The Political Machine
I think it is time I got round to talking about The Political Machine 2008, the latest in Bobble-Head Political Games from Stardock Interactive. I recently defeated Ulysses S. Grant in the US Presidential Election with Barack Obama as my Vice President.
I had started my political career in The Political Machine with a horrific defeat in my homeland of Europe to the scourge of the Galactic Civilization’s world, the Drengin Lord Kona. It was not a normal map of Europe, this was a Europe from the perspective of a US school student, with countries like Britland and issues such as the bullying of France this was always going to be a hard campaign to win.
In my European campaign I chose the risky strategy of investing heavily in media campaigns, TV and Newspaper ads were started in any country I felt worthy, speeches were left to the backburner and the use of political capital was, to say the least, used to ill-effect. The decision to place Bill Clinton as my running mate can be seen in hindsight to have been the turning point of a campaign I had been winning.
When it came to voting day I was handsomely beaten by Lord Kona, while I had won the majority of the public vote, Kona had been able to secure the most Electoral College nominations…or votes…I am not sure what really but I know that Kona’s bobble-head was victorious, I was the loser.
It was with some trepidation then that I started my next campaign in the US against Ulysses S. Grant, my knowledge of US politics is in someways limited to The West Wing…unfortunately I have not watched that since it last aired so I was out of touch with what states I should target in my campaign. Whilst I may have been keeping half an eye on the current US Presidential Race I had not been taking a keen interest in it. Tying this in with my poor sense of both the physical and geographical geography of the United States I was expecting an ass-whooping of never before seen proportions.
My campaign reflected my lack of understanding of what I should be doing in this great country, I was content to rapdily jump from state to state often following in the footstep of Grant in the hope of reversing any gains he would make. At every possibility I flew from the West coast over to New York or Florida for a high profile chat-show interview in the seemingly vain hope of winning the support of the undecided voters.
With Barack Obama appointed as my running mate I was hoping he would be able to spark those states I had ignored into throwing their support behind me. All the media reports that were presented to me by what I assume were my assistants presented me with reports of those same assistants claiming my capmaign was dead in the water. I was feaing a defeat worse than the one Kona inflicted upon me in Europe.
After 41 hard weeks of campaigning it was election day, one by one the map of the US moved from state to state with each state turning Red my hopes visibly fading while every Blue state made me hope and witness a glimmer of a chance at victory.
I should not have been so pessimistic, while I failed to win the majority of the popular vote I had secured enough states/Electoral College seats to clinch the victory from Grant. Political success had never tasted so sweet.
The bobble-heads of Obama and myself standing together as future rulers of the US was a sight for sore eyes. What a game The Political Machine 2008 is, what a game.