My sons came home from school today wanting to play an online ‘Win the White House’ game they learned about and played at school. A bit worn out from covering the real thing, I first kind of begged off. But my sons are highly persistent – especially one of them who shall remain unnamed. So I finally agreed. And you know what? It was pretty fun.
It was fun playing with them of course. But it was even enjoyable and a bit challenging in its own right. It’s pretty straightforward. You have a national electoral map. You can fundraise, poll, run media and make appearances. And it’s basically a matter of a matter of figuring out where to focus your resources based on the best opportunities to pick up or not lose electoral votes. In other words, something like the real thing. Along the way, you have to identify campaign messages tied to specific issues. That’s most of the educational aspect – understanding basic formulations and positions on high profile policy issues – taxes, gun, environment, energy, spending, etc. Pretty basic if you’re an adult politics junkie. But definitely educational for a kid and some non-kids. Anyway, if you have children of almost any edge (you can play at different educational difficulty levels) you might want to give it a spin. And if you don’t have kids, frankly, I found it pretty fun anyway. Here’s the link.
