:

Peanuts

,

Abbott

,

Reckoner

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!:

more like 72 hours until iowa amirite fellas

Drench · Post Post #116 (isolation #49) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:00 pm

January 29th

3 days until Iowa
11 days until New Hampshire
284 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

Three days.

Abbott

is a petty binch and spun

Negarir's

debate out of positive existence asudhfaiusdf.

Reckoner

talks tax on Maddow because his fingers are on the Iowan PULSE (apparently though it was good. But,

McGriddles

isn't done with him and attacks him again on his War on Terror policies whew.

Peanuts

does alright on Meet the Press, and a lot of people do a lot of things that have no positive or negative slant whatsoever, including

Khan

and

McGriddles

appearances on pundit shows. And, golly, more endorsements still.

Abbott

gets

Gov. Greg Abbott

(lmao).

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, Defender

Losing momentum:

Peanuts

,

TSL

,

Abbott

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!:

FORTY EIGHT

Drench · Post Post #118 (isolation #50) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:06 pm

not in the news

Drench · Post Post #119 (isolation #51) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:29 pm

January 30th

2 days until Iowa
10 days until New Hampshire
283 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

Dos.

Spire

talks up his government spending policy, while

Abbott

tries to hit

Mothma

on the same.

Negarir

loves guns a lot and his speech lets you know it. That's all the news. Literally. Also, endorsements, I guess.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

goes for

McGriddles

, and

Abbott

gets another one in the form of

Gov. Matt Mead.

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, Defender,

Serduchka

Losing momentum:

Reckoner

,

TSL

,

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!:

Drench · Post Post #120 (isolation #52) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:45 pm

January 31st

1 day until Iowa
9 days until New Hampshire
282 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

Uno. Republicans and Democrats are dead even in the generic.

Reckoner

faces lingering questions about his negative campaign.

Negarir

gives a compelling speech on government spending, meets voters in Georgia, and does Maddow, for a busy day.

Abbott

gets another endorsement, from

Sen. Dan Sullivan

.

TSL

is also in Georgia, and is doing well on the whole invade countries thing. And of course, the Iowa caucus is tonight.

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, Defender

Losing momentum:

Reckoner

,

Khan

,

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!:

Next update, someone's gonna win Iowa. #hype

Drench · Post Post #122 (isolation #53) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:33 pm

IOWA

The caucus began at 7pm sharp. No formal threshold exists to earn delegates in the Republican caucus, but since there are only thirty delegates up for grabs, a candidate must poll at least

3.2%~

to win delegates. The Democratic caucus, as with all caucuses and primaries in the Democratic contest, has a threshold of

15%

to earn delegates.

The caucus has been a tale of opposites, especially what appears to be the relatively settled Republican contest and the up-for-grabs Democratic one. So, let's do the former first.

Spoiler: The Iowa Republican Caucus; Monday, 1st February, 2016

The Democrats had a tight race--it could truly go to anyone. Especially when over 3 in 10 voters are undecided heading to the caucus, if they vote at all.

Spoiler: The Iowa Democratic Caucus; Monday, 1st February, 2016

Drench · Post Post #123 (isolation #54) » Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:37 pm

January 31st

8 days until New Hampshire
19 days until South Carolina (Republican) and Nevada (Democratic)
281 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

Iowa is done and dusted.

Abbott

and

Serduchka

dominate the headlines massively (12 extent, folks). Nothing else is gonna punch through, but let's assume it does.

Negarir

was a good sport on Fallon and does a thing about education.

Mothma

decries government spending on Meet the Press.

Serduchka

makes bank. And, endorsements:

Abbott

takes

Sen. Tom Cotton

,

McGriddles

has

Sen. Patrick Leahy

, and

Spire

's got

Sen. Harry Reid

on his side.

The Crystal Ball

Yoooooo

The Republicans

1. Negarir (86 points)
2. Abbott (60 points)
3. Khan (46 points)
4. Defender (40 points)
5. Mothma (32 points)
6. TSL (25 points)

Abbott's closing the gap, and Negarir just needs to rely on that institutional support. Is it going to be enough? I don't know, but if there are warning sighs, it's Khan's superior campaign organization, Abbott's massive ground game, and Negarir's relative fundraising weakness.

The Democrats

1. Spire (79 points)
2. Serduchka (49 points)
3. Reckoner (43 points)
4. Peanuts (35 points)
5. McGriddles (29 points)

Spire still has a massive polling advantage, funds advantage, candidate advantage, and ground game advantage. But, then again. He just lost a winnable caucus. All that could be said is, if Spire falters, this is wide open.

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, Defender

Losing momentum:

Reckoner

,

Khan

,

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. Earned delegates aren't in this update, but will probably be in the next one onwards.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

New Hampshire is in seven days. See you soooooon

Drench · Post Post #132 (isolation #55) » Sun Jan 29, 2017 8:31 pm

Events up to February 6th

3 days until New Hampshire
14 days until South Carolina (Republican) and Nevada (Democratic)
276 days until the Presidential Election

doing updates day-by-day makes me want to die so have like....idk 4 days at a time let's see how this goes

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.

Wednesday's papers:

Abbott

and

Serduchka

are...not spinning their wins????? Like okay guys whatever. It's literally gonna be top of the paper news for at least the next week though so maybe it doesn't matter.

Serduchka

, at least, is doing Meet the Press and nailing the War on Terror stuff and it's all good, while

TSL

tries to do an attack ad on military intervention cheering just bombing the shit out of places that don't exist. Good stuff.

McGriddles

is negative as shit,

Negarir

is on Fallon, and

Mothma

still exists, also on Meet the Press. And

Abbott

gets

Gov. Mary Fallin

.

Thursday:

TSL

tees up a contro ad against

Negarir

, while

Mothma's

own backfires.

Sen. Joni Ernst

leaps for

Abbott

, and

Sen. Tim Kaine

is America's Dad, but more importantly,

McGriddles'

surrogate.

Reckoner

loves Social Security, the commie. And

Spire

gets a lil bit of heat from

Serduchka

.

THE FIFTH

A boring affair. Honestly, literally, just boring.

McGriddles

boasted, and it worked, but he was still just okay.

Peanuts

boasted, and it worked, but he was still just alright.

Serduchka

boasted, and it worked, and her preparation shone through, but she was just good. The only real excitement was

Spire

pulling out the #receipts on

Reckoner

by reading his GP2 posts out loud, but this is 2016, we're adults, it made him seem more human, whatever. And, sure enough, this debate was fought to a draw between the two, with

Spire's

energy making up for an inability to really settle in, and

Reckoner's

good luck in getting some easy questions his way.

1. Reckoner (8 points)
1. Spire (8 points)
3. Serduchka (6 points)
4. Peanuts (5 points)
5. McGriddles (3 points)

Friday:

Spire

has so much money yeah boy awesome job yep.

Reckoner

and

Peanuts

are doing well on the pundit shows, while all of that pushes the lackluster debate to like, the bottom of page two, so yikes. And we have even more endorsements, to the point that they're just going in the week in review now.

Saturday:

Would you believe that the Iowa caucuses are still top news? Yeah, incredible stuff.

Reckoner

continues to work behind the scenes, doing real well in a policy speech on terror.

TSL

does some good work on Fox News Sunday (which is also tomorrow), but also is being really negative.

Khan

tells a really good joke on Fallon about tax rates, which, lmfao, and

Spire

, despite his massive collapse in Iowa, is still a really good candidate, and does blisteringly well on Meet the Press.

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.

News strength doesn't work great when it's a bunch of days bigger than one and less than seven so just hold your horses.

Spoiler: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

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. After each election, updated ALLOCATED delegate counts will be provided.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

A Republican debate, and New Hampshire.

Drench · Post Post #138 (isolation #56) » Tue Jan 31, 2017 1:05 am

In post 137, inspiratieloos wrote:What are the polls in New Hampshire saying?

And how accurate are polls in this game anyway? I'm pretty sure that being 40% off would get people fired if it happened irl.

fog of war exists so you need to expect a few points margin of error on everything
and i mean......it was a massive upset in dem!iowa but serduchka was steadily climbing there the last few days, and you can't stop the undecideds just heading en masse to one candidate
it's 2008 all over again if reck were hillary and i were obama

Drench · Post Post #139 (isolation #57) » Tue Jan 31, 2017 1:32 am

Events up to New Hampshire

3 days until New Hampshire
14 days until South Carolina (Republican) and Nevada (Democratic)
276 days until the Presidential Election

THE SIXTH

Wew lads!

Defender

literally gets owned by

Negarir

--like, Twitter-levels of own, like Rubio pre-NH levels of own--and boy does it literally make him the loser in this. He loses so much that

Abbott

and

TSL

, for once, aren't last!!! But they're still pretty shit, and they both give

Negarir

more ammo to play with.

Mothma

and

Khan

are both pretty good, but there really is no beating

Negarir

, whose prep, charisma and energy all combined with some own goals from others. A performance that, while not totally dominant, was at least clearly better.

1. Negarir (9 points)
2. Mothma (6 points)
2. Khan (6 points)
4. TSL (3 points)
5. Abbott (1 point)
6. Defender (-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.

Sunday's papers:

Iowa is still massively in the news, but

Negarir's

victory in the debate is the next best thing.

Spire

is on the receiving end of a

Serduchka

attack ad, but who knows whether it'll work?

Reckoner

cries while doing karaoke for the victims of terror and it's a hit.

McGriddles

calls for all abortions to be performed by the woman's partner, which is kinda fucked up and not well received.

Peanuts

loves to give money to poor people, and

Defender

finds his gaffe right down the bottom of the page, next to coverage of

Khan's

Fallon turn.

Monday:

BRONCOS WIN THE SUPER BOWL anyway.

Peanuts

is something else on Fallon, in a good way, and

Negarir

finds his win spun away by, of all people,

Abbott

. That anti-

Spire

ad finds purchase, and while

Serduchka

campaigns to Save Medicare in Nevada,

TSL

is doing a little bit of saving of her own on FNS. Don't know what I mean by that but whatever, it's good for her.

Tuesday:

Iowa is still on top.

Serduchka

recites the fucking capitals or something and it works on Fallon.

Defender

and

Khan

are also doing good things in re the whole knowing things about the presidency on FNS and O'Reilly, respectively, while

Reckoner

is actually campaigning, in New Hampshire.

Spire

is still the national leader in Democratic vote share, and now that the Democrats and Republicans are even, that's not reflecting well on him. Protesters do shit at p

Abbott

and

Serduchka

events; it's probably a they-won-Iowa thing even though the game says it's about gun control and unions, respectively. Which is very on-message. That's the ball game before New Hampshire--but this is just what's breaking through. New Hampshire loves its retail politics, and who knows how that'll impact the final vote.

The Week That Was

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: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

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!:

NEW HAMPSHIIIIIIRE

Drench · Post Post #140 (isolation #58) » Tue Jan 31, 2017 2:07 am

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Polling began in two communities at midnight, and owing to state law, was closed a few minutes after, once the votes of all registered electors had been received. Dixville Notch and Hart's Location have been doing this a while and it means nothing, so you won't get their results. Voting for the rest of the state began at varying times in the morning, and closed at 7pm sharp.

The Republican primary allocates delegates proportionally, with a threshold of

10%

. The Democratic primary, as with all caucuses and primaries in the Democratic contest, has a threshold of

15%

to earn delegates.

After Iowa, this race has been solidified in one corner, and upended in the other. So, let's start with the expected result from Iowa: the Republicans.

Spoiler: The Iowa Republican Caucus; Monday, 1st February, 2016

The Democrats had a tight race--it could truly go to anyone. Especially when over 3 in 10 voters are undecided heading to the caucus, if they vote at all.

Spoiler: The Iowa Democratic Caucus; Monday, 1st February, 2016

Spoiler: Progressive Results

Drench · Post Post #142 (isolation #59) » Tue Jan 31, 2017 3:47 am

why do you suck so much lmao

Drench · Post Post #148 (isolation #60) » Tue Jan 31, 2017 4:20 pm

In post 147, Aronis wrote:
In post 140, Drench wrote:In sixth place, with 19,073 votes and 6.7% of the vote,
Mothma
. She fails to meet the delegate threshold, and overperforms final polling by 0.3%.
Can I choose to drop out and endorse someone?

it's out of my hands; if your candidate decides the pain is too much to bear, she'll drop

Drench · Post Post #154 (isolation #61) » Thu Feb 09, 2017 12:42 am

i was testing you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

let me do this.................tonight

Drench · Post Post #169 (isolation #62) » Fri Feb 17, 2017 8:25 pm

The Week of February 10th

10 days until South Carolina (GOP) and Nevada (DEM)
13 days until Nevada (GOP)
272 days until the Presidential Election

bitch u thought
This turn is a week long. Also I think I have my days mixed up so just like, play along.

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.

Not every news story is included.

Thursday:

So here's the thing, right.

Serduchka

and

Abbott

both took New Hampshire, but only the latter's capitalizing on that right now (eleven reach, +2!!! slant, a total of +22 power in that one thing alone!!!!!!). Meanwhile, the former is bragging about her leadership, which: sure, but you won New Hampshire, you have better legs to stand on.

Serduchka

obviously does have momentum though (and the news says as much). Meanwhile,

Khan

and

Abbott

are both copping a little something for negativity,

McGriddles

tries to push through with War on Terror talks, and we got a whole bunch of speechifying on leadership and Iran from such diverse people as

Mothma

,

Peanuts

, and

TSL

. Lots of stuff.

THE SIXTH

Thursday, February 11

Would you believe that

Spire

won? Could you believe that he boasted well about himself, and was meticulously prepared and energetic? Would you ever believe that he soared above the competition, above

Peanuts'

own minor boast, and

McGriddles

' clobbering of

Reckoner

, and the latter's own targeting of

Serduchka

and her (successful) boasting?

Could you believe it? Yeah, course you could.

1. Spire (12 points)
2. Peanuts (5 points)
3. McGriddles (4 points)
4. Serduchka (3 points)
5. Reckoner (-1 points)

Friday:

Oh Wow I Can't Believe

Spire

Won The Debate. To be fair, it hasn't helped much, but right now it's a game of trying to rein in the leaders, and that'll help.

Reckoner

and

Serduchka

make great impressions on their leadership potential, while

Defender

cops it from

Negarir

on the trail.

Saturday:

Obama gives his last State of the Union address.

McGriddles

and

Spire

appear to be tapping into some of their own momentum, while

Peanuts

gets stuck into the weeds of healthcare and comes out a winner.

Negarir

and

Spire

both try to speechify their leadership, but only the latter succeeds, while the former really fucks it.

THE SEVENTH

Saturday, February 13th

What a shitshow. This was the debate where everyone just dropped any pretense of niceties and just fucking went for the jugular, and it showed.

TSL

got hit HARD by

Khan

for her massive riches and general snobbish nature, although that didn't stop her from turning around and stilleto'ing (so to speak)

Negarir

.

Defender

tried to mock

Mothma's

name but it was shit and she looked better for it, which was good, since

Abbott

definitely wasn't hurt by her own remarks. And

Negarir

was having a ball showcasing every single bad decision

Defender

ever made, including ones that he really shouldn't have known about. Some were humanizing; most were embarrassing; and it was just chaos all round (with exception of

Abbott

whose boasts got ignored). The combined dragging down of everyone just let it all in a shitheap, but there were two who were slightly better than the rest.

Mothma

and

Khan

, kings of the scrap heap.

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

Sunday:

Press F to pay respects: Justice Scalia has passed. It's so sudden that the debate's pushed down in importance--it also doesn't help that it was a draw.

Abbott

and

Spire

are continuing to summon strength on the trail, while

TSL

's debate fuck up is interesting.

Monday:

lmao

reckoner

hates

mcgriddles

. That draw is boding ill for

Mothma's

coverage, and

McGriddles

surrogate Tim Kaine literally gets hit with a pie. I am not lying, that is the honest-to-god headline.

Tuesday:

Mothma

is really really trying, but her speech on government just absolutely shit the bed. It's difficult to watch.

Defender

manages, in the shadow of that, to not incite any opinions at all on his speech (both being on the role of government), while

Spire

continues to be a Good On-Paper Candidate by talking environment with ol' Billy O-Rilez. The Dems are ahead of the GOP in the generic, but not by enough apparently, which is impacting

Serduchka

, apparently.

Wednesday's papers:

I mean, everyone is literally high on role-of-government speeches right now.

Spire

just gave a good one.

Negarir's

up in Arkansas, while both

Khan

and

Defender

get a bit of protesting at events.

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: The rest

Gaining momentum:

Abbott

,

Spire

,

Serduchka

Losing momentum:

Mothma

,

Khan

,

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!:

Three furious days of campaigning before South Carolina and Nevada have their say, but like, only halfsies.

Drench · Post Post #170 (isolation #63) » Fri Feb 17, 2017 8:29 pm

asdfiohasdiufasdf i'm sorry guys
south carolina gop, nevada dem, nevada gop, and maybe even south carolina dem tomorrow

Drench · Post Post #171 (isolation #64) » Fri Feb 17, 2017 8:32 pm

anyway check this out

Drench · Post Post #175 (isolation #65) » Sat Feb 18, 2017 7:58 am

N wrote:why even bother, mothma

i think it's cute

Drench · Post Post #177 (isolation #66) » Sat Feb 18, 2017 9:06 pm

doing the next writeup now but dems: it literally is a three-way tie for first in nevada, two days out from the vote. i'm not even joking

Drench · Post Post #178 (isolation #67) » Sat Feb 18, 2017 9:27 pm

Events up to South Carolina and Nevada

3 days until South Carolina (GOP) and Nevada (DEM)
6 days until Nevada (GOP)
265 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:

lmao god

Abbott

is still dominating headlines from the NH win, and it's kinda getting annoying tbh. But both his and

Negarir's

attack ads on Healthcare and the War of Terror respectively (I don't know which one, have you seen how many ads these people are making) backfire, and

Spire

is just such a goddamn goody-two-shoes doing well on Fox News Sunday and givng another well-received policy speech I hate him. He also goes for

Reckoner

in a new ad, while

Khan

tries the same for

Abbott

.

Defender

is keeping busy, raising funds and hitting up O'Reilly, while

Serduchka

pays a visit to Stephen Colbert.

Spire

receives the endorsement of

Gov. Bruce Rauner

, and a lot of people are giving speeches and getting protested.

The next Republican debate is in seven days.

Friday:

Khan

is quite good on O'Reilly, and

TSL

needs to stop being so negative.

Negarir

tries to hit

Abbott

on terror in Oklahoma, while

Peanuts

mingles in Texas. And there's a lot of things that don't really seem to be affecting anything: a

Mothma

attack ad on

Khan

, another attack ad from the latter to the former, speeches from

Defender

and

Abbott

; what a time.

Saturday:

Negarir

shines on Meet the Press, while both

Reckoner

and

Spire

appear on the same night on Fallon, which would have been awkward I guess.

Abbott

does Fox News Sunday on a Saturday, while THE

Gov. Mike Pence

endorses...

Spire

. On immigration. Which, to be fair, pre-Trump Pence and

Spire

are pretty close (that is, centrist) on immigration.

Khan

continues to barnstorm in Nevada, while

Mothma

takes the time to slam

Abbott

in Vermont. I am not sure if

McGriddles

did anything these past few days.

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: The rest

no maps because the election is just around the corner

Next time, on this thing!:

NE-VAH-DAH, SOUTH CAROLINA

Drench · Post Post #179 (isolation #68) » Sat Feb 18, 2017 10:05 pm

SOUTH CAROLINA (

REPUBLICAN

)

For some dumb fuck reason, South Carolina and Nevada have both elected to hold the major party contests on different dates. Tonight, South Carolina hosts the Republicans. The polls opened at 7am, and closed at 7pm, for a nice symmetrical twelve hours of democracy.

This primary, in the real world, is winner-take-all by congressional district, which pundits call winner-take-most since, if you're doing well in one congressional district, it's likely you're doing well in heaps. That's too sophisticated for modern technology, probably so tonight's primary is

winner-take-all

.

There are fifty delegates up for grabs, and polling says Abbott is expected to win them all: can he make it three from three?

Spoiler: The South Carolina Republican Primary; Saturday, 20th February, 2016

Democrats coming right up.

Drench · Post Post #180 (isolation #69) » Sat Feb 18, 2017 10:06 pm

also holy shit, a full ten percent of voters NATIONALLY in the republican primary are now undecided
we've been sleeping on the exciting race all this goddamn time

the republican electorate is literally in chaos

Drench · Post Post #181 (isolation #70) » Sat Feb 18, 2017 10:24 pm

NEVADA (

DEMOCRATIC

)

After a close primary in the east, it's time for a caucus in

Harry Reid's playpen

the west. The caucus begins at 11am PST, because fuck workers, am I right folks!

As with all Democratic primaries and caucuses, this caucus has a

15%

threshold to earn delegates. Poll below that, and it's bunk for you.

Serduchka's won two from two--a caucus blowout in Iowa, and a closer but still decisive victory in New Hampshire. Can she make it three-for-three, and claim a plurality of Nevada's 43 delegates?

Spoiler: The Nevada Democratic Caucus; Saturday, 20th February, 2016

Spoiler: Progressive Results after South Carolina (GOP) and Nevada (DEM)

Drench · Post Post #183 (isolation #71) » Sat Feb 18, 2017 11:42 pm

Events up to Nevada 2.0

3 days until Nevada (GOP)
7 days until South Carolina (DEM)
262 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.

Sunday's papers:

Another day, another victory for

Abbott

and

Serduchka

. With the race about to go national though, they need to keep it up. Scalia is buried, and there were tears.

Reckoner

manages to fuck up talking about the environment, and gets some bad air about negativity, so lmao.

McGriddles

surfaces on Fallon, and well.

Serduchka

wants to take away your guns, but in a good way.

Negarir

wants to fuck free trade, and On The Record is impressed by it.

Monday:

The Democrats are still doing well in the polls.

McGriddles

fucks up a speech, but is cool on Fallon.

Serduchka

is utterly charming, of course, on O'Reilly.

Reckoner

makes a major gaffe on unionism, and he's a rotten rat scab, etc, and also he fucks up on the environment as well, and he's too negative.

Spire

gets

Sen. Mark Kirk

in his corner. But anyway who cares, let's check out the Republicans.

Negarir

thinks

TSL

is woefully unprepared to lead the country, and the latter basically calls

Abbott

a corrupt piece of shit in Massachusetts. That's basically what they're doing today.

Tuesday:

Please someone just stop

McGriddles

he tried to look tough in an attack ad on the War on Terror and it was Dukakis-like in how lame it was. Speaking of stopping people as well, ahahahah,

Reckoner

once again fucks up, this time on education.

Serduchka

loves immigrants, or whatever it says on the 2012 DNC platform document.

Khan

hates the government, but attractively, on Maddow. And there are protesters but that's not new.

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: The rest

Maps in the next post, because there is news:

Next time, on this thing!:

We have a withdrawl.

Drench · Post Post #184 (isolation #72) » Sat Feb 18, 2017 11:54 pm

Suspension of Campaign

Monday, February 22nd, 2016

After a string of disappointing results in primaries and caucuses,

Mothma

(R) has decided to suspend their campaign.

While her debate performances were impressive, they could not translate at the ballot box, with only five delegates earned despite 20% of the vote share nationwide, and two second-place finishes. Amidst rumours of tension among top campaign staff on strategy and message, it was certainly possible for

Mothma

to continue; the difficulty would be whether she could continue well.

Mothma

additionally suffered from a lack of cash--her fundraising totals were below average, and bottom of the field in the Republican race. With only $81,086 in the bank, it's unlikely

Mothma

could have sustained a campaign on a national scale for much longer.

Mothma

additionally struggled to capitalize on successes--for all her victories on the debate stage, they never translated into votes, and there was no sign of

Mothma

trying to do as much. Being weakly ideological, it was unlikely

Mothma

would continue her campaign if victory was not likely, and given all the downward pressures on her candidacy, campaign, and polling, it seems that this was inevitable.

Despite failing in her quest to become Republican nominee--or perhaps, because of it--

Mothma

maintains somewhat relaxed relations with her fellow candidates, as compared to the rest of the field. A contested convention is not off the table, and five delegates, while small, could make all the difference. Who she pledges those delegates to will be unknown for some time.

Next time:

Nevada, but with one less candidate, and a whole lot more voters who suddenly don't know their vote.

Drench · Post Post #185 (isolation #73) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 12:21 am

NEVADA (

REPUBLICAN

)

How good is the desert. Anyway, polls are saying Abbott has this, but 9.5% of voters are undecided going in, and that was before Mothma's suspension, which'll move even more voters (mostly hers) around. So who knows what we're getting tonight? Only the voters do, and they'll be filing in throughout the night from 5pm to 7pm, depending on how cruel the county is.

This caucus is strictly proportional, but there are only thirty delegates, which means that in practice, you need roughly

3%

to get in on the delegate game.

So, is it Abbott's fourth win, or someone else's first? Let's find out. Final note: most people are going to overperform polling. A candidate dropping out will do that.

Spoiler: The Nevada Republican Caucus; Tuesday, 23rd February, 2016

Spoiler: Progressive Results after Nevada (GOP)

Drench · Post Post #186 (isolation #74) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:08 am

Events up to South Carolina 2.0

3 days until South Carolina (DEM)
6 days until Super Tuesday (Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Alaska [GOP], North Dakota [GOP], Wyoming [GOP], American Samoa [DEM])
258 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.

Wednesday's papers:

Yet ANOTHER day, yet ANOTHER victory for

Abbott

, this time in Nevada. While he goes on his victory lap and prepares for Super Tuesday,

Spire

raises some dosh, and

Negarir

puts a surprisingly effectively speech on government's role in society (hint: it's too much right now), and continues to hit

TSL

.

Reckoner

should take a breath and have a sit down or something because TODAY he fucked up tax rates.

Spire

picks up yet another endorsement, this time from

Sen. Dan Coats

, and wow there are more protesters.

Thursday:

So

Negarir's

chattin' bout leadership and it's cute. It's good but yeah. He's also continuing to talk about government and it's just a very good day for him.

Serduchka

allows Colbert to worship her for ten minutes, and

Peanuts

jerks off to Social Security live on Maddow.

TSL

hits up Oklahoma like a senior two shots in at prom (is that how proms work), and

McGriddles

goes after

Serduchka's

leadership potential in the same place.

THE EIGHTH

Thursday, February 25th

The Republicans literally want to murder each other. That's the message from this ridiculous eighth debate.

TSL

did not handle things well, not at all, but she at least managed to neutralize

Khan's

persistent attacks, and only cop it from

Negarir

. Problem was, it was a really powerful attack. Really, this entire night was shaped by

TSL

in one way or another, as she formed the other big story:

Abbott's

meltdown. A supremely assured attack from the rich binch herself left

Abbott's

composure in tatters, which was not helped at all by his atrocious charisma. With all the focus on who legitimately are the top two candidates in delegate counts, it was easy to miss

Defender

and his own (backfiring) attack on

Negarir

. And in the end, that's what sealed a narrow victory for the latter: being important, but not too important, and getting just enough material to rise to the top.

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

Headlines, Continued

Friday:

Folk's, you can't make this headline up.

How this affects the race, who knows. It might be nothing. It might be everything. But it's being more covered than the actual winner of that debate,

Negarir

, so it's one to watch. The latter also manages to take in a lot of money at a fundraiser, so it's another good day.

Spire

gives a well-received speech about how government must be at least as big as your mum, and

Reckoner

finally has a good day on Maddow. And there are legitimately protesters everywhere, but mostly on the Democratic side. Oh, yeah, and there's a minor

scandal

--remember those?--brewing for

Khan

. Foreclosing on the poor to change land prices for your own benefit sure sounds awful, but it's a Republican primary, so it'll probably come to naught.

Saturday:

That """meltdown""" is getting so much coverage and honestly I'm alive.

McGriddles

gets on board the role-of-government speechifying train, with effective results.

Defender

and

Negarir

both "shine" on Meet the Press, which, good for them;

Khan

makes his stop on Fox News Sunday instead. The latter's

scandal

is predictably fading from the public view, as he continues to campaign in Massachusetts.

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: The rest

MAPS

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

The Dems do South Carolina.

Drench · Post Post #187 (isolation #75) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:40 am

SOUTH CAROLINA (

DEMOCRATIC

)

Let's finish off these two dumb states. I literally hate Nevada and South Carolina. Polls close at 7pm; not a minute too soon.

As with all Democratic blah blah blah threshold is

15%

. There are 59 delegates up for grabs, so this will be fun! The Republican side has been chaotic and also has given Abbott four from four; will the Democrats follow likewise? A full 30% of voters are undecided; anyone could win.

Spoiler: The South Carolina Democratic Primary; Saturday, 27th February, 2016

Spoiler: Progressive Results

Drench · Post Post #194 (isolation #76) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 5:48 pm

Events up to Super Tuesday

3 days until Super Tuesday (Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Alaska [GOP], North Dakota [GOP], Wyoming [GOP], American Samoa [DEM])
254 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.

Sunday:

The top stories are super predictable, lmao.

Reckoner

is loving being the actual winner of South Carolina, while

Abbott

continues to deal with his shit debate performance.

Defender

is shit at attack ads, and

McGriddles

executes a swell one-two punch with a fundraiser and a role of government speech, which, literally everyone is doing one now, Christ.

Negarir

also gets on the money boat, while

TSL

gets some heat from the former in Minnesota as she mingles in Vermont.

Monday:

The Democrats are still ahead of the Republicans in the generic, how cool!

McGriddles

has a great chat with Rachel Maddow and it's very cute. And a lot of things happened that nobody cares about:

Spire

gives a speech (guess what it's on),

Khan

talks welfare queens on Fox News Sunday,

Defender

hates the sick on Meet the Press, and nobody cares about

Abbott

winning Nevada now.

Tuesday:

T'was the day of Super Tuesday, and all through the house,

Peanuts

for once does some shit; his speech was so grouse. Also,

TSL

claps the fuck back at

Negarir

; the latter fucks up a speech on corruption (and HOW do you do that???),

Khan

tells us about how corruption is bad (I am noticing a theme), and

Spire

gets a few barbs thrown at him from an Oklahoma-based

McGriddles

. Protesters were seen on abortion and marriage equality at

Khan

and

TSL

events, while

Reckoner

loved immigrants with Chris Matthews and

Peanuts

schmoozed up Colorado.

No Week in Review because I literally forgot to note any of that, but just know that A Lot is happening.

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!:

SUPER TUESDAY

Drench · Post Post #195 (isolation #77) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 5:57 pm

SUPER TUESDAY

Well, folks. The biggest day of the campaign so far. If you run the table as a Democrat today, you're a third of the way to the magic number. Republicans have an even better shot, with half the target available right now.

We're going from lamest contest (least delegates) to most awesome contest (Texas). Maybe they'll all come tonight, maybe (probably) they won't. Either way, it's big, it's super, and it's Tuesday somewhere.

Drench · Post Post #196 (isolation #78) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:12 pm

VERMONT

Vermont is in the bottom 10 states of the union, and you can't fight me on this. Nevertheless, they've got delegates, so let's pay attention to them. The threshold is

20%

for Republicans and

15%

for Democrats.

Spoiler: The Vermont Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

The Democrats have 26 delegates to give away. Let's do this.

Spoiler: The Vermont Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

Progressive results in ten, and then the next contest. This will probably take a while. How good's the suspense.

Drench · Post Post #197 (isolation #79) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:27 pm

ALASKA AND WYOMING (

REPUBLICAN

)

Because the two major parties are jerk-offs, they literally have decoupled these two states. I want to die. Alaska has 28 delegates and a

13%

(???) threshold, and Wyoming's got none but has 29 delegates, so it's roughly around

3%

. Easy peasy, right?

Let's find out.

Spoiler: The Alaska Republican Caucus; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

Off to Wyoming, where more sensible thresholds rule.

Spoiler: The Wyoming Republican Caucus; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

Next, Bill Clinton's turf: Arkansas. Also, I've changed my mind, no progressive results right until the very end.

Drench · Post Post #199 (isolation #80) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:39 pm

ARKANSAS

I mean, they've got a Presidential Library, that's cool. Both Democrats and Republicans have a threshold of

15%

, and they very nearly have the same number of delegates: 40 for the Republicans, 37 for the Democrats. Let's have some fun this beat is sick I wanna take a ride on your voting stick.

Spoiler: The Arkansas Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

Democrats have slightly less delegates, for once in their goddamn life, so let's see how they deal with that.

Spoiler: The Arkansas Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

Drench · Post Post #200 (isolation #81) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:52 pm

OKLAHOMA

It's a terrible musical, and I can only assume that the good folks at the RNC and DNC have decided to punish Oklahoma by giving it a pitiful number of delegates. The Democrats have 42 at

15%

, and the Republicans have 43, also at

15%

. How good is democracy.

Spoiler: The Oklahoma Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

A literally massive come from behind win--will we see similar action in the Democratic corner? Let's find out.

Spoiler: The Oklahoma Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

We head to 'Bama next.

Drench · Post Post #201 (isolation #82) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:58 pm

Quick note as well: in the real world, places like Wyoming (GOP) and Colorado (GOP) didn't actually bind based on Super Tuesday results. That's dumb, and we're not doing it.

Drench · Post Post #202 (isolation #83) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 7:18 pm

ALABAMA

For which candidate will Alabama be Sweet Home????? I don't know man, but the Republicans have 50 delegates up at a

20%

threshold, and the Democrats have 60 at, you guessed it,

15%

. Let's roll.

Spoiler: The Alabama Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

Literally like four people vote for Democrats in Alabama, and they're all here tonight. Roughly one of those four--that is to say, around 27.1% of voters--come in undecided: whose cuisine reigned supreme?

Spoiler: The Alabama Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

A delegate update, and then Colorado.

Drench · Post Post #203 (isolation #84) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 7:25 pm

Quick and dirty delegate table:

Drench · Post Post #204 (isolation #85) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 7:41 pm

COLORADO

Colorado is easy for the Democrats. 78 delegates,

15%

threshold, off you go.

For the Republicans, it's more complicated, and you should read this.

Only delegate totals will be reported here

, due to how the game has coded the Colorado

convention

, since this is one of like, literally no contests in the entire primary season that doesn't decide via primary or caucus but by goddamn

convention

. So, the 37 Republican delegates from Colorado will be the only numbers reported.

There will still be a winner. The game will treat one person as having won Colorado, because they had the most support. But there is a good chance, if it's close, that it won't show up at all, and it'll look like a tie, because there are less delegates than there are votes. Don't ask me why it's not just reporting votes, I don't know. On with the show.

Spoiler: The Colorado Republican Convention; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

A mess! Let's see if the Democrats had better luck being not-confusing shitfucks.

Spoiler: The Colorado Democratic Caucus; Monday, 1st March, 2016

Hey I know someone from Tennessee so we're going there next.

Drench · Post Post #205 (isolation #86) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 8:00 pm

TENNESSEE

Anyway this person I know. She's an honest-to-god Southern Democrat and I love her. She voted for Bernie. She's lit.

Pretty stock standard stuff: the Republicans have 58 delegates at

20%

, and the Democrats have 75 delegates at the usual

15%

. It looks like I'm doing all the Democratic high-delegate ones first but trust me that's really low for Democrats and really high for Republicans, at this stage. Ohio only has like 66 Republican delegates. It's crackt. Anyway how good are elections.

Spoiler: The Tennessee Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

The market truly is working. Anyway, back to the communists.

Spoiler: The Alabama Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

For once, the polls are reasonably accurate. Our next stop is Rubio-land, Minnesota.

Drench · Post Post #206 (isolation #87) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 8:24 pm

MINNESOTA

Minnesota is a cool place although I know literally nothing about it.

A nice and easy permissible caucus (as permissible as caucuses can be), especially from the Republicans here. They've got 38 delegates to give away with a

10%

threshold. The Democrats have 93 delegates at the usual

15%

. This is the last Democratic primary today with only two digit delegate sums: everything else is big money.

Spoiler: The Minnesota Republican Caucus; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

A nice clutch victory there; let's see how the Democrats do.

Spoiler: The Minnesota Democratic Caucus; Monday, 1st March, 2016

Massachusetts ayy lmao, but right after this delegate count.

Drench · Post Post #207 (isolation #88) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 8:28 pm

don't be a masshole

Drench · Post Post #208 (isolation #89) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 8:49 pm

MASSACHUSETTS

When it comes to Massachusetts, the Republicans only have 42 delegates to play for, but it's very easy to get in the game with a

5%

threshold. The Democrats, aside from their usual

15%

threshold, have much more on the line: 115 delegates.

Spoiler: The Massachusetts Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

Massachusetts is reliably Democratic territory, so let's see how that went.

Spoiler: The Massachusetts Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

The big three of Virginia, Georgia and Texas are still to come.

Drench · Post Post #209 (isolation #90) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:35 pm

GEORGIA

If I had to rate the South, Georgia would probably be second.

The Republicans have 76 delegates at

20%

. The Democrats, 117 delegates at

15%

. Harder to win delegates, but the rewards are great if you do.

Spoiler: The Georgia Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

Georgia and the Democratic Party: two entities invaded by Putin. How will the latter candidates fare?

Spoiler: The Georgia Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

The great Commonwealth of Virginia is our penultimate result.

Drench · Post Post #210 (isolation #91) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:52 pm

VIRGINIA

The game in Virginia is as easy as it'll ever be for Republicans. 49 delegates and no threshold means you need just about

2%

to get on the board. Democrats, meanwhile, have more delegates (as per usual), but the same

15%

threshold. Still, 108 delegates are 108 delegates.

Spoiler: The Virginia Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

It went blue in the real world, but here, Tim Kaine isn't a thing yet. I don't know where I'm going with this.

Spoiler: The Virginia Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

The blessedly last result in Super Tuesday is the great state of Texas. 155 Republican delegates, 251 Democratic delegates, and two very very big results.

Drench · Post Post #211 (isolation #92) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 10:10 pm

TEXAS

HERE WE GO LADS

REPUBLICANS, 155 DELEGATES,

20%

THRESHOLD

DEMOCRATS, 251 DELEGATES,

15%

THRESHOLD

STRAP IN

Spoiler: The Texas Republican Primary; Tuesday, 1st March, 2016

Straight on.

Spoiler: The Texas Democratic Primary; Monday, 1st March, 2016

Thus ended Super Tuesday. Summary is coming.

Drench · Post Post #214 (isolation #93) » Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:10 pm

SUPER TUESDAY: THE CONCLUSION

That was fun! It's around 4am on the East Coast, and Alaska's just figured out what on earth it's done, so let's figure out what the sum total of our efforts was.

The results are at the end. A little bit of analysis first.

The thresholds mean that some people are wasting votes more than others. The worst hit by this was

Reckoner

, who won 16.5% of the Super Tuesday vote, but only 11.5% of the Super Tuesday delegates. Both

Serduchka

and

Abbott

had near-10% improvements from their vote share to delegate share. And that makes sense: the more votes you win, the more likely you'll push opponents below the threshold, which means more delegates for you.

But Super Tuesday did equalize the field, somewhat. With the exception of

Reckoner

(because of how massive his vote wastage was), every single non-leading candidate improved their overall delegate share in Super Tuesday. In a real campaign, you'd expect there to be clear majority-leaders, and while

Abbott's

has 53% of pledged delegates (making a contested convention possible but unlikely, it seems),

Serduchka's

only on 46%. Her overall vote share is 34.9%, which would suggest that she needs to start knocking candidates out or pushing ahead in vote share, else the Democrats will have some fun in Philly.

Be wary of candidates who aren't getting wins but still are collecting delegates as well.

Negarir

very nearly became the second biggest winner of the night, having 91 delegates to

Khan's

96 and

Abbott's

341, and all without winning a single state.

McGriddles

did get lucky with a clutch domination in Texas, but it turned into a one-win haul of over 200 delegates; and

Peanuts

also managed to stay well within the pack despite not winning a state, with 110 delegates earned.

There are obvious winners. Are there losers? At first glance, only small ones.

Spire

, for all his strengths as a candidate, is failing at the one thing that counts: delegates. A state win would've been something to hang his hat on--instead, he just has 72 delegates. Not bad. Not great.

The Republican side is more evenly matched.

Abbott

, obviously, is ahead of the pack, but the remaining four have something to show for it.

TSL

has a state;

Negarir

has a healthy number of delegates;

Defender

and

Khan

have both. If we're going to see a suspension in the wake of Super Tuesday, I probably wouldn't bet on it being a Republican.

But who knows. This is a dumb computer game. How good are elections. As we enter March,

Serduchka

leads the Democrats with 546 delegates, and needs 51.3% of remaining delegates to clinch before the convention.

Abbott

leads the Republicans with 421 delegates, and needs 48.6% of remaining delegates to clinch before the convention. Both players currently maintain a vote share below that, but the Republicans are about to hit the winner-take-all states. So here we go.

Candidate	Wyom.	Alaska	Vermont	Okla.	Ark.	Alabama	Colo.	Tenn.	Minn.	Mass.	Virginia	Georgia	Texas	States Won	ST Gains	Total Dels
Abbott	7	12		15	19	21	8	28	10	17	19	30	155	7	341	421
Khan	9		9	17	9	14	8		10	10	10			4	96	109
Negarir	7	9	7		12		6		4	2	15	29			91	102
Defender	2	7		11			7	30	6	4	3	17		1	87	97
TSL	4					15	8		8	9	2			1	14	60

Candidate	Vermont	Okla.	Ark.	Alabama	Colo.	Tenn.	Minn.	Mass.	Virginia	Georgia	Texas	States Won	ST Gains	Total Dels
Serduchka	20	26	7		23	56	58	56	74	41	85	7	446	546
McGriddles		16		12				26		39	166	1	259	285
Reckoner			17	24	36	19	19					3	115	144
Peanuts				24			16	33		37			110	128
Spire	6		13		19				34				72	84

Candidate	Vote share	# of votes	Delegates won
Abbott	41.2%	4,068,758	421 dels
Khan	13.0%	1,280,291	109 dels
Negarir	16.3%	1,606,835	102 dels
Defender	15.5%	1,525,952	97 dels
TSL	11.6%	1,148,332	60 dels
Mothma	2.5%	242,511	5 dels
Dels left			1,678 dels
Total		9,872,679	2,472 dels

Candidate	Vote share	# of votes	Delegates won
Serduchka	34.9%	2,374,343	546 dels
McGriddles	22.8%	1,552,156	285 dels
Reckoner	17.3%	1,178,158	144 dels
Peanuts	15.0%	1,020,335	128 dels
Spire	10.0%	679,530	84 dels
Dels left			3,578 dels
Total		6,804,522	4,765 dels

Drench · Post Post #217 (isolation #94) » Mon Feb 20, 2017 2:01 am

yeah you're probably right
that + the fact that candidates are a lil more hesitant to drop out here than in real life means you've still got a pretty good shot imho

anyway super saturday? it's coming, to here, before midday, and then i'm going to sleep
i kinda want to be able to pump these out at a time when people are actually online so if anyone has any preferences for when the ides of march happens (florida R WTA, ohio R WTA, missouri etc etc) hmu

Drench · Post Post #218 (isolation #95) » Mon Feb 20, 2017 2:12 am

Events up to Super Saturday

3 days until Super Saturday
4 days until March 6th's votes
251 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.

Wednesday's papers:

Well, folks, I don't think you need my expert analysis to tell you that

Abbott

and

Serduchka

had Very Good Nights. And that's what the papers are screaming about.

Khan

,

Reckoner

, and

McGriddles

are getting noticably good coverage as well. Away from results,

Spire

tries to smack

McGriddles

down via attack ad, and

Peanuts

is the latest guy on the role-of-government trail.

Defender

tackles Rachel Maddow (not literally), and

TSL

knows for a FACT that

Abbott

will let the terrorists win.

Thursday:

Another day, another person

TSL

thinks will let the terrorists win. This time, it's

Khan

.

Abbott

is unable to destroy Medicare in his latest ad (that is, someone's going to Save Medicare), and

Negarir

has some good vibes going with Greta Van Susteren, while Cheney himself campaigns in Michigan.

THE NINTH

Thursday, March 3rd, 2016

You would've thought that the Republicans would be absolutely ready to obliterate each other in the aftermath of Super Tuesday, and to their credit, their guns were aimed at the right place. Unfortunately, not nearly enough were fired, and none correctly.

TSL

, as usual, was woefully unprepared (classic), but even her attacks against

Abbott

fell flat, as did

Khan's

. All that, and a good performance from the man himself, positioned

Abbott

right in the middle of the pack. Noticeably, those debaters keeping to themselves did better than the attackers this time around, with

Defender

and

Negarir

taking the top two spots after successful boasts. But it was the latter's preparedness on the issues and charisma that lifted

Negarir

to the top.

1. Negarir (8 points)
2. Defender (5 points)
3. Abbott (4 points)
3. Khan (4 points)
5. TSL (0 points)

Friday:

With

Mothma

out of the picture, it seems there's a new debate king, and

Negarir

is more than happy to let the headlines say it as he mingles in Michigan.

Reckoner

is receiving a little flack for negativity on the trail (calling his opponents neoliberal DINO centrist idiot shills for cutting government spending, I don't know), while

TSL's

attack ad on

Khan

worked, a little bit.

Saturday:

Defender

was a true LEADER on Colbert last night, and it was great.

Reckoner

tries to get in on this attack ad business, and it goes terribly.

Khan

receives the vaunted endorsement of everyone's favourite Louisiana governor,

Gov. Bobby Jindal

, while protesters do things at both

Negarir

and

Peanuts

events.

In Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all, and only in cycles which are a week long. 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: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

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 saturday that is super

Drench · Post Post #219 (isolation #96) » Mon Feb 20, 2017 2:20 am

SUPER SATURDAY

There are literally only five states voting today, and half of them are just doing it for one party. It's lame, is what I'm saying. But, nevertheless, CNN is calling it Super Saturday, so it's Super Saturday. 155 delegates await for whoever sweeps the Republican table, while 126 delegates are there for the taking on the Democratic side.

But it's still all proportional anyway lmao, so nobody's gonna win them all.

Or are they?

Drench · Post Post #220 (isolation #97) » Mon Feb 20, 2017 2:37 am

KANSAS

Kansas is a state in the middle of America. It has 40 delegates for the Republicans on a

10%

threshold. It also has 37 delegates for the Democrats, with the usual

15%

threshold. It is also a caucus, because Kansas hates the working class.

Good stuff, let's get going. Polls are suggesting that Super Saturday is locked in, but will there be any surprises? And is it going to make a difference in the delegate count?

Spoiler: The Kansas Republican Caucus; Saturday, 5th March, 2016

So proud of Democrats for existing in Kansas. Let's find out how many there are.

Spoiler: The Kansas Democratic Caucus; Saturday, 5th March, 2016

So that was Kansas.

Drench · Post Post #221 (isolation #98) » Mon Feb 20, 2017 2:56 am

LOUISIANA

Louisiana is the only other state doing both parties today, and we salute it. The Republican primary has a

20%

threshold, but also has 46 delegates, so it's worth it. And we've got 59 delegates up for grabs with the usual threshold on the Democratic side.

Spoiler: The Louisiana Republican Primary; Saturday, 5th March, 2016

I mean, Edwards is governor of Louisiana, so Democrats definitely are a thing. What that means for their primary, who knows.

Spoiler: The Louisiana Democratic Primary; Saturday, 5th March, 2016

The rest of Super Saturday is literally just one party or the other. Not super.

Drench · Post Post #222 (isolation #99) » Mon Feb 20, 2017 3:11 am

MAINE AND KENTUCKY (

REPUBLICAN

)

Both Maine and Kentucky get going today, but only for the Republicans. Maine is doing the Democrats literally tomorrow, for some reason. Both these caucuses are permissive, with Maine having a threshold of

10%

for 23 delegates, and Kentucky having the low low threshold of only

5%

to get a bite of the 46 delegates on offer. But, anything could happen: an average of 10% of voters are undecided walking in the door!

Spoiler: The Maine Republican Caucus; Saturday, 5th March, 2016

And now, Kentucky, for the thrilling conclusion of the Republican Super Saturday.

Spoiler: The Kentucky Republican Caucus; Saturday, 5th March, 2016

Drench · Post Post #224 (isolation #100) » Mon Feb 20, 2017 3:23 am

NEBRASKA (

DEMOCRATIC

)

nebruhska, 30 delegates

Spoiler: The Nebraska Democratic Caucus; Saturday, 5th March, 2016

That's it! Go home. Until Maine (D), tomorrow. Well, tonight, your time, if you're American But tomorrow, in-game time. Whatever.

Spoiler: Progressive Results

Drench · Post Post #225 (isolation #101) » Mon Feb 20, 2017 3:25 am

In post 223, Papa Zito wrote:holy cow drench are you ok

e l e c t i o n s

Drench · Post Post #231 (isolation #102) » Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:01 am

March 6th

0 days until Maine (D)
2 days until Super Tuesday II
248 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.

Monday's papers:

how cool for

Negarir

and

Spire

to win things!

Serduchka

is facing down a minor

scandal

, while everyone's favourite crazed governor,

Gov. Paul LePage

, endorses

Khan

. And also

Sen. Bill Cassidy

is #WithHim (

Abbott

)

In Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all, and if the cycle was a week long. 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: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

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. Earned delegates are located in posts #1 and #2.

i forgot them whoops

Next time, on this thing!:

maine but like, democratic lol

Drench · Post Post #232 (isolation #103) » Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:05 am

v glad u all enjoyed my super tuesday shitposting btw

Drench · Post Post #233 (isolation #104) » Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:26 am

PUERTO RICO (

R

) AND MAINE (

D

)

i? hate state parties for splitting shit up like this

puerto rico has 23 delegates and

20%

, maine is 30 and

15%

, whoo, let's do the former first

Spoiler: The Puerto Rico Republican Primary; Sunday, 6th March, 2016

does anyone even live in maine

Spoiler: The Maine Democratic Caucus; Sunday, 6th March, 2016

yeah that was fun

Spoiler: Progressive Results

Drench · Post Post #234 (isolation #105) » Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:42 am

March 7th

1 day until Super Tuesday II
247 days until the Presidential Election

THE SEVENTH

Sunday, 6th March

Lmao trust DWS to schedule a debate during a goddamn caucus. You're absolutely not going to believe this, but

Spire

killed it. Brushed off attacks from

McGriddles

, boasted about himself, wow what a guy.

Reckoner

did the same but like he was way worse than the dreamy dreamboat who won this debate.

Serduchka

and

Peanuts

were not far behind but still. Wow.

1. Spire (14 points)
2. Reckoner (6 points)
3. Peanuts (5 points)
4. Serduchka (4 points)
5. McGriddles (1 point)

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.

Monday's headlines:

You won't believe this but Super Tuesday still dominates the news, with Super Saturday a little below it. But also, we've got news of

Spire

in the Debate,

Abbott

in Puerto Rico, and

Serduchka

in Maine.

McGriddles

needs to tone down the negativity, mate, and

Spire

collects

Gov. Jon Bel Edwards

#CantQuellTheBel.

Defender

is in Hawaii, definitely for work

definitely not for the surf

, and

Reckoner

's attack ad is a bit shit.

Tuesday:

Blah blah guess who won states etc. But also:

Reckoner

tries to do role-of-governmenty speech things and he's just so bad at speaking. God. He's terrible. Anyway also,

Negarir

has all the answers about terrorism on Meet the Press, while also running into a minor

scandal

.

TSL

keeps attacking people and for once it backfires, while

Reckoner

plays nice with Greta Van Susteren. And

Abbott

wins the affections (and rose) of

Sen. David Vitter

.

In Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all, and if the cycle was a week long. 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: Ads

Spoiler: Scandals

Spoiler: The rest

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. Earned delegates are located in posts #1 and #2.

you'll get them in the next posts because:

Next time, on this thing!:

We have two withdrawls.

Drench · Post Post #235 (isolation #106) » Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:55 am

Suspensions of Campaigns II and III

Monday, March 7th, 2016

After failing to convert votes into delegates and make progress to the line of 1237, both

Khan

(R) and

Defender

(R) have decided to suspend their campaigns.

It was never a question of winning delegates: both candidates performed that job. It was about winning enough, and whether they had the tenacity to continue if not. Neither were hyper-ideologues; neither were conviction politicians of the highest order, willing to continue when all hope was lost. Both

Khan

and

Defender

eventually saw the writing on the wall.

Despite their good performances in polling, it's instructive to note that the top three delegate earners are the ones who remain. Neither

Defender

nor

Khan

were simply not equipped, either financially or electorally, to overcome the deficit they had built. The former had just under $400,000 in the bank; the latter marginally less. In a national campaign, it's not enough.

The decision to pull out in the lead-up to a primary contest--indeed, multiple contests--will be hotly contested and debated. It was probably the wrong move. But to pull out now may save political face, and maintain relationships; these being among the last proportional contests of note, it may have been better to shut the door when the losses weren't as great, and everyone won at least a little bit.

A contested convention appears unlikely, but the some-20% of the vote these two controlled must go somewhere. If it changes some winner-take-all results, we may have a contest on our hands, and in that event, neither may be happy to pledge their collective 230~ delegates towards a candidate. Their best relationships were with each other. Now that their races are over,

Defender

and

Khan

must turn to someone else in support.

Next time:

Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho; their ballot just got chopped in half. Grim days for the undecided voter.

Drench · Post Post #236 (isolation #107) » Wed Feb 22, 2017 3:02 am

it's 1am i'm going to sleep
enjoy the suspense

Drench · Post Post #241 (isolation #108) » Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:06 pm

In post 237, inspiratieloos wrote:Wait... Am I campaigning in Democrats Abroad? How does that even work?

i got no idea man

Drench · Post Post #243 (isolation #109) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:10 am

Suspension of Campaign IV

Tuesday, March 8th, 2016

I lied, there's one more.

Following a string of underwhelming performances, only one state victory, and weak debate performances,

Tilden-St. Leonard

(R) has decided to suspend her campaign.

In the delegate hunt,

Tilden-St. Leonard

was always disadvantaged. Failing to make thresholds across the country, her only chance of emerging in the top three delegate counts was to hold on until the end, and despite being on track to do that, it proved a bridge too far. She suspends her campaign after three other Republicans, but only out-performed one of them.

Tilden-St. Leonard

was certainly flush of money--with over a million in the bank--and with an average fundraising pull. But her overall platform failed to really connect with Republican voters in the way that all five other Republicans, with more traditionally centre-right positions, did. Being a centrist is great news for a general election candidate, but you have to make it there first.

She did not make it there first. Pulling out before the Tuesday elections is the incorrect move (and the AI is dumb for doing it), but it's a move she'll have to live with--and it's a move that may cause seismic shifts in how the rest of the contest proceeds. A race that was almost locked up by

Abbott

now has a full potential to swing towards

Negarir

.

This convention will most likely not be contested. But the window does exist. Outside the two remaining candidates, 312 delegates sit, and if the margin is smaller than that, it'll be--as they say--on. Where

Tilden-St. Leonard

sends her delegates, however, may not be known for some time.

Next time:

NOW we're getting elections.

Drench · Post Post #244 (isolation #110) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:12 am

SUPER 2UESDAY

YEAH BAYBEY!!! It's Super Tuesday, but a second one. Super 2uesday. I loathe CNN for calling it this.

Three contests on the Democratic side and four on the Republican, with the latter now being an either-or proposition. Exciting times.

Drench · Post Post #245 (isolation #111) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:21 am

DEMOCRATS

ABROAD

Truly bless the crackt boys and girls of the Democratic National Committee. In their benevolence, 34 half-delegates have been elected from ALL OVER THE WORLD by Democrats (from ALL OVER THE WORLD). It literally took a week let's get this over and done with. 17 delegates,

15%

.

Spoiler: Democrats Abroad; Tuesday, 1st March to Tuesday, 8th March, 2016

up next, i am the hoe, and the island one

Drench · Post Post #246 (isolation #112) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:33 am

HAWAII AND IDAHO (

REPUBLICAN

)

Hawaii has like four Republican voters in total but they still possess 19 delegates completely proportional. Which is roughly a

5%

threshold, but come on, there's two candidates left, that's getting made. A little less permissive is Idaho, which does it at a

20%

threshold. But there are 32 delegates so it's worth it.

As a note, both candidates will massively overperform polling today because, nationally, about 30% of the vote on average just got injected into one or the other candidate's share. Congrats.

Spoiler: The Hawaii Republican Caucus; Tuesday, 8th March, 2016

And Idaho.

Spoiler: The Idaho Republican Primary; Tuesday, 8th March, 2016

We finish off with both parties' contests in Mississippi and Michigan.

Drench · Post Post #247 (isolation #113) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:46 am

MISSISSIPPI

Mississippi: both an annoying school chant and a rich source of delegates. 40 delegates on the Republican side, 41 on the Democratic; and both sides' thresholds are

15%

. Fun fun fun.

Spoiler: The Mississippi Republican Primary; Tuesday, 8th March, 2016

Spoiler: The Mississippi Democratic Primary; Tuesday, 8th March, 2016

yay cool michigan time

Drench · Post Post #248 (isolation #114) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:54 am

MICHIGAN

in honour of the real life michigan i will be drinking throughout this post to make up for back then when i couldn't (legally)

15%

threshold for both, 59 delegates for Republicans and 147 for Democrats.

Spoiler: The Michigan Republican Primary; Tuesday, 8th March, 2016

let's finish this off

Spoiler: The Michigan Democratic Primary; Tuesday, 8th March, 2016

progressive results soonish

Drench · Post Post #249 (isolation #115) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:59 am

Spoiler: Progressive Results

Drench · Post Post #250 (isolation #116) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 3:25 am

March 9th

1 day until U.S. Virgin Islands (Republican)
3 days until District of Columbia (Republican), Guam (Republican), Northern Mariana Islands (Democratic)
4 days until American Samoa (Democratic)
6 days until Ides of March Primaries (Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina)
244 days until the Presidential Election

Headlines

A whole lot is in the paper today so let's just get into it.

Abbott

and

Serduchka's

Super Tuesday performances still are at the top of the paper. But

Negarir's

Super 2uesday dominance is up there just as high, along with Super Saturday's likewise performance.

Reckoner

taking Michigan literally gets more coverage than Spire nailing Super Saturday and any of the other wins on the Democratic side last night. And, of course, withdrawls still are up there:

Khan, Defender, TSL

.

Spire

and

Negarir

are enjoying good coverage off their Fox News Sunday appearances, while

Serduchka

did a bit of comedy on Colbert.

Negarir

thinks he's right on corruption (his position: Democrats are corrupt), and gets

Sen. Angus King

in his corner. Meanwhile,

Abbott

gets an endorsement from

Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla

, which is super timing since Puerto Rico literally is over.

Spire

lastly gets

Gov. Pete Ricketts

.

In Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all, and if the cycle was a week long or during special updates. 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

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. Earned delegates are located in posts #1 and #2.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

Two debates. More elections. 39 days. 18 people. One survivor.

Drench · Post Post #252 (isolation #117) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 3:59 am

i'm sacrificing a goat right now to stop spire

Drench · Post Post #260 (isolation #118) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 5:48 pm

Suspension of Campaign V

Wednesday, March 9th, 2016

First blood in the Democratic race.

The world, indeed, just was not ready.

Peanuts

(D) has suspended his campaign.

Peanuts

never truly managed to break into the upper echelons of the race. Only winning one state--and late in his campaign, with no prospects for further victories--the writing was on the wall for some time. And

Peanuts

' delegate count was similarly lackluster.

Peanuts

, notably, was by far the most left-wing candidate in the race at the time of his withdrawal. While most candidates shift positions,

Peanuts

' own positioning stuck out like a sore thumb, and perhaps his failure to adapt to the primary electorate cost him valuable votes, valuable delegates, and valuable fundraising opportunities.

Peanuts

will make it slightly easier for a candidate to achieve a majority of delegates on the floor. But it's still not guaranteed.

Peanuts

' best opportunity was to, somehow, gain more delegates than

McGriddles

(a plausible scenario) and leapfrog on the floor. But he was never going to earn more than a thousand delegates.

Next time:

Hey there was a Democratic debate.

Drench · Post Post #261 (isolation #119) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 5:54 pm

March 10th

0 days until U.S. Virgin Islands (Republican)
243 days until the Presidential Election

THE EIGHTH

Wednesday, March 9th, 2016

It was, honest to god, a close debate amongst the top three.

McGriddles

, of course, was not one of those, and his limp attack against

Spire

fell absolutely flat. Better faring in the Attacking Spire category was

Serduchka

, who, to be honest, savaged him. And

Spire

's attempt to respond in kind was really shit and only helped the former.

Reckoner

was also there, failing to feel good about himself. But, in the end, it was

Spire

. It's always

Spire

.

1. Spire (7 points)
2. Reckoner (6 points)
3. Serduchka (5 points)
4. McGriddles (1 point)

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:

Wow Can't Believe

Spire

Won The Debate.

Negarir

is smooth talkin' Fallon on his show thing.

McGriddles

loves hating corruption.

Abbott

wins the endorsement of

Gov. Rick Snyder

.

Serduchka

calls for military spending to be cancelled which, like, no.

In Review

The news cycle strength is how good or bad your media was for the week, if you had any media at all, and if the cycle was a week long. 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: Ads

Spoiler: The rest

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. Earned delegates are located in posts #1 and #2.

REPUBLICANS

DEMOCRATS

Next time, on this thing!:

Virgin Islands and a Republican debate. On the same one. Good one, Reince.

Drench · Post Post #262 (isolation #120) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 6:04 pm

U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS (

REPUBLICAN

)

ayy lmao

Nine delegates, no threshold, which means you need roughly

11%

to snag one. Here we go fellas.

Spoiler: The U.S. Virgin Islands Republican Caucus; Thursday, 10th March, 2016

cool beans anyway there was a debate on the exact same night let's check in with that

Drench · Post Post #263 (isolation #121) » Fri Feb 24, 2017 6:11 pm

Events up to March 12th

2 days until District of Columbia (Republican), Guam (Republican), Northern Mariana Islands (Democratic)
4 days until the Ides of March Primaries
242 days until the Presidential Election

THE TENTH