2008

Candidates
The mod begins by offering the players a choice between youthful Illinois senator Barack Obama on the Democratic side, and respected maverick Arizona senator John McCain. Obama enters the mod with a moderate lead over McCain, one that significantly increases after the advent of the 2008 global bank failures. Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are featured as unplayable third-party candidates, and typically have no major effect on gameplay.

Running Mates
Both McCain and Obama are given a selection of five running mate options, with Sarah Palin and Joe Biden as each candidates' real-life choice respectively. Along with Biden, Virginia governor Tim Kaine, Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, and Indiana senator Evan Bayh are all running mate options for Obama. Each represent a different area of appeal for Obama; Kaine helps play up his outsider status with a ticket of two young civil rights attorneys, Dodd appeals to the activist left wing of the party with support for marijuana legalization and opposition to the Iraq War, Sebelius is popular among moderate, bipartisan voters in the heart of the nation with a taste for pragmatic leaders, and Bayh appeals to older Clinton voters who've become increasingly conservative since the '90s, and could use a prominent figure of that era to rally around. Similarly for McCain, Palin appeals (initially) to women voters and younger people, Tom Ridge to moderate establishment Republicans, Joe Lieberman to hawkish Democrats and former Clintonites, Romney to socially liberal, fiscally conservative voters, and Pawlenty to voters in the typically Democratic Upper Midwest.

Obama
Having just narrowly defeated long-time frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the brutal 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Obama comes in with a significant lead over McCain, who is hampered by the unpopular incumbent Bush administration, the Wars on Terror, and the collapsing economy. As a result, Obama can either adopt a moderate image than he had in the primary, in order to win in as big of a landslide as possible, or hone in on his left flank, and run as a progressive Democrat.