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[mainiac]

I don't think that nominating more liberal/conservative candidates in hostile territory would have all that big a change on elections.  It might help slightly at the margins, yes.  But the politics is about more then triangulation.  As an example, I'd offer my home district of MD-1st, which .  That means that if the nation were exactly balanced between liberals and conservatives in a given election, you'd expect the republicans to win this district 63-37, i.e. a landslide.

Despite being in this conservative hellhole however, a democrat managed to win in 2008 but he didn't do it with a really conservative campaign.  He was pro-choice, pro cap and trade, pro stimulus, voted for one of the two healthcare bills out of the house, supported the financial regulations and voted for hate crime legislation to protect gays.  Yes, he tacked sharply right on guns, stimulus and a few issues of local importance (fairly conservative stance on the 2010 Chesepeake bay dredge report) but his liberal positions far outweighed his conservative ones.  But despite having a pretty liberal track record, he outperformed the PVI handicap by 10 points in both 2008 and 2010.

So the reason why parties don't always triangulate for the center isn't just to appease their base.  There are a lot of things that make a candidate electable or unelectable beyond triangulation.  So it makes sense to pick a guy who would actually advance your agenda and is slightly less likely to win then to pick a guy who is still a real underdog but wont be any good even if he does win.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

As an example, I'd offer my home district of MD-1st, which .

There seems to be something missing, here...

[Kay12]

While I agree with the OP's understanding of the deep matrix that is true political science, Liberal Crime squad has always been, at least from my perspective, less of a rational and thoughtful examination of political discourse, and more of a glimpse into the fevered and delusional world of a talk-radio pundit's sedated and hallucinogenic dreams.

My proposition was to spice up the gameplay, while I was under the impression that it would also bring some life to the political system. I thought LCS satire was more about the issues, but it seems that the huge left/right division along with other issues should be kept as well. In any case, making the public opinion system also turn politicians is intuitive, probably good for gameplay and provides more variation than the current "vote a bit randomly" system.

[Servant Corps]

mainiac: While it worked for MD-1, it might not work on the national level. The reason I raised this idea was because of my Sleeper Run where in both Presidential Elections, a Moderate Retired Military General ran against an Elite Liberal and lost horribly: 41%-59%. And both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party was guaranteed 40% of the vote each, so when it comes down to the swing vote, the Conservatives lost heavily. When faced with such horrible odds, I'd think party elites would want to reconsider their party nomination practices.

Even in your example, some sort of ideological compromise was necessary on certain issues, which is hard to reflect in the current LCS system.

That being said, Johnathan S. Fox is likely right in raising the question of primaries as preventing more "likely" candidates to win, but what this means is that it is incredibly easy for LCS/CCS to win in an extremist environment. Considering the Liberal Crime Squad game is essentially a game about political extremism, this may be a dynamic the game developers would support.

[Servant Corps]

And it's done. I uploaded the change that allows for C, M, and L to either consult popular opinion (50% for non-M, 80% for M) or vote according to ideology, at least in Congress, as opposed to the previous system of voting based on a random dice roll.

I noticed that the Supreme Court had that "vote randomly" code as well. I decided to remove that code, but hopefully allowed for the bias to impact its votes. I was also thinking of adding a Conservative bias to Election Reform, but decided to restrain myself due to how useless ER is right now.

[Kay12]

Does "vote ideologically" mean old voting system (slightly random but usually towards the politician's alignment) or always towards alignment?

[Servant Corps]

Always towards alignment.

[mainiac]

Even in your example, some sort of ideological compromise was necessary on certain issues, which is hard to reflect in the current LCS system.

The compromises IMHO, constituted the bending to public opinion effect that has been proposed for L and C politicians.  What he clearly was not was an M, since his liberal positions far outnumbered his conservative ones.

As to it not working on a national level, can you name any modern president who staked out a moderate course between liberalism and conservatism?  The last guy I can think of was  Dwight Eisenhower and he was very much a product of a less polarized era.

[Kay12]

The funny thing about LCS moderates is that they're not part Liberal, part Conservative, but actually something in between. Yeah, I'm only saying this because I'm tired and feeling funny, but there actually exists a political alignment in LCS whose political agenda includes the following...

Representative Simon MacGyver, Moderate: I believe in gender equality, although in name only!

Representative Alice Youngblood, Moderate: We want the nuclear power to be used often. But not *too* often!

Senator Paul Kennedy, Moderate: I think gay people should be tolerated, but with only a few equal rights.

President John Smith, Moderate: It serves the entire country the best if wages are kept unfair while corporations are otherwise moderated.


On the other hand, several M laws make sense. For example misdemeanor flag burning isn't too radical or silly, netiher is a ban on military-style weapons or a fairly neutral nuclear power policy.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I see moderates as mostly Conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans, with a smattering of independents.

Though the thought crosses my mind of what the game would be like without moderates of any kind. You're with us or against us.

[Kay12]

I too see them as the "pussy wing" of either party. Of course, this changes as the game progresses. In the very late game I consider everyone not Elite Liberal to be the Conservative party's attempt to slow their imminent doom.

EDIT: The code didn't compile, so I committed a change that I think should work but seems a bit wonky (what, I got 435 against conservative drug laws... on a fairly nightmarish setting).

MORE EDIT: Made another change, and now it seems to produce even quite sensible results. Testing phase initialized!

MORE MORE EDIT: Nope, it doesn't. Seems like all the Congressmen are fickler than ever! I don't understand election code very well, so it may take a while for me to sort it out. If you (whoever is reading this) feel like fixing it, go ahead.

Clearly broken: Arch Conservatives may vote for making laws more liberal and Elite Liberals may vote for more Conservative laws.
Too volatile: Public opinion should have less effect when far from the Congressman's views (Liberals are more likely to vote a law from L to M than from C to C+).

MORE MORE MORE EDIT: After only a brief check, I encountered my old nemesis - the Assignment/Comparison bug, the one that plotted to keep women's rights CONSERVATIVE in versions of yore (well, not *that* yore, but you get the idea). Results seem to make more sense now, falling back to testing.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Too volatile: Public opinion should have less effect when far from the Congressman's views (Liberals are more likely to vote a law from L to M than from C to C+).

I would suggest that Liberals will never vote for a law to move from C to C+, and are very very hesitant to move from M to C. The reverse for Conservatives.

[Kay12]

Hmm, after looking at the system a bit more carefully, the worst possible outcome currently for a Liberal representative actually seems to be -1 - Conservative, but not Arch Conservative. The same applies to Conservatives, they aren't able to vote Elite Liberal.

The results don't show a lot of variance, I'm afraid. On the other hand, it may be because I have a lot of C+ politicians and they get replaced by L+ guys straight away.