It's January of 2008. We have ten months until the Presidential election, at which point John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected into office. I am here today to tell you that I have been appointed Obama's campaign manager. To get my candidate into office, I will do everything in my power. That includes hiring shady characters, fabricating the truth, and reloading saved games. Over the next ten months (well, ten days, each a gameplay month), follow the course of the election by reading here the game diaries for Political Machine 2008, Stardock Software's Presidential election strategy game.

Stardock's gameplay abstractions are rarely elegant, but they're effective at creating really involved worlds. Ask anyone who's played Galactic Civilizations somewhere along the way in that game's long history. The world of Political Machine is more mundane, but it's no less involved. It consists of a population divided among parties, ideas, and states. A Presidential candidate navigates this population – data, really – to sway the advantage to his or her side.

Now that might sound a bit dry, but Stardock knows how to make data charming. And they've never done it as well as they have in this updated version of Political Machine. It was originally released in 2004, loosely based on Stardock's business strategy game, The Corporate Machine (again, not as dry as it sounds!). Now it's a got a 3D map to show off the little figures that you move around the board, this time represented by cute little bobble-headed people that belie the serious subject matter.

The election kicks off after the jump.

Having played a few games of Political Machine, I'm going to notch the difficultly level up to "challenging". I had tried boosting it even higher, but I discovered a nasty bug whereby McCain suddenly got more than double the amount of stamina, which meant he could run circles around Obama, giving additional speeches, opening new campaign headquarters, and fundraising like a madman. Pretty impressive for someone who probably remembers where he was when the Japanese bomber Pearl Harbor. Bob Dole must have slipped him some Viagra. Cheap shots? Stick around. I'm just getting warmed up.

It's a standard-length 41-turn game, each turn representing a week. The first four turns (the month of January) are pretty uneventful. Obama and McCain jet around the country setting up election headquarters in various states to raise their awareness ratings (voters won't vote for someone they've never heard of). The election headquarters also are an important source of income. We both set up HQs in Ohio and Florida. I grab California and Pennsylvania. McCain's interested in Georgia and Louisiana for some reason (nothing personal, Louisiana, but 9 electoral votes is nothing to write home about). The big surprise is that McCain opens an election headquarters in New York. Oh, so that's how it's going to be? Okay, it's on.

Not that I'm going to bother contesting Texas or anything.

At one point, McCain grabs a random person who's appeared in Nevada. It's a Jaded Consultant who hurts Obama's standing on all issues in the state where he's discovered. If this guy had appeared in Ohio or Florida, for instance, it would have been a disaster. Instead, he's in Nevada. Knock yourself out, Jaded Consultant. Spread your lies about how Obama thinks Vegas is tacky. It's just 5 electoral votes. Besides, Vegas is tacky.

The month ends with the projected electoral votes at 267 for Obama and 271 for McCain.