2018 Presidential Election

[MountainDew17]

Sam fell into the same trap that he's been falling into for years. Much like Josh Lyman seems to constantly feel the need to defend the records of Jed Bartlett and Matt Santos. He's improved slightly by not mentioning it as often as he used to, but he needs to humble himself a bit and start admitting that he's old bosses weren't perfect. He also needs to start admitting when his opponent is right, especially on the economy. if the average voter has been more prosperous over the past term, they won't vote for the guy who wants to change that. Also, while he won the gun-control argument on facts, he lost a lot of credibility with his "mentally-ill felons with nukes" comment. Shallick was able to score major points by calling him out on it.

Conversely, Secretary Shallick needs better answers when it comes to healthcare. While his numbers and facts are correct, he comes off as uncarrying about those who can't afford health insurance. Also, like Seaborn, he has to admit when his boss made a mistake. Although it did not come up here, i have no doubt that Walken defying SCOTUS over DADT will certainly come up in later debates. If he tries to defend it, it would only hurt him with independent voters.

Overall, especially when you consider that he was an underdog coming in due to Sam being the far more charismatic of the two, i would say that this is a solid win for Shallick.

 

[mspence]

Sam was on the defensive over Hollis, who isn't popular with the Democratic base, while Hunter is with the Republicans.

 

[KingCrawa]

The problem is, no matter how well articulated Sam's position is, all Shallick has to do is run an ad featuring crime ridden streets and the slogan "If only we still had our guns" every day between now and election day and Sam will be lucky to win anything outside of California, New York and Washington DC.

How many people watched the debate Vs how many people do you think will see an ad like that?

 

[Marky Bunny]

Glad you enjoyed the debate

Nice work on writing this debate; it can't have been easy

No it wasn't although I did have some great help.

 

[Arrowfan237]

The problem is, no matter how well articulated Sam's position is, all Shallick has to do is run an ad featuring crime ridden streets and the slogan "If only we still had our guns" every day between now and election day and Sam will be lucky to win anything outside of California, New York and Washington DC.

How many people watched the debate Vs how many people do you think will see an ad like that?

I actually don’t think that would be the best idea for an ad. The whole thing would just scream dog-whistle politics, just like Nixon and his “Law and Order” tactics back in ‘68.

 

[KingCrawa]

I actually don’t think that would be the best idea for an ad. The whole thing would just scream dog-whistle politics, just like Nixon and his “Law and Order” tactics back in ‘68.

Either way I think Sam is making the wrong call. He seems to be running an incredibly two faced campaign.

 

[Arrowfan237]

Either way I think Sam is making the wrong call. He seems to be running an incredibly two faced campaign.

Oh definitely. Shallick was right about s number of things: Sam has been running for President ever since he entered the Senate and so has done very little actual work, it is fairly hypocritical to complain about the power of multimillionaires while you have one of the richest men in the world as your VP, and his gun control answer needs a lot of work.

 

[KingCrawa]

Oh definitely. Shallick was right about s number of things: Sam has been running for President ever since he entered the Senate and so has done very little actual work, it is fairly hypocritical to complain about the power of multimillionaires while you have one of the richest men in the world as your VP, and his gun control answer needs a lot of work.

He seems to be trying to appease the left of the party (soak the bankers) and the right Thorne wing (bring in Hollis) at the same time, while ignoring the middle ground.

When Bartlet said that Sam would be President one day, he meant Sam. Not this poll following spin jockey.

 

[MountainDew17]

I actually don’t think that would be the best idea for an ad. The whole thing would just scream dog-whistle politics, just like Nixon and his “Law and Order” tactics back in ‘68.

Nixon won, dude

 

[Arrowfan237]

Nixon won, dude

I’m aware of that. That doesn’t mean though that we should use those types of ads. Ads/speeches like those used by Nixon, Bush (Willie Horton), and Trump only appeal to the worst nature of humanity.

It worked in part for Nixon because of all of the protests going on at the time. American were craving a return to normalcy. Shallick’s attempt would be viewed as nearly outright t racist, just as the “Willie Horton” ad was for President Bush.

 

[Excelsior]

Sam has a very easy line of defense on Hollis that he's not using: yes Hollis is a billionaire, yes I want to raise taxes on billionaires, but you can bet your ass Franklin Hollis is going to pay every dime of those taxes. In fact, the Seaborn campaign needs to have Hollis out there saying that.

 

[Marky Bunny]

I will only be giving round-ups of the following debates.
Bad Wolf was correct it was not easy to write a full debate.

 

[Bad'Wolf]

Sam has a very easy line of defense on Hollis that he's not using: yes Hollis is a billionaire, yes I want to raise taxes on billionaires, but you can bet your ass Franklin Hollis is going to pay every dime of those taxes. In fact, the Seaborn campaign needs to have Hollis out there saying that.

I get the feeling that Sam has inherited another Hillary Clinton comparaison with this: he's got the substance, but he's not at his best on the campaign trail.

 

[KahukuMan10]

Just have to say keep up the good work fam. I love tuning back into this thread every few months to see what the state of the WWU is. While real life has kept me busy I was very involved with this thread 2010-2014 era, and every time I see things like the Youth in Revolt or 535.com mentioned; or Nicole Kershaw, Stephen Collins, Will Durham becoming major players (all of which I had a hand in creating) it brings warmth to my heart. Mark and Disputed have done a great job of maintaining continuity despite being at this for almost 10 years now. Bravo to you guys. You’ve done a marvelous job of building on top of what has come before, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. #Sam4America!

 

[Marky Bunny]

Tuesday September 25th 2018

Six Weeks from Election Day
Seaborn v Shallick v Straus

Popular Vote
Shallick & Hunter 47% (+2)
Seaborn & Hollis 44% (-1)
Straus & Buckner 5% (n/c)
Undecided 4% (-1)
1.5% swing from Seaborn to Shallick since September 14th poll
Electoral College
Shallick & Hunter 237 ev (+24 ev)
Seaborn & Hollis 179 ev (-17 ev)
Toss-Up 122 (-7 ev)
States Moving
Ohio and Iowa moving from Toss-up to Shallick
Virginia and New Hamphire from Seaborn to Toss-up

 

[RRusso1982]

Did you decide the election outcome yet?

 

[heatmaster]

I think Seaborn needs to up his game, he seems to be still in primary campaign mode, the base will come home to him, this incessant need to appease the left-wing could end him. Also if Shallick can upset Seaborn’s game, it’s because he can and will. I think he needs to bring Josh Lyman in, Chorley and Cregg are just not cutting it, Seaborn is not running for class president.

 

[Marky Bunny]

Did you decide the election outcome yet?

The spreadsheet is done in terms of number of voters, I have a result at the moment, but it could change, by just changing the result in a couple of states or so.

 

[TWWFan]

Sam needs to find a better definition of his time with Bartlet and Santos, and drop his insistence on defending their legacies, especially Bartlet, who left office as one of the most well-respected presidents in history. He needs to brand himself as less of the continuation of the Bartlet days and more of his own candidate with his own ideas.

 

[lord caedus]

With the US less than two months away from choosing a new president, here are the infoboxes of the leaders of the UN Security Council's other permanent members:

---------------------​

Reiteration of casting:
Cate Blanchett as Natalya Romanova
David Haig as Richard Samuels
Josiane Balasko as Giselle Trenier
Tzi Ma as Qian Min

Many thanks to @Prometheus_2300 for digging up the infoboxes he made from way back in 2010 & 2011. They really helped with the details with the Romanova, Trenier & Qian boxes.

Trenier was established as having become President of France in 2011, but nothing was established after her term was supposed to have ended in 2016. My headcanon is that she won a very narrow reelection and has become increasingly unpopular and is controversially holding out from dissolving the National Assembly until the last possible moment because polls are showing that it will likely result in a Socialist Party victory.

Prometheus' articles on China had Wei Lian as slowly accumulating power with the projection that he would emerge as essentially a new Mao, ironically foreshadowing the OTL trajectory of Xi Jinping half a decade before Xi took over. But subsequent articles later established Qian as president and had Wei as essentially an elder statesman. I'm thinking that Qian (whose father was a Communist hero of the Chinese Civil War, hence his inclusion in the infobox) was the beneficiary of a backlash among the party chiefs against Wei's consolidation of power that wrestled power away from him.