It's about time someone's come up with a video game that lets the presidential hopefuls face off in a forum befitting their partisan manner: Paintball. Presidential Paintball pits your candidate of choice against the other presidential hopefuls in a rolling paintball match that takes place in and around the White House. While the game is fairly easy to beat, I never get tired of watching a huge-headed Clinton or Romney roll across the floor. Oddly enough, when I got to McCain, he kept standing up and shooting at the floor by his feet. Statement or coding mistake?

Woodchuck Chumley and Crackers the Chimp (who looks suspiciously like a current, high-level politician, will be on location at the Iowa Caucus Thursday covering the latest news for "GRRNews.com". The live coverage also coincides with the launch of the game's official site.

Publisher Gamecock promises that the team of crack cosplay reporters will be delivering election polls, gossip, stock tips and interviews with candidates. Man, I hope they have a camera recording when they go for their first interview with a real politician. I can't wait to see the look on Hilary Clinton's or Mike Huckabee's expression when faced with a grown man dressed up as a Woodchuck wearing a fake hair piece and carrying a live microphone. If bullets aren't involved it should be priceless.

Recently Common Sense Media, a non-partisan organization "dedicated to improving the media lives of children and families", sent out a questionnaire about kids and the media to the current roster of presidential candidates.

In it they only ask one specific question about video games, the candidates take on legislating violent video games sales. Only Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Senator Barack Obama, Former Governor Mitt Romney and Governor Bill Richardson answered the questions in time for the deadline. The answers, I believe, give readers a sense on the candidate's take on video games and the first amendment.

In his answer Edwards points to the ESRB as a good example of industry responsibility. Barack seems to be calling for the feds to get involved, if only to once more study the impact of video games on "children's cognitive development." Richardson calls for the parents to be educated about the inappropriate content of "many video games." Citing the need to protect children from a "societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex and perversion", Romney says that the government needs to "get serious" against retailers that sell adult games to children.

Both Edwards and Barack also sort of talk a bit about gaming when answering a question about managing their childrens' media use. Hit the jump to read their answers to that question and all four candidates full take on video game censorship.

Question: How Do You Manage Your Kids' Media Use?

Senator John Edwards of North Carolina
My wife Elizabeth and I spend as much time with our children - Jack, who's 7; Emma Claire, who's 9; and Cate, who's 25 — as possible, on and off the campaign trail. We try to limit the time our younger children spend watching TV and playing video games by providing them with a lot of other activities. Our youngest children both play community sports, and Elizabeth especially does a lot of arts-and-crafts projects with them. Beyond UNC games, watching television isn't a favorite pastime in our home.

Elizabeth likes to say that we've had children in the '70s, the '80s, the '90s and our youngest just in 2000, so we've faced a wide range of parenting challenges and joys, including changes in media and popular culture. We've always encouraged our kids to think critically about the things they see on television and in movies in light of the values we've tried to instill in them.

Senator Barack Obama
As a general matter, we try to limit the amount of television our children watch. Children watch an average of three hours a day of TV — for African American children, it's four. It's too much, and all parents should turn off the TV and read to their children more often. But when our children do watch television, we try to watch it with them. This means finding programming that we can watch as a family and being there to answer any questions it may raise with our kids.

Obviously, this gets harder when I am on the campaign trail. But Michelle and I make every effort to read with our kids as much as possible. Rather than just sitting them in front of the television, we try to get them to read the latest Harry Potter.

Question: To date, nearly 10 states have considered legislation to keep violent video games out of kids' hands. Would you support this type of legislation at the federal level? What other strategies would you support to keep the video game industry and other media companies from marketing and selling inappropriate content to children?

Answers:
John Edwards, D-NC: While parents must ultimately decide what video games their children play, a lot of the responsibility for restricting marketing should be placed on software manufacturers. The Entertainment Software Rating Board is a good example of industry responsibility, and I support its ratings program, guidelines for responsible advertising practices, and outreach to game manufacturers and retailers. I also support leading video console manufacturers' use of parental controls.

But we have more work to do. An investigation by the Federal Trade Commission found that, since 2000, the likelihood of a child under age 17 being able to purchase an M-rated game (intended for people 17 or older) has been cut in half, falling from 85 percent to 42 percent. That number is much too high, and the FTC has also reported continued problems with the marketing of these games, especially on the Internet. If the industry does not continue to make progress in keeping video games with intense violence and adult content away from children, we will need to consider further steps to ensure that parents' decisions about their children's exposure to these games are not being undermined by retailers, advertisers and manufacturers.

Barack Obama, D-IL: We need to give parents the tools and information they need to make choices about what programs their children are watching or what video games they are playing. As we move towards a digital environment, there is a golden opportunity for the industry to do this on their own—to use the latest in technology to give parents more information and more choice. For example, this technology could make it possible for parents to create their own family tier just by programming their television to block certain channels, block certain genres of programming like dramas, or block television at certain times of the day. The same can be said of video games, especially as we're moving into an era when they can be downloaded as easily as today's movies and television shows.

I would call upon the video game industry to give parents better information about programs and video games by improving the voluntary rating system we currently have. Broadcasters and video game producers should take it upon themselves to improve this system to include easier to find and easier to understand descriptions of exactly what kind of content is included. But if the industry fails to act, then my administration would.

And even if the industry does do some responsible self-policing, there's still a role for the federal government to play. We need to understand the impact of these new media better. That's why I supported federal funding to study the impact of video games on children's cognitive development.

Bill Richardson, D-NM: I would consider this legislation, but I truly believe that we should make sure parents are educated about the inappropriate content of many video games. We have to get parents — all parents — more involved in the education of our nation's students. Legislation and teachers cannot do it alone, no matter how good they are. Parental involvement is more important to a child's success than any test or book.

As president, I will issue an executive order that provides all federal employees with eight hours per year of paid, one-to-one time with their children. And I will encourage businesses and the rest of the public sector to do the same.

Mitt Romney, R-MA: I want to restore values so children are protected from a societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex, and perversion. I've proposed that we enforce our obscenity laws again and that we get serious against those retailers that sell adult video games that are filled with violence and that we go after those retailers.

Presidential Questions [Common Sense Media]

I have now, sitting on my laptop, a leaked copy of the National Institute on Media and the Family's annual Media Wise Video Game Report Card, set to be officially released tomorrow.

The annual report card is becoming increasingly out-dated and unnecessary, something that probably explains the desperate tone of this year's report. In his executive summary for the report, David Walsh tries to drum up a little fear, a little attention by first admitting that things have actually gotten quite good when it comes to ratings awareness and enforcement, but then hints at an "ominous backslide on multiple fronts."

What's interesting is that the summary cites very specific examples for the positive, such as Target removing Manhunt 2 from shelves after finding AO content was viewable with a hack, or that GameStop has started firing people for selling M-rated games to minors, but doesn't really do the same for the negative. Instead Walsh writes that "Complacency, especially on the part of retailers and parents, appears to have caused a backslide in ratings awareness and enforcement."

Walsh continues:

And, at the same time, while the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has continued to educate the public about its video game rating system, several shocking incidents have inadvertently revealed dangerous loopholes in the ratings process. Simply put, some of the hard-won progress seen in previous years has been lost, and now, too many children are spending too much time playing inappropriate video games that can harm their health and development.

His only example, the fact that a few churches were using Halo as a way to attract young gamers back to the church.

It is in from this morass of self-doubt and shaky evidence that NIMF launches their detailed "report card" on gaming this year.

This year's report card is broken into five parts: The MediaWise Video Game Report Card, the Buying Guide, the ESRB Rating System and Ratings Education Efforts, the Retailer Ratings Education and Enforcement Surveys and a new poll they conducted of kids and parents with Harris Interactive.

Here's the quick summary for each.

The MediaWise Video Game Report Card
Parental Involvement: Grade: C
ESRB Ratings Education: Grade: B
Retailer Policies: Grade: C
Retailer Ratings Enforcement
National Retailers: Grade: D
Specialty Stores: Grade: B
Rental Stores: Grade: F
The Gaming Industry: Grade: C

The Buying Guide
Parent Alert! Games to Avoid for your Children and Teens
Assassin's Creed M
Call to Duty 4 M
Conan M
The Darkness M
Jericho M
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men M
Manhunt 2 M
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles M
Stranglehold M
Time Shift M

MediaWise Recommended Games for Children and Teens
Game Rating
FIFA Soccer 08 E
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock T
Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour E
Madden NFL 08 E
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games E
Need for Speed Pro Street E+10
The Sims 2: Castaway T
Super Mario Bros. 3 E
Super Mario Galaxy E
Viva Pinta E

ESRB Rating System and Ratings Education Efforts
I was surprised to find myself agreeing with some of what NIMF had to say about the ESRB. It's not excusable that Manhunt 2 content remained in the game, and just blurred. I still don't see why the result was so different than with what happened with the Hot Coffee incident.

As the report says, something needs to be done about the evaluation of video games by the ESRB. If they can't monitor everything in a game, or find a way to deal with stuff that gets slipped in, than there's a problem.

The Retailer Ratings Education and Enforcement Surveys
As they do each year NIMF sent kids into 58 stores across the country to try and buy M-rated titles. They end result? Kids were able to buy M-rated games 45 percent of the time. The break down shows that gaming stores were the best at enforcing the rules (80 percent compliance) and rental stores were the worst (17 percent compliance.)

Annual MediaWise-Harris Interactive Poll
While NIMF seems to be trying to use this new poll they conducted to prove that television ratings are used more often the video game ratings by parents, I don't think that's really true. If you skip their summary and dig into the raw numbers you find that 27 percent of parents never use tv ratings to decide if their kids should watch a show and 23 percent of parents never use video game rating to decide if their kids should play a game. Seems pretty neck and neck to me.

Here's a fun little story about politics, the Department of the Interior and a Bush appointee. Yeah, I didn't think that was possible either, but trust me, this one is great.

Buried in a recent report by the Inspector General's office at the DOI, is this little tidbit dug out by Grist:

Apparently the Assistant Secretary of Fish, Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald was in the habit of handing out nonpublic scientific reports to just about anybody to read over for her.

In one particularly interesting case, MacDonald sent a controversial report about the endangered Delta Smelt to her kid and an online gaming pal to vet.

MacDonald confirmed that she also sent the Delta Smelt document to an on-line game friend through his father's e-mail account. MacDonald said she is acquainted with the on-line friend through internet role-playing games. She said she engages in these games to relieve the stress created by her job; however, she said she has not played while at work. When asked why she would e-mail an internal DO1 document to a private citizen, MacDonald replied, "I was irritated [with what was happening regarding the subject of the document] and tried to explain my irritation over the phone; however, I sent it to him to read for a better understanding."

Agent's Note: The on-line game friend is not professionally or personally afliliated with DOI or any of its entities. MacDonald continues to play games on the internet with the on-line friend; however, she has not sent any internal DOI information to him since her first interview last summer. MacDonald could offer no explanation as to why she sent her child an e-mail containing an internal DOI/FWS document other than she feels frustrated at times and likes to have third party reviews of these documents. MacDonald opined that she sent FWS documents to the on-line game
friend and her first interview last summer.

My money's on World of Warcraft. What do you think? Brian Crecente

The Bush administration: Bringing you third-party scientific reviews from online roleplaying pals [Grist]

On Boxing Day (that would be the day after Christmas to all of us Yanks) Prime Minister Tony Blair flew out to Florida with his family for a week-long holiday at the Miami Beach home of the Bee Gees Robin Gibb.

As if the pricey vacation wasn't scandalous enough, his wife Cheri Blair was then spotted lugging around a brand new Playstation 3, the console that even John Edwards couldn't land.

Hit the jump for a less flattering shot of the backside... of the Playstation 3.

The End. Brian Crecente

[Thanks ukmountie for the tip]

Former North Carolina Senator and potential presidential hopeful John Edwards, a long-time critic of Wal-Mart, acknowledged today that a staffer tried to use Edwards' influence to land the politician's family a Playstation 3 at a local Wal-Mart.

Edwards, who says the staffer approached Wal-Mart without his knowledge, says the person "feels terrible" about trying to weasel a PS3 out of the company he so often attacks.

"My wife, Elizabeth, wanted to get a Playstation3 for my young children. She mentioned it in front of one of my staff people. That staff person mentioned it in front of a volunteer who said he would make an effort to get one. He was making an effort to go get one for himself," Edwards said.

"Elizabeth and I knew nothing about this. He feels terrible about this. He made a mistake and he knows he should not have used my name," Edwards said.

Wal-Mart had noted in a news release Thursday that on the same day Edwards was criticizing the company in a conference call with union-backed activists, the volunteer staff member had asked a Raleigh, N.C., electronics department manager to obtain a PS3 for the ex-senator's family.

The staffer called a Wal-Mart in Raleigh, N.C., leaving a message with the store that he is with Edwards' office and that he wanted to obtain a console for the man's family. When the store manager called back to break the news to the staffer, the staffer again said he worked for Edwards.

Wal-Mart was quick to make some political hay, issuing this statement:

"While the rest of America's working families are waiting patiently in line, Sen. Edwards wants to cut to the front."

Edwards dumped the whole problem in the staffer's lap and said the "young kid" was unaware of "flawed Wal-Mart policies." They must not be too flawed, Edwards still didn't get his PS3. Maybe he should have sent some strong-headed runners to the local Wal-Mart to compete in combat footraces. Brian Crecente

Edwards acknowledges staff asked Wal-Mart for Playstation 3 [AP]