Election 2010

Election 2010 was an ad produced by the Dozerfleet founder for SWOCC Studios in the summer of 2010, encouraging voters to show up for the primaries and cast their votes. Its creation culminated in an Utterly Sims download featuring 2010 US Taxpayers Party of Michigan gubernatorial candidates Stacey Mathia and Chris Levels.

Development
The project was first proposed some time around July 5th of 2010, where Kat Georgas requested that the Dozerfleet founder put together a 30-second-to-a-minute-long ad that would air on at least three of SWOCC's four channels. This ad was to be a very simple reminder to residents of Farmington (15), Farmington Hills (8), and Novi (13) that the primary elections were arriving on August 3rd.

Pressed for time with other projects and limited in resources, the Dozerfleet founder suggested doing an ad with an "EA Sports"-like outro. The majority would be words fading in and out, reminding viewers of the issues at stake. An initial draft script was proposed, only to be revised due to some of the issues being "too hot-button" for a local municipality. A watered-down script was approved, and became the ad.

It went online to SWOCC's cable cast servers around July 22nd of 2010, allowing the ad to air for about a week before the Dozerfleet founder took a week off of work to attend his brother's wedding and vote in the primaries in the Lansing area.

Aesthetics
The multicolored outro title card is largely due to the fact that on the DozerfleetWiki backup site, there was some research done for the Michigan primaries. Kat wanted to know whom to contact that was running for election and was relevant to the tri-city area. As a result, a list was compiled of every candidate relevant to Oakland County elections that had reason to appear at SWOCC and appear in their own campaign ad.

It was originally going to be a very narrow pool of candidates receiving spots, with the focus being primarily on Democrats and Republicans. However, the Dozerfleet founder decided to go a step further and include three different minority parties to make the mixture more interesting.

There were a surprisingly large number of Libertarian, Taxpayers, and even Green Party officials in Oakland County at the time; so it made sense to give them as many spots as possible stir up the status quo of public opinion. More time was spent on finding a Green Party symbol that was usable for the ad than for any other party's symbol. There was a large toss-up as to what the Constitution/Taxpayers Party theme color should be. Typically, that party's main color is white. However, it would have been invisible against a white background. Libertarian elections are usually color-coded yellow; but a golden eagle was finally chosen to represent the Taxpayers Party. Therefore, the Libertarians were assigned a Statue of Liberty symbol that was purple, their secondary color.

As a not-so-subtle stealth visual pun, the fact that the Left and Right divide in America is typically viewed in the overly simplistic dichotomy of Republican and Democrat is alluded to in the title card. A blue donkey pops out of the "E" in "Election" as it faces left; while a red elephant pops out of the "0" in "2010" and faces right. Other parties' symbols were placed wherever it was convenient to place them; with their placement having nothing to do with a left-right ideological spectrum.

Final script
"Narrator: 'It's coming...a moment that will decide your future! With countless issues to address...why not have a say yourself? Election 2010!  Make your vote count!'"

Issues
The issues seen fading in and out against a black background include:


 * Taxes
 * Economy
 * Pollution
 * Healthcare
 * Insurance costs

Issues that were rejected from the initial script include:


 * Insurance hikes
 * Obamacare
 * Abortion
 * Windfall taxes
 * Judicial activism

Criticisms of the rejected text floats ranged from "too national" to "too biased in language."

Stacey Mathia
Shortly after the ad was made, the Dozerfleet founder voted for Pete Hoekstra in the Michigan primaries. He ran a tight race, but could not win the support needed to overcome Rick Snyder's dominance in the Detroit area. Therefore, the Dozerfleet founder decided to vote in the general elections for Stacey Mathia.

A Tea Party favorite, Stacey easily won the nomination for the US Taxpayers Party of Michigan. She found herself with radio DJ Chris Levels for a running mate. The Dozerfleet founder decided to bring some more attention to them by re-creating them in The Sims 3, and then posting them to Utterly Sims at The Dozerfleet Forum. This tie-in project, however, took until almost October to complete. The founder spent a good share of free time in September trying to learn how to use Windows 7 and Sims 3, having been confined to Windows XP and Sims 2 for five years.

Election results
Stacey and Chris' ticket won a total of 20,000 votes statewide, averaging them about 40 votes per precinct. In Oakland County, they received a total of 10 votes on November 2nd, 2010.

In 2010, this was a remarkable achievement for a minority party ticket. Competing with Stacey for Independent and Tea Party votes was Ken Proctor of the Libertarian Party, who managed to get a total of 1% of the state of Michigan supporting him. Faring considerably worse was Harley Mikkelson of the Green Party.

In spite such a small voter turnout, Stacey became reasonably well-publicized across the Internet, and would later contribute a small portion of her time on Facebook to helping promote Ron Paul in his bid for Speaker of the House.

Stacey's priceless value to the state was overlooked in the 2010 elections, largely due to the determination of Michigan Republicans to keep Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero out of the Capitol.

In spite doubts about Rick Snyder's business model and character, Republicans strategized that it was safer to invest in votes for him than to make any move that might possibly allow Bernero a chance to actually win.

Bernero had already alienated himself with the Department of Energy and Labor Resources, and was accused by one Republican website of bringing Lansing's economy to "near-90% unemployment." He had also barely avoided a recall as mayor of Lansing.

Questionable as those statistics were, Michigan voters gave Snyder a landslide victory. It didn't help Bernero's cause one bit that he defended every single poor decision that Jennifer Granholm ever endorsed.

In spite voters neglecting her in the 2010 elections, Stacey has demonstrated that it will take more than one defeat to bring her down.