Politics: Which Candidates Support Gamers?

In the elections next November (in America, sorry if my audience extends further than I thought) certain candidates make it a selling point that they'll legislate against mature video games and others want the industry to regulate itself (i.e. not ban mature video games for anybody, because they enjoy making money as they should). Unfortunately, the ones that want to ban mature games to some extent are actually the frontrunners for both parties right now. Here's an idea of what we know on the politicians' public stances on video games:

Hillary Clinton (D): For legislation against video games. As senator, Hillary was a leading lady in the campaign against video gaming for minors after the hot coffee scandal in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Her Family Entertainment Protection Act was to set up fines to any store managers that sold M-rated games (practically every game on the market, it seems now) to minors. If this had happened when I was a minor, I would likely have committed suicide (and I'd leave a deathnote saying I did it just like Master Chief would have, by throwing a grenade at his feet). All jokes aside, Hillary = BAD for gamers. The article linked to at the beginning involves her claim that she's not done fighting mature video games, and is somehow still angry about hot coffee. Even when it takes way more effort to find than real porn. But that doesn't mean vote for a Republican, because...

Mitt Romney (R): Also for legislation against video games. Be sure to check out that link for the video. Hilarious. It's like exactly the cliche for what a non-attack political commercial would be like. Dumb metaphors included (they inhaled too deeply in the ocean in which they were swimming?) There aren't too many details in that article, but he's campaigning basically on nothing but family values, so of course he wants mature video games banned to minors if not banned altogether (be ready for a lot more paintball shooters...)


John Edwards (D): His response basically said that the ESRB is a great thing, and it's doing great, but also maybe the government could do something too. It was very two-sided, is what I'm trying to say. He cited stats that the likelihood of a minor getting an M-rated game has gone down from 85% to 42% since 2000, but then immediately said that number is far too high and seemed to support government legislation. So... Not really sure what his position is.

Barack Obama (D): In support of experimentation on young children. That was his stance at the end, no joke. He said the industry could do well policing itself, and technology had ways of blocking adult media to minors that are growing more advanced over time. Obama mentioned that the federal government should at least look over the ESRB's shoulders every now and then to see if they're doing their job, though. His last sentence said that he supported federal funding to study video games' effects on the development of children, hence the experimentation at the beginning. Anyway, don't expect Obama to ban mature video games to minors any time soon, though.

Bill Richardson (D): Didn't know which issue he was talking about. His response was all about education, which was segued into a little bit, but still strange. He said he'd pay federal employees (as in public school teachers) for one on one time with children. This, again, has little or nothing to do with video games for minors. Oh well.

And that's all. No one else even responded to the survey among presidential candidates. Out of those, the best candidate for video gaming is likely Barack Obama. But none of the candidates especially have to worry about upsetting gamers, because they don't really vote too much. And the ones who will be banned from playing M-rated video games by law cannot vote. So they may as well campaign for the parents' votes instead. So until video gamers vote, the candidates are always as a whole going to want to ban video games, because the only people who can vote just don't understand.

How can they be so dumb that they think every game has a hidden clothes-on sex mini-game? Clinton wanted to make an investigation to see if that was a wide-ranging problem. Investigation over: it's not! I can stay here making jokes about sex mini-games in Ratchet & Clank all day, but my point is made. If they misunderstand the gaming industry that much, they shouldn't legislate on it. Any problems with kids are the parents' fault, anyway. For the full responses of all the candidates, look no further than here.