anyone want to make a 1968 scenario?

[mokbubble2]

Would anyone like to make a 1968 Scenario. Lots of big names like Johnsonson, RFK, Humphrey, Nixon, George Romney, Wallace, Eugene McCarthy. Lot's of what ifs.

If anyone is intereted Id be happy to start it off, but would need help.

[ElectricMonk]

If I ever get my copy of the Scenario Constructor I plan on developing: 1964, 1968, 1972, 1974 (counterfactual, no 25th Amendment), and 1976.

My current, and major, problem is that primaries didn't matter much—in terms of delegates—until 1972 on the Democratic side. The game currently has no delegate tracking system or a proper convention. Without those it's exceedingly hard to properly model scenarios taking place earlier then 1972 (1980, on the Republican side)

My source books are currently the Making of the President series and a couple others—notably Jules Witcover's work Marathon covering the '76 election. There are other sources I'll add if I get some money to buy them, and I do have a very interesting book that includes a mathematical formula to calculate objective and subjective chances of getting elected during the primaries.

As for '68 I don't see how you managed to miss Rockefeller, Lindsay, McGovern, and the strange possibility of a McCarthy/John Connolly presidential bid

[mokbubble2]

ALright, so if you get the scenario creator, maybe we can start, and divide up the tasks.

[mokbubble2]

anyone else interested?

[ElectricMonk]

I'm still interested, but I've looked at the scenario creator and I just can't see doing it without some way to better handle non-primary delegates—the game doesn't allow them to switch, and doesn't simulate winning their votes very well.

I'll see if I can at least come up with some kind of solution based on organization to the problem of getting their votes (i.e. a system where barnstorming & speeches matter little in non-primary states, while foot soldiers matter a great deal).

[mokbubble2]

I think that you would eigther have to create a different state and call it non-primary delegates or something. We could always just have all the non-primary states not count. Anything will have to be arbitrary, an I woudlnt let it stop us from creating a scenario. All these things require an ounce of suspension of dibelief.

[ElectricMonk]

Well we could just put Humphrey at 100% in all non-primary states (plus people like Daley in Illinois) and that would make it a real slog to win delegates there for Kennedy or McCarthy.

We need to model the delegates at least, those states did vote at set times and control who really got nominated. It even applies to momentum—if Kennedy wins say California and lives he gets Daley's delegates and can probably force McCarthy out, taking him to around the same as Humphrey.

The problem is that Humphrey has too much support—which is, to be fair, pretty realistic. Perhaps go heavy on favourite son candidates who all like Humphrey, but not enough to endorse early. Thus you have primary season (I'd argue we start right after the New Hampshire primary) and if you can win enough primaries and gain enough momentum you can pick up the various favourite sons who are swayed by your primary success (100% in their state, 0% everywhere else with no stats worth speaking of except disliking people who aren't named Humphrey).

Probably be quite a bit of trial and error, though.

[mokbubble2]

Sorry it took me awhile to respond. That idea might work.

One idea is to create like 20 favorite sons, or big-whigs who will have to drop out sometime in the game and endorse someone. We could set the relations at low with McCarthy/McGovern, medium with RFK and high with LBJ/HHH. So under that scenario we could just make people liek Daley a candidate with NO support outside there region and with no money, ect. THe problem of course is they could lose their states or something funnny happen and end up winning primary states as the Kuchinich's sometimes do in the 08 scenario.

We could also try making the endorsers REALLY powerful and all favoring HHH. Your call. Tell me when you want toget started. We could start doing things for the general election like changing the electoral college without giving that too much thought.

[ElectricMonk]

Well we're all waiting on Warner '12 for delegate counts, types of primaries, and when they voted, unless somebody else can pick up the right Congressional Quarterly stuff from their local library (and if you can, I need 1976 as well as 1968). Go to this thread for details on the books we need.

Whoops. Actually we have the dates via my spreadsheet of them over in that thread.

I'm still hoping I can convince TheorySpark to add regular convention states (heck they'd need them for their 1960 scenario with any accuracy…).

Anyway, yeah.

Wikipedia has the governors and the congress so governors and majorities per region can be set. They also have electoral votes for the states in '68.

Polling wasn't as good in 1968 but the Democrats are easy with so few primary states: high for RFK, McCarthy trailing—we can probably just start with their winning percentages -5%. Like I said earlier I suggest we kick off the primaries right after the New Hampshire primary as that's when RFK got in. Republicans are also easy: Nixon all the way, very weak Romney (higher in the industrial belt), weak Rockefeller except in the Northeast. Reagan strong in California, weak elsewhere.

-There were a few favourite sons for the Republicans, listed in Wiki and elsewhere

-A mix of favourite sons and 100% for Humphrey can model the non-primary states—we have to make sure Humphrey can't win first ballot without either most favourite sons or at least some primary states.

National Voter Turnout 60.8% voted, so that's our alienation factor (~35%)

Census PDF file of eligible voters per state for 1968 I haven't yet found total voters by state (their estimates start with 1970, which we could use I suppose).

Martin Luther King dying is likely our main event—with a low % chance for RFK getting killed (too frustrating, otherwise).

PM me your email and I'll send you a PDF file on how RFK could have won the nomination and general if he had lived—plenty of good data in there.

Some Issues:

Viet Nam—high/high

Urban Unrest—high/high

Civil Rights—high/high

Pardons—medium/medium

(nothing else was very important, all low/low)

Taxes

Government

National Service (Draft)

Soviet Union

China