Like most political commentators, I’m certain I could run this country better than its elected leaders do. But unlike most armchair pundits, I’ve proven it — right here on the computers at National Review.

Thanks goes to Commander in Chief: Geo-Political Simulator 2009, the latest offering from video-game developer Eversim. The game puts players in the shoes of world leaders — both virtual presidents and virtual dictators — who must set their policy priorities on everything from troop levels abroad to trade policy to taxes.

One of the game’s scenarios is bound to be the most popular: the challenge, kicking off January 20, 2009, to get re-elected president of the United States in 2012. The default president, of course, is a black male Democrat.

It’s a dream come true for a pundit — or any egomaniac with strong political views. Within minutes, I’d drawn down the executive branch’s soldiers in the War on Drugs, pulled troops out of First World countries, had congressional allies introduce a bill to eliminate the “gun tax,” and ramped up enforcement of immigration laws. I jumped at every free-trade-agreement offer. Though I couldn’t figure out how to eliminate agencies completely, I went through each with a fine-tooth comb, killing off (or introducing bills to kill off) everything that was unnecessary, unconstitutional, or better left to the states. No federal support for the arts on my watch!

As far as I could tell, few people were actually any worse off. The drug-addiction rate climbed a little bit, but I’d say it was worth it to expand freedom, put federal law-enforcement dollars to better use, and ease pressure on the judicial system. GDP did just fine. I ran a budget surplus. Europe didn’t complain about missing our troops over there doing, well, whatever it is our troops in Europe do. And if some art groups folded because they couldn’t make it in the free market, well, too bad. America is about freedom of expression, not about taking money from taxpayers and using it to subsidize expression.

THE GREATEST ONE-TERM PRESIDENT EVER

The problem was, I didn’t get re-elected. Not even close. My approval rating (which by default started at 50 percent) barely clung to double digits, advisers resigned, laws I’d suggested almost always failed in the legislature, and the only people happy with my performance were Republicans — whose leaders praised me in newspapers and personal messages, but whose rank-and-file evidently told pollsters they still didn’t like the job I was doing.

A more paranoid right-winger might chalk this up to some deep-seated bias in the video-game industry, but I think things played out pretty much as they would have in the real world. By running as a Democrat but governing as a crazy libertarian-conservative, I alienated my base.

People like to say the federal government does more than it should, but as soon as you get specific, they really don’t want any significant cuts. Even when a policy helps most people (say, free trade), the few who are hurt (industries facing new competition from abroad) make trouble. Factional protests cropped up constantly during my Reign of Freedom, and once the press started noticing how many people had gotten loud about their distaste for me, it’s no shock my approval ratings sank. It seems the path of the radical government-slayer is not one a career politician can follow within the confines of democracy, in Commander in Chief or elsewhere.

Of course, a dictatorship solves this problem, but being king isn’t as much fun as you’d think: As Commander in Chief dictators soon discover, you deal frequently with the issue of using police force to quash protests, and you face coups when big groups of people get mad enough. Ick. (I want to be a civil-libertarian dictator living under the rule of law. Is that too much to ask?)

So I figured I’d start a new play-as-Obama game, and govern on democracy’s terms: gradual change only, along with a basic adherence to the principles of the Democratic party I’d run on. It worked a lot better: fewer protests, fewer disgruntled advisers, fewer angry interest groups. The entire project was essentially a balancing act. Throw the right amount of money at the right people, and they shut up. Your approval rating is easier to manage if you don’t do too much in the way of change.

It’s not exactly an epiphany that politicians often care more about popularity than about policy outcomes, but playing Commander in Chief makes one sympathize a little. The entire point of making our leaders face re-election is to pressure them to do what we want, not what they feel like. Great leaders can ignore the polls when necessary, but being one is just so damn tiring.

UNDER THE HOOD

Amazingly, Commander in Chief includes data on every country in the world. I soon became curious about the political assumptions built into the game — when players tweak the policy variables, how is the game programmed to react? For answers (and some strategy advice), I spoke with some people involved in the game’s production.

“We dealt with 50 data organizations, like OPEC, NAFTA, and the U.N.,” says Paul Lombardi, CEO of IGS, the game’s publisher. “With each country, you have 400 data points you have to manage. That data will be different if you’re dealing with Iran than it will be with North Korea or Japan.”

When it came to making those numbers interact with the player’s choices, the developers went through a three-part process, says Louis-Marie Rocques, Eversim’s France-based business-development manager. The first was to decide which statistics influenced which other statistics; the second was to construct a formula for determining just how the statistics affected one another; and the third was to fine-tune the formula to “make sure the game remained intuitive and playable by an average player.”

Of course, experts disagree on many of these issues, so it’s not as easy as it sounds. I asked Rocques how Commander in Chief handles taxes, for instance. How do tax rates affect the economy? Is there a Laffer effect — can government revenues actually go down at extremely high levels of taxation?

“[The game] compares the competitiveness and profitability of every economic sector for all countries in the world,” he says. “So, if you have higher taxes, your industry loses market share, and production can go to other countries, increasing then your local unemployment. But how big is this effect in the game? It really depends on which sector, which country, which tax.”

And no, the Laffer effect isn’t programmed in — but since the game’s goal is to keep the leader’s approval rating up, super-high taxes are still not a good idea.

One strategy tip I picked up was that my initial plan — play as a Democrat, work in some conservative ideas — actually can work. In fact, it’s a crucial technique for succeeding in Commander in Chief. “If you play as a Democrat and you do something they’re not in favor of, they’ll continue to like you, up to a certain level,” says Rocques. Apparently, those last five words are crucial.

There will be updates and future versions of Commander in Chief, says Lombardi. Owners of the current software will be able to download “patches” that update each country’s statistics to reflect real-world changes. Next year, there will be a new version targeted toward American educators; players will only be able to take on the role of the U.S. president, and some of the realism (such as profanity in the dialogue) will be toned down.

After that, Lombardi expects updates every two to four years. So if Commander in Chief keeps improving — updating the numbers, making the graphics and human personalities more realistic, and fixing a few noticeable technical glitches — it could become the Madden of politics.

– Robert VerBruggen is an NR associate editor. He edits the Phi Beta Cons blog.