WA-Dems: The most gamer-friendly ticket of all time.
It’s endorsement season! As a game designer concerned about democracy and the rule of law, I’m of course endorsing Kamala Harris for president. She hardly needs it: In the week since Biden dropped out, Harris has racked up the endorsements of her boss, the Obamas, the Clintons, six current Cabinet members, 46 of the 51 Senators in the Democratic caucus, 200 of the 212 Democratic House members, and all 23 Democratic state governors. She’s a juggernaut. She’s gonna crush Trump in November. As I wrote in my piece on her four years ago, she’s got my vote.
That’s not the endorsement I want to talk about today. As I mentioned, I’m a game designer, developing games like Betrayal at House on the Hill, Lords of Vegas, and the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. If you read or play my stuff, you might care about games. So, I want to tell you what’s happening in the State of Washington where I live. Washington Democrats have fielded the most gamer-friendly ticket of all time for our August 6 primary. Politicians often say, “vote with your pocketbook.” If you’re in Washington this month, you can vote with your dice bag.
We care about games out here. We’re the epicenter of the tabletop games industry and host hundreds of videogame companies, generating tens of billions in sales each year. Our elected officials get in the weeds with us. Senator Maria Cantwell, whom I support for re-election, has been on the front lines of the videogame merger boom. Seattle Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, whom I also endorse, joined me and spoke to gamers at PAX. As gamemakers, we have the attention of those who represent us.
So, it is not shocking that the Washington Dems have put forth gamers for our three most important state offices. OK, honestly, it’s pretty shocking. Gamers don’t rise to positions of power much. That’s because, and I mean this lovingly, we’re mostly dorks. But we do know a lot about strategy. You gotta be smart to rise in Washington state politics. These folks are smart.
At the top of the ticket is the Democratic candidate for governor, Attorney General Bob Ferguson. He aims to succeed popular three-term governor Jay Inslee, who, at 74, decided against running for re-election. Ferguson has been a local government fixture for a couple decades, first on the King County Council and then three terms as AG. In that office, he sued the Trump administration a whopping 82 times, winning 22 cases. That’s a darn good record against the most corrupt presidency in U.S. history.
This aggressiveness is understandable when you know that Ferguson is an internationally ranked chess master. “Bobby Ferguson” holds a 2232 rating. That’s really good, like top-thousand-in-America good. He won our state chess championship twice. His games are discussed in chess publications and over backroom tables. He talks like a chess player:
Sometimes we need to take a chance. I tell my staff: “Yes, I hear what you’re saying that our odds of winning this case are not that good, but we can’t win if we don’t file.”
“We can’t win if we don’t file”! How many times have you said something like that in your own games? He has taken this approach aggressively, winning hundreds of millions of dollars from opioid companies, campaign finance violators, and polluters. Our Attorney General is always moves ahead of the other guy. If you’re filling out a ballot in Washington’s gubernatorial primary, consider searching for Bobby Ferguson.
Secretary of State Steve Hobbs is an ardent defender of democracy. He has protected Washington’s elections against cyberattacks, fraudulent candidates, and Russian disinformation. Though Washington is thought of as a liberal hotbed, we weren’t guaranteed a champion of voting rights. Hobbs is the first Democratic Secretary of State here in half a century. Since jazz bandleader Victor Aloysius Meyers left the office in 1965, this state has believed Republicans were more trustworthy on elections. What changed in 2021? Well, there was that whole insurrection thing. But also, we Democrats finally had a just and true candidate. We finally had a paladin.
Hobbs knows what a paladin is. He’s an avid Dungeons & Dragons player. We’re not talking a weekend warrior here. Hobbs co-founded the RPG podcast Geeks of Cascadia and the local game convention OrcaCon. He‘s spoken at PAX. He has a beholder on his desk, nearby his replicas of Mjolnir and Cap’s shield.
Secretary Hobbs is committed to Washington’s game industry as well. He got a ban on roleplaying games in our state prisons overturned. He installed games in our state libraries. He helped rally game creators to form the Tabletop Game Alliance, an advocacy group for our interests. He led an incredibly productive trade mission from our industry to Japan, forging economic bonds between us and our Japanese allies. (Disclosure: I was on that mission. Secretary Hobbs also wrote the foreword to my book Game Theory in the Age of Chaos back when he was a state senator.)
That picture above: That’s Hobbs playing D&D with Senator Curtis King, a Republican. Hobbs might be the best across-the-aisle politician in the state. He’ll work with anyone to advance the interests of Washington’s citizens. Paladins can’t demand that everyone conform to their beliefs. Sometimes, you just need to get through the challenges. That’s when you need a party leader. The adventuresome choice this August is Steve Hobbs.
Until announcing his candidacy to replace Ferguson as Attorney General, Nick Brown was the top U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Washington. He was the first African-American to be appointed to the top prosecutor job out here. He’s served with distinction, coming down heavily on illegal traffickers in ghost guns (firearms manufactured without serial numbers). Previously, he was Governor Inslee’s general counsel, which meant he needed to be an expert on environmental law, the death penalty, and the legalization of marijuana, among hundreds of other issues. As U.S. Attorney, he’s faced the region’s mounting fentanyl crisis with compassion. Though he accepts that prosecution is a regrettably necessary tool, he does not believe it is the answer. I don’t think you’ll hear many federal prosecutors say that the war on drugs has been a failure.
That’s the versatility and cleverness that you might expect from Brown when you recall the last time you saw him: on the second season of the reality show Survivor. The Harvard law student from Steilacoom lasted 30 days in the Australian Outback, first in Kucha tribe and later the merged Barramundi tribe. Dude built a kitchen from scratch. For me, the most interesting moment of his month was when he led his blindfolded tribemates to victory in the first-ever “blind leading the blind” challenge.
Survivor is the most strategic game show on TV. You need insane levels of gamer adaptability to last through the challenges, which get notably harder as you suffer from food and sleep deprivation. In his last appearance, he noted that he came into the show thinking he was invincible. Survivor taught him that his weaknesses were just as important as his strengths.
I don’t want an Attorney General who feels invincible. I want one who’s smart. Like Ferguson said, you don’t win the cases you don’t file. But you do win the cases you file strategically. Brown is immensely qualified to do just that. With your vote, you can make Nick Brown the survivor in August’s attorney general primary.
I obviously don’t think you should vote for a candidate just because they play games. JD Vance played Magic when he was a teen. I don’t think you should vote for him. Games can be trivial.
But the skill in understanding and succeeding at games is not trivial. It shows a marshaling of intelligence, courage, and teamwork. When you play games with dedication and honor at the highest levels, you show others that you are worth following. Washington Democrats have put forth a slate of winners. If you live here, they deserve your vote.
This is the 73rd installment of a series on politics and game theory. It has covered impeachment of Trump, Russian collusion, white supremacy, abortion, guns, nuclear war, debt, Colin Kaepernick, sexual harassment, the Mueller probe, taxes, Trump’s first year, the Clinton Foundation, immigration, parades, the Democrats, hope, family separation, trade wars, the midterms, the Times op-ed, Justice Kavanaugh, Speaker Pelosi, lame ducks, the GOP legacy, the stock market, the Democratic field, shutdowns, third parties, the Virginia scandals, in-party impeachment, the Trump mafia, college admissions, William Barr, Brexit, Iran, the Mueller Report, Joe Biden, Oregon’s standoff, the environment, Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s lies, Pelosi’s strategy, the impeachment inquiry, political outsiders, Rudy Giuliani, the Berlin wall, protest art, Boris Johnson, religion, engagement, Bernie Sanders, progressive unity, the Democratic nominee, the pandemic, unemployment, rioting, the Klan, the Confederacy, the GOP 2020 strategy, Biden’s strategy, the wildfire crisis, civil war, Kamala Harris, Trump’s COVID diagnosis, Biden’s case, Native Americans, the Capitol insurrection, Blizzard, election delegitimization, the Israel-Hamas War, and Democrats’ 2024 strategy. Most of these appear in my book Game Theory in the Age of Chaos, which you can get on our store now.
