The Alphaville Herald

And the Alphaville Herald Endorses…

by Alphaville Herald on 10/04/04 at 12:18 am

It is customary for a newspaper to endorse candidates at election time, and several sims have asked us if we intend to endorse a candidate in today’s election. Picking between these candidates is not an easy task. Both are eminently qualified and capable, but both are also flawed in non-trivial ways.

On the one hand, there are serious concerns about Mr-President’s associations with JC Soprano’s in-game mafia family, in particular in connection with “consulting” about the election. Mr-President contends that he was only interested in preventing multiple votes by individual sims, but surely a Mafia boss is the wrong person to bring on as a consultant. More troubling is the allegation that he considered asking Mr. Soprano to host the elections. This is surely not good judgment.

Adding to questions about Mr-President’s judgment is his association with Dre Jeffries’ First Sims Bank, which has been exposed as a scam operation. Concerns about Mr. Jeffries were brought to the attention of Mr-President some time ago, but he shrugged them off. Not a wise policy given that the Bank is featured on the AVG website.

Then there are concerns about the excessive militarization of the Alphaville Government. It has spawned an FBI, a CIA, a Police Department, a SWAT team, a Secret Service and an Army, but little in the way of support for newbies and victims of scammers. The AVG has become, in effect, a kind of Texas Republican dream state – all police and army, and nothing else.

Turning to Ashley Richardson, there are also concerns. While she has matured a great deal during this election campaign, there have been moments when her immaturity has shown through. Two cases of note are her apparent involvement with Sammy Jo’ in manufacturing a fake death threat on this blog, imputing that the threat was coming from a scammer. The second was her departure from the debate. While we are in no position to doubt that she had taped the Sopranos and was not leaving to watch it, her final posting excusing herself from the debate seemed manufactured. It would have been better to simply say that she had to retire.

These are the negatives. On the plus side, Mr-President has done a remarkable job of putting the AFG together. He has added a great deal of fun and excitement to a game that is otherwise barren of content. He has also shown a very even temper and good humor in dealing with the many critics that he faces in his job. On the question of his connections with mafias and illegit bankers, well this is troubling, but it is hard to stay clear of these elements in Alphaville. They are ubiquitous in our shard, and in many cases they constitute the power gamers that the President of the AVG must deal with on a daily basis. Clean hands may be too much to ask for in the rough and tumble political climate of Alphaville.

Ashley Richardson also offers many positives. She is clearly highly intelligent and politically astute, and she brings a fresh perspective to the game. She is concerned that the AVG is becoming to serious about itself – which suggests that she thinks it may evolve into another SSG (not an unreasonable worry). Her relative immaturity is a concern, but she is learning fast (kids grow up fast on the mean streets of Alpha).

Originally we were tempted to say that Ms. Richardson is about a year away from being a fully effective president of the AVG, and we toyed with the idea of endorsing Mr-President for one more year maximum and suggesting that he bring her into his administration is some important role so that she might get first hand experience in the government. But on reflection we felt that this was unfair. There is no evidence that Ms. Richardson is not capable of taking the reigns now. No doubt some of the members of the AVG would depart if she won, and this would result in a rather different looking AVG, but perhaps that would be for the best.

In the final analysis both candidates are deserving. Mr-President deserves a chance to keep building on the impressive institution that he has assembled in little over a year. Ashley Richardson is deserving because she is intelligent, capable, and would bring fresh ideas and perhaps a less militaristic look to the AVG. In the end, we endorse both candidates. May the best one win.