As many of you know, the first Democratic Party presidential debate will be aired just over a week from today on October 13th on CNN. Meanwhile, the next Republican debate is still a few weeks off. It will be aired on CNBC on October 29th. I considered making a serious debate guide detailing the positions of various candidates as well as their respective in-debate temperaments and tactics. But I decided it would be much more fun to create a drinking game based off of various candidates’ debate tendencies (with the idea being to get as drunk as possible). You can customize the type of alcohol consumed (beer, liquor, or wine) and the size of your “shot” based on exactly how drunk you’re willing to get in the name of politics. That being said, let the games begin!
Democratic Debate
Take a shot every time that:
- A candidate mentions the middle class
- The need for more Democratic primary debates is referenced within the debate itself
- Jim Webb brings up states’ rights
- A non-Clinton candidate mentions the War in Iraq
- Income inequality is discussed
- Citizens United is demonized
Take a shot every time that Sen. Bernie Sanders mentions:
- “Wall Street” (okay, maybe not every time, otherwise it’s gonna be a long night at the ER)
- “Corporations”
- “Big banks” (those three kind of go together, so maybe just one shot if he mentions all three at once)
- “Working families”
- “Family values” (mockingly in reference to the GOP)
- “Unemployed youth”
- “Infrastructure”
Take a shot every time that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
- Copies one of Sen. Sanders’ positions (this alone could get you pretty wasted)
- Is mentioned by another candidate
- Talks about her grandmother
- Talks about being a grandmother
- Talks about being a woman
- Brings up Planned Parenthood
Republican Debate
Take a shot every time each candidate (listed from left to right based on where they will be situated on the debate stage with current polling) utters the following words or phrases:
- Mike Huckabee
- “Guns”
- John Kasich
- “We went from being eight billion in the hole to two billion in the black in Ohio”
- Jeb Bush
- “A path to citizenship”
- Carly Fiorina
- “Career politician”
- Donald Trump
- “China”
- “I’m rich”
- “I’m smart” (usually repeated in tandem with the previous phrase)
- “Deport illegal aliens” (you’ll need the drink to deal with the accompanying rants)
- “Benghazi”
- Ben Carson
- “God”
- “Tithe”
- (mumbles incomprehensibly)
- Marco Rubio
- “The American Dream”
- Ted Cruz
- “Defund Planned Parenthood”
- Chris Christie
- “National security”
- Rand Paul
- “The Constitution” (As a side note: as the polls stand, with Gov. Christie and Sen. Paul standing next to each other, you’ll be doing a lot more drinking on behalf of both. Enjoy!)
