Gamepaign 2008: Introduction

When you choose a candidate for a political race, the majority of your appreciation of the candidate is subconscious, subjective and incredibly biased. Yes, it varies from person to person, and you might think you're completely objective and informed when picking candidates, but you're not. Did you like Al Gore? Could you explain to me why you liked HIM and not just his party? How about Nader, or Bob Dole, or even George Bush before he was elected? Do you know exactly what these candidates' thoughts are on education, abortion, the death penalty, states' rights, drug legalization, free trade, the minimum wage, environmentalism and property rights?

Of course you don't know all of that stuff. If you think you do, I'd be willing to bet that you're more likely to vote for a party, and not a person, and confuse the hell out of the two. ...But is there anything wrong with this? Yes. Yes there is. Picking a candidate by party affiliation alone is the reason we have such a solid two-party system and also why both parties - as well as the general public - seem to be so willing to prejudge people without knowing anything about them: Oh, she's a republican? Must hate the environment. A Democrat? Probably likes Roe v. Wade...

While this sure makes things easier, it also makes them more wrong.

We need to know what a candidate actually believes, what he or she actually is thinking about doing with all that power before we can cast our one, single vote. It's your duty to be as informed a voter as possible before you decide what's best for the other 300 million people in this country. That's a serious responsibility, and either you do it right or not at all, I say.

Having a gut feeling, respecting a candidate's party, or watching the candidate give speeches is not enough for an informed, objective opinion.

However, actually being objective is too much work; it's too complex and intricate and it's generally impossible to explain to other people how a single human could possibly be "the best" option for the most powerful political office in this country.

So what we really need to do is approach the candidate-choosing process with an informed, objective and fair, yet simple and efficient method. We need an unbiased system that incorporates as much information as possible but still reflects the natural way of choosing a candidate: throughout the year, every time you hear or read something about a candidate, your opinion changes or adapts. Unfortunately, the natural method leads you to form a year's worth of subconscious quasi-information that you feel is valid. It's not. While the method is great (incorporate as much information as possible and judge each bit using certain guidelines), the result is not. Our guidelines themselves will not stay standard and objective; they will adapt to fit our biases and our changing opinions. What we need is standardized guidelines, standardized rules and a context that can't change to cater to varying opinions.

So how do we get these things? How do we remain as objective as possible while making an informed and responsible decision on a candidate?

Simple. Rely on "the market" to provide the information, and rely on science to provide objectivity. Well, in this case it'll be a social science. You guessed it: Economics.

"The market" will be the 4EConglomerate, and 4EConomists will be the judge of the information. If a candidate spouts out something with economic implications, the Conglomerate will record it, judge it, score it, then debate the score until consensus.

That's assuming the market gets involved, of course.

Fortunately, I am also a member of this market, so even without the participation of loyal 4ECon readers we'll get candidate scores.

And what do I mean by scores? Well, I mean, literally, scores - As in points. If a candidate says something that has bad implications for our future economy, he or she will lose a certain amount of points. If a candidate says something shattering, he or she will lose a lot of points.

Here's the interesting part: If a candidate does a good job - or says something with great economic intuition, he or she will not gain, nor lose, any points. This will prevent bias in trying to build up candidates. If candidates can only lose points, us supporters cannot translate a favorable bias for a candidate's opinions into more points, regardless of whether those opinions are unique to the candidate or not. Make sense?

So instead of building up some candidates and knocking down others, we're going to do nothing but knock 'em down.

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So what's the point? Well, besides all the information collected and compiled in one place (the 4ECon), we'll all have an opportunity to learn differing viewpoints about what a candidate's opinions, beliefs, actions or policy promises might do for (or against) the future. This alone should make us all a little more likely to make a more informed decision on election day.

More importantly, I hereby promise to vote for the winner of the competition. That's right, I don't care who it is - If it's Giuliani, Obama, Clinton, Ron Paul, Stripe the Gremlin or even Mitt Romney, I will vote for the winner of Gamepaign 2008, provided the competition survives with updates, contributions and conversations on at least a semi-regular basis until elections (or at least until nominations.)

The reason I'm willing to do this is that, if I can somehow objectively vote for who I think will make the best economist and most decent president (two separate things, sometimes), then I should take that information and act on it, right? If the game works out the way I'm thinkin' it might, then I'll be more than happy to vote for the winner. (Because I'd be playing the same kind of game in my head all year anyway...)

And one more thing regarding purpose: I personally believe that economics is pretty much the most important thing a president should have a grasp of. I mean, he or she should be concerned about moral issues somewhat, but I do not want a religious leader as a president. While I'm concerned about other things such as the environment and privacy issues, I truly, truly believe that these problems can't be solved without having a good understanding of incentives, human behavior and proper policy - AKA "good economics."

So if anyone is already "into" the idea of this game and wants to pledge their vote to the winner, let your pledge be heard. If you don't want to bind yourself to your friends' (The Conglomerate's) opinions, or if you want to wait until the rules & candidate list are clarified, I understand. In the mean time, maybe I can think of some good incentives to make Gamepaign 2008 more enticing.

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I'll be back with a little more explanation, the official rules and the candidate list pretty soon.

If you haven't already noticed, I'm not screwing around. It's time to get political, dammit - I am totally, absolutely, completely 94% serious. Super serial.

And no, I couldn't come up with a better name than "Gamepaign."