Gamification Hand Mechanic

Mr. Hedges realizes that this technique could neatly simulate the complexity of the Iowa caucuses. He creates a deck of cards to represent Democratic and Republican candidates and all of the different kinds of factions and perspectives that might influence how voters behave in their individual caucus sites. He has one of his classes play a Democratic caucus and the other play a Republican one. The game he creates is played over three turns (coffee hour, early evening, evening). Players are as...

 Negative Campaigning Benefits Incumbents

Going negative is risky. Countless polls have shown that voters find negativity distasteful in the extreme, and if a candidate is percieved as going negative, it usually costs him, but of course GW Bush is a creature of his campaign advisors and these advisors are the best that $70 million dollars and the full faith and credit of the GOP establishment can buy and if Bush 2000 has gone negative, there must be solid political logic behind the move. Under the techs' lens, this logic turns out to...

 Obama is a Nerd, and That's Bad

[Obama White House is] the kid in school who waves his A test score in front of the entire class but never gets picked to play baseball. He’s an arrogant nerd, and no matter how smart he is, he can’t hit, he can’t throw and he can’t run.