Race to the White House

Politics Has No Rules.

You begin as either a respected governor, a sleazy senator, or a cutthroat CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation. Somehow, over the next year, you must convert your vast wealth and questionable reputation into Presidential material. But how?

Plot
This is primarily meant to be a single-player game, but parts of it could be adapted for split-screen or online multiplayer.

The game begins sometime in the summer or fall of 2007, in the final, depressing years of the Bush Presidency. Having just jumped into the race, you first have to build a name for yourself. Travel across the country in your private jet to give speeches, kiss babies, sleep with interns, etc. Hire your staff, and choose carefully, because they'll be stuck with you for a while. Then the real fun begins.

In the Primary Season, whether you side with the Republicans or the Democrats, you've got a tough race ahead. The media has dug into your past and latched onto that one really stupid prank you tried to pull off in college. In each debate, square off against a number of real-life politicians, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards (yikes), John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin.

As 2008 begins, you turn your attention to various states where decisive caucuses occur. Rally your voter base (and destroy your opponent's) to sweep your way through the delegates. Soon it comes down to the final push for the nomination. Throw some more dirt on your opponents, flaunt your war record (or make one up), and make sure you have your birth certificate handy.

With some luck, and a little bullying, you win the nomination, and give a heroic speech at the Convention just as the economy is starting to tank. Faced with a worsening crisis, you must convince the nation that you - and only you - can save General Motors. On Election Night, cross your fingers, have a few drinks, and then cheer "USA USA USA! until they hand you the key to the White House.

Oh, and make sure to kill Osama bin Laden. That always helps.

Character Design
This is an open-map role-playing game where your character is entirely customized. Create the splitting image of yourself, or invent a candidate that America will never forget. Choose your age (35-80), gender, race, (black, white, Latino, Asian, Native America, or any combination) and religion (Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) but remember that all four will have an impact on your chances among various voter blocs. Don't be too bland, but don't be too dangerous.

Then you get to choose the attributes that don't really matter, like height, weight, hairstyle, wardrobe, and bicep tattoo. Next, take some time to customize other personal details, like whether your married, how many children you have, and where you went to college.

Finally, we get to the most important information you have to start with. Your choice of home state will greatly determine the course of your campaign. So will the position you start in: as mentioned earlier, the three occupations are governor, senator, or CEO. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Being a governor makes you the most popular, and gives you executive experience, but the least salary and influence. A senator has plenty of fame and influence, but little popularity, and makes a decent salary. A CEO, of course, gets the fattest paycheck, and has moderate influence, but is either unknown or despised by all. Whichever job you choose, you will have to continue this career at the same time that you are campaigning for the White House. If you spend too much time on the campaign, you can lose productivity on your current job, which hurts your chances of winning, so be careful.

And at last, choose your party. It's really quite simple. The Reds or the Blues. The party of Lincoln or the party of Kennedy. The party of nostalgia or the party of guilt. And I guess you can be independent or libertarian or something if you want to, but you've pretty much lost all hope of winning at that point.