2024 Election Game (Sign Up/Discussion/Rules)

[PPT Spiral]

Is it possible to still jump in here as Eric Adams?

[PPT Spiral]

How will you address the ongoing opioid crisis?

What we have witnessed from the opioid crisis is the sheer greed of Big Pharma. They make the big bucks over the disregard of human lives, over families being destroyed after losing their loved ones. In New York City, I successfully pushed for over $250 million in new spending for fighting the opioid crisis. We have been using these funds for treatment programs, for continued education, and—maybe most importantly—preventing future cases of opioid abuse from happening in the first place. I have also provided assistance when possible for the state Attorney General and district attorney’s efforts in prosecuting bad actors who perpetuate this problem.

As President, I will place the health and well-being of Americans as a top priority. If we fall ill to substance abuse or from other matters, all our other problems will build on top of each other. I’ve pushed for healthier lunches and better exercise routines starting at a young school age to encourage good lifestyle habits, and these efforts will continue as President in conjunction with our anti-opioid programs.

Cooper: "This is a serious crisis. A report estimated that about one hundred and thirty people a day die from opioid-related drug overdoses. In the past two decades, 850,000 people have died from drug overdoses. In Tomah, Wisconsin, in 2014, Jason Simcakoski , a 35-year-old Marine Corps, died from opiate overdose. It was because of over-prescription. Senator Tammy Baldwin did nothing about this, even after that. There was an investigation into the Tomah VA by the Department of Veterans Affairs. But Senator Baldwin did nothing, throwing others under the bus and hiring fixer-lawyers as the situation grew ever worse. Jason Simcakoski's widow herself lay the blame with Baldwin for refusing to address this crisis. We need a leader in the White House who will take accountability for this crisis, take this issue seriously. I will be that leader. There will be investigations and inspections and better accountability and accounting regarding prescriptions. No more will people like Jason Simcakoski and their families suffer because of government oversight, government carelessness, and government incompetence. Our elected officials absolutely need to do something about this crisis, and unlike Senator Baldwin, I promise I won't pass the buck."

Governor Cooper: Respectfully, please don't act like a typical politician. The question was about what you would do to fix the opioid crisis, not just badmouthing your rival. Voters deserve better and this debate is about our ideas and records.

You're absolutely right. The truth is I had recently finally dug up some dirt on Baldwin, and I wanted to share it. She was dropping out, so this debate was really my last chance to slam Baldwin on it. And the question was perfect for me to go into that. I also was too lazy to do the research and decided to just use some dirt on Baldwin while I could. However, you're entirely right - Cooper's response to this question was pretty bad actually, since I didn't really have him highlight any specific solutions; he just attacked Baldwin and vaguely promised to do better. And if this was reality, I'd be pretty irritated with Cooper, since I'd expect and hope for a better response on this serious topic than just petty mudslinging and a vague promise to fix the problem without giving specific ideas/solutions/action plans.

And I also want to add your own response was rock-solid. I was too lazy to do the research on this one and just decided that it was the best time to unveil some opposition research - your response, however, was perfect and is a model to follow.


Lastly, welcome to the game. I look forward to campaigning against you/Adams for the nomination.

I appreciate the kind words and welcome the challenge as well. With these games, you unfortunately don't always hit a home run with your answers and schedules. I've got the scars from countless other games to prove it lol. As long as you're having fun, though, that matters most.

[PPT Spiral]

How will you address the ongoing opioid crisis?

What we have witnessed from the opioid crisis is the sheer greed of Big Pharma. They make the big bucks over the disregard of human lives, over families being destroyed after losing their loved ones. In New York City, I successfully pushed for over $250 million in new spending for fighting the opioid crisis. We have been using these funds for treatment programs, for continued education, and—maybe most importantly—preventing future cases of opioid abuse from happening in the first place. I have also provided assistance when possible for the state Attorney General and district attorney’s efforts in prosecuting bad actors who perpetuate this problem.

As President, I will place the health and well-being of Americans as a top priority. If we fall ill to substance abuse or from other matters, all our other problems will build on top of each other. I’ve pushed for healthier lunches and better exercise routines starting at a young school age to encourage good lifestyle habits, and these efforts will continue as President in conjunction with our anti-opioid programs.

Cooper: "This is a serious crisis. A report estimated that about one hundred and thirty people a day die from opioid-related drug overdoses. In the past two decades, 850,000 people have died from drug overdoses. In Tomah, Wisconsin, in 2014, Jason Simcakoski , a 35-year-old Marine Corps, died from opiate overdose. It was because of over-prescription. Senator Tammy Baldwin did nothing about this, even after that. There was an investigation into the Tomah VA by the Department of Veterans Affairs. But Senator Baldwin did nothing, throwing others under the bus and hiring fixer-lawyers as the situation grew ever worse. Jason Simcakoski's widow herself lay the blame with Baldwin for refusing to address this crisis. We need a leader in the White House who will take accountability for this crisis, take this issue seriously. I will be that leader. There will be investigations and inspections and better accountability and accounting regarding prescriptions. No more will people like Jason Simcakoski and their families suffer because of government oversight, government carelessness, and government incompetence. Our elected officials absolutely need to do something about this crisis, and unlike Senator Baldwin, I promise I won't pass the buck."

Governor Cooper: Respectfully, please don't act like a typical politician. The question was about what you would do to fix the opioid crisis, not just badmouthing your rival. Voters deserve better and this debate is about our ideas and records.

You're absolutely right. The truth is I had recently finally dug up some dirt on Baldwin, and I wanted to share it. She was dropping out, so this debate was really my last chance to slam Baldwin on it. And the question was perfect for me to go into that. I also was too lazy to do the research and decided to just use some dirt on Baldwin while I could. However, you're entirely right - Cooper's response to this question was pretty bad actually, since I didn't really have him highlight any specific solutions; he just attacked Baldwin and vaguely promised to do better. And if this was reality, I'd be pretty irritated with Cooper, since I'd expect and hope for a better response on this serious topic than just petty mudslinging and a vague promise to fix the problem without giving specific ideas/solutions/action plans.

And I also want to add your own response was rock-solid. I was too lazy to do the research on this one and just decided that it was the best time to unveil some opposition research - your response, however, was perfect and is a model to follow.


Lastly, welcome to the game. I look forward to campaigning against you/Adams for the nomination.

I appreciate the kind words and welcome the challenge as well. With these games, you unfortunately don't always hit a home run with your answers and schedules. I've got the scars from countless other games to prove it lol. As long as you're having fun, though, that matters most.

Why didn't you join when I was GM? I could have used additional players with experience keeping me on task/helping me with realism.

I didn't see that this game was going on until much later after it started. Also, I've got a bit more free time to write stuff up now compared to earlier in the year.

[PPT Spiral]

GoTfan, would you be able to publicly list the endorsements we earned for the past turn so we can all keep better track?

[PPT Spiral]

So is anyone actually gonna post or is this dead?

I'm planning to lol. For myself, at least, is it okay to get that one-day extension to be safe?

[PPT Spiral]

Bump.

[PPT Spiral]

Will my last post still be considered? I was assuming that the hours that turns are open are based on when you first posted the update, which made me believe I had a few hours left to respond to folks.

[PPT Spiral]

Still watching this game from afar, and I've got to say, Spiral is playing magnificently so far.

I do what I can.

[PPT Spiral]

Going to have Kathy Hochul drop out and endorse Eric Adams. Life is just too busy for me to be able to give this the time it needs any time soon.

!!

If Hochul is endorsing Adams he's basically won the primary and I may as well have Cooper drop out, too. I would implore you to reconsider and to keep Hochul from making an endorsement; that way the primary could remain competitive and the game could remain interesting/competitive (whereas, again, if you endorse Adams, I don't see any way for him to lose or for Cooper to win). I think it'd be much more interesting if Adams and I had to both try to win over Hochul supporters, rather than you just endorsing Adams and more or less handing him the nomination before a single primary. I mean, based on how well Spiral is running, he may well end up winning IA and NH even without your endorsement - but at least Cooper gets a good fighting chance and isn't DOA.

I doubt that all of Hochul's supporters are uniformly transferring to Adams right away, especially with not a single vote being cast yet. The remaining candidates all have their unique strengths and weaknesses among the electorate that we'll have to work with. I see this primary as being a very competitive three-way for a while.

[PPT Spiral]

Guys, I don't think we should be posting right now while we're waiting on the next turn.

[PPT Spiral]

Polling will be going up in a few hours. My dog was attacked today so we have to take her in for an operation.

I hope that she will be okay in no time.

[PPT Spiral]

Requesting a 24 hour extension.

Yeah, I'm going to probably need a few more days to put up everything else.

Same here lol

[PPT Spiral]

ONE MORE DAY

ONE MORE DAY

[PPT Spiral]

I hate that it's come to this so early, but Adams will regrettably have to drop out for personal reasons. He fully endorses Cooper for the nomination.

[PPT Spiral]

Btw good luck winning NH now that Kerry has entered the picture. Unless he's not contesting NH? Seems like Spiral may be employing a Bloomberg Strategy and is not campaigning in early states but is instead focusing on winning in later states?

For now, I'm playing it safe and assuming that it's too late to get on the ballot for immediate states like NH. NV and SC could be viable, but I'm waiting on GoTfan for final confirmation on that.

[PPT Spiral]

VOTER: Thank you, Madam Vice President, I am a 20 year old college student and I am currently undecided between you and Governor Cooper, and one thing we hear Governor Cooper talk a lot about is your record on weed-

HARRIS: He talks about it more than he says why he wants to be President. (laughs with audience)

Okay, this actually got a laugh out of me

[PPT Spiral]

See, the thing you really have to appreciate about Spiral is that he does his oppo research, waits till the right moment, and then slams it at you. If we’re being honest I wasn’t aware of this oil/gas incident, and don’t know how I’m going to respond to it. Good for you, Spiral.

Appreciate the kind words. There's always plenty of more where that came from.

[PPT Spiral]

Side note, that was my first time writing up coverage in one of these games. Feedback is more than welcome.

I'm a fan of the way you handled primary coverage. One thing I would like to see more of is better detailed debate recaps. Sometimes I feel that past turn summaries overlooked the effects of the debates and the exchanges we had with all the effort we've put into our posts.

Past games have done everything from a letter grading scale for debate performances to a poll on who won for the evening.

[PPT Spiral]

GoTfan, how much longer do you expect it should take before our endorsement requests from last turn are fully reviewed?

[PPT Spiral]

Also, I feel that we should have more time for our turns since primary season requires greater detail in our posts. In particular, 36 hours until NH coverage starts is way too short given that we have to cram in a debate too.

[PPT Spiral]

Still following and enjoying this game  (even if the GOP Primary has gotten a little bit boring without DeSantis).

I’d say the fireworks on the Democratic side more than compensate for the lack of excitement on the GOP side.  

Got that right. I think I got everything off my chest now, so we're probably good to get to NH coverage lmao

[PPT Spiral]

Btw good luck winning NH now that Kerry has entered the picture. Unless he's not contesting NH? Seems like Spiral may be employing a Bloomberg Strategy and is not campaigning in early states but is instead focusing on winning in later states?

This aged terribly. Spiral is literally training all his fire at Cooper and doing nothing against Harris.

For now.

[PPT Spiral]

Should be able to get my remaining schedule up later tonight.

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Jesus I forgot all about including Carter's funeral in Cooper's schedule...

I think this one necessitates a barb next turn lol

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Not sure if we should edit our posts like that after the turn has already closed.

GoTfan, what say you?