Another Perspective
Playing With Fire
Ultimate politics for the insatiable political junkie.
(Page 2 of 2)
Attempting to prove my point, I decided to manage the ultimate muddled candidate. I managed Al Gore. And defeat looked like a real possibility. After buying a national ad slamming George W. Bush on “public education,” I had a tenuous grasp on 385 electoral votes. He shot back by winning the endorsement of the game’s equivalent of NOW (remember “W stands for Women”?) and the Chamber of Business. The compassionate conservative had a 279-259 lead. I came out for tax cuts, eked out a lead, and watched Bush bounce back above 300 with the endorsement of the unions. If you’re a junkie, this stuff is more exciting than a gunfight.
We battled back and forth for weeks. I nixed Joe Lieberman and chose John Edwards as a running mate to bog Bush down in the South. As he campaigned, I hired six smear merchants, six spin doctors, and a fixer who apparently had the power to murder opposing political operatives.
Just as Gore closed the campaign with dirty NAACP ads and the DUI charge, I closed the campaign by sending hatchet men to the big swing states and promising record tax cuts and a crackdown on immigration. The South breaks for Al Gore, who is elected president with 361 electoral votes.
After running a campaign like that, the political junkie in me settled down considerably. It still hasn’t recovered.
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