- Name
Campaign In Poetry, Govern In Prose
Description
In their election night victory speech, the new @@CITY@@ Mayor P. N. O'Chio has admitted that almost all of their campaign promises were complete lies, prompting outrage from supporters.
Validity
Has not banned elections
Options
[option]"You mean there's not going to be 350 million @@CURRENCY@@s for new hospitals?" sobs disheartened voter @@RANDOMNAME@@, tearing off their wooden "Vote P. N. O'Chio!" campaign button. "Why does this keep happening? Politicians campaign telling us one thing, then when they're voted into office they abandon all their promises. It's not fair! Any politician caught flip-flopping like that should be thrown out of office immediately! Otherwise, they're just taking the voters for suckers."
[effect]politicians are prohibited from changing their mind on any issue
[option]"OBJECTION! The voters? What about the donors!" Still standing, notorious ambulance-chasing lawyer @@RANDOMNAME@@ continues: "This is a straight up issue of breach of contract. My clients donated to the P. N. O'Chio campaign in good faith, on the understanding that certain regulations would be, shall we say, finessed upon his taking office. In any other line of business, someone promising to do some work would be sued for failing to follow through on it. The same should be true of politicians."
[effect]the courts are full as politicians are sued over the definition of the word "the"
[option]"This is all quite ridiculous," counters disarming political fixer @@RANDOMNAME@@, casually "dropping" a bundle of fifty-@@CURRENCY@@ bills on the floor. "We live in the real world. Yes, some candidates may play a little fast-and-loose with the truth on the campaign trail, but voters don't care about ideas: they're voting for personalities. What matters is what P. N. O'Chio has in his heart, not what he says. Not to mention any law restricting political campaigning is a complete violation of free speech."
[effect]politicians promise ice cream on gold plates to an increasingly cynical electorate
[option]"I'm forced to agree," admits political scientist @@RANDOMNAME@@, who scored P. N. O'Chio's campaign at 0% on their "Electoral Truth-o-Meter". "Such a law would be impractical, and it could probably be skirted by clever politicians anyway. We'd be reduced to campaigns of terminal vagueness, and any politician who ever changed their convictions would be hounded out of office. What would be better would be to set up a neutral department to ruthlessly fact-check all political materials, speeches, and debates, and publish their findings. That way, voters will know the truth, no matter what the candidates are telling them."
[effect]candidates vie for office as "the slightly less dishonest choice"
[option]"There is another possibility," whispers black ops scientist @@RANDOMNAME@@, gesturing you over to their sinister hidden laboratory. "We've been experimenting on certain truth serums to aid our security services in interrogating terrorists. What if we fed them to the candidates as well? They'd be forced to tell the truth then. And forced to suffer the, ah, rather minor side-effects too, but surely that's a small price to pay for the prestige of holding public office?"
[effect]candidates for political office are forcibly injected with experimental drugs before live debates
It's always nice to see a new writer 