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At the instigation of FDH Lounge Dignitary Chris Galloway, we designed a Fantasy Electoral College game. This game of skill forces you to predict how each state will award their Electoral College votes -- with a twist.

Rather than just make it a standard game that would award votes based on the actual number of Electoral votes per state -- we thought that would be boring -- we weighted the votes of each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Taking into account how each state has voted since 1988 and also the present state of the polls, we went through each state and reallocated the Electoral College votes.

In so doing, we used the system of baseball handicapping as a guide. When you go to bet on a baseball game, you would win more money by betting on an underdog and less by betting on a favorite. So goes our system.

For example, Florida has 27 electoral votes. But, based on a combination of voting patterns in the state over the past two decades and current polls, we have established John McCain as a slight favorite in the Sunshine State. So, in this game, if you take McCain to win Florida, you would win 23 electoral votes if correct (4 less than the 27 the state has) and if you take Barack Obama to win Florida, you would win 31 electoral votes if correct (4 more than the state has). In each state, an identical number of votes are subtracted from one candidate and added to the other so that there remain 538 electoral votes in the end. A few states have identical totals for the Electoral College, the McCain tally and the Obama tally -- those are judged to be legitimate dead heats in view of the state's recent history and polls that are close. In the case of Colorado, recent history favors McCain and the polls favor Obama and we consider those factors to be a wash.

Two states do not award their votes on a winner-take-all basis, but rather by congressional districts: Nebraska and Maine. In the unlikely event that these states split their votes, their totals would not be completely thrown out of this game, inasmuch as there is no method for computing anything less than a complete state's tallies for the purposes of competition.

When you utilize this game to compile a pool with your friends, the object of the game is to have the highest possible score in terms of states that you have predicted for McCain and states that you have predicted for Obama. Because a rogue Electoral College voter has been known to cast a protest vote at the time their ballots are actually cast in December, this game counts the Electoral College votes as they are unofficially awarded on Election Night. In the event that your pool ends in a tie, the tiebreaker shall be the raw total for the winner in the popular vote -- whoever is closest wins.

This is a game that is fashioned for political junkies, but it can be quite fun also for those who just get into the spirit of the election season and like to follow the process at that time. There are several useful resources available on the Web to help you find up-to-the-minute information in order to fill out a scoresheet for this game:

^ Election Projection

^ Electoral Vote

^ 538.com

^ Pollster

^ Real Clear Politics

Of course, if you want to go beyond the hard-core numbers analysis you can get on these sites, you can also go to our FDH Lounge Ultimate Links Page.

2008 Fantasy Presidential Draft: Held prior to 2008 primaries/caucuses

We have prided ourselves on covering the widest array of niche sports and other pursuits at FantasyDrafthelp.com. And we did put together a game based on the 2006 congressional elections. We broke new ground altogether with our 2008 Fantasy Presidential Election Draft that we held on The FDH Lounge program Sunday night, December 30, at 8 PM EST on SportsTalkNetwork.com.

As with any events that we cover, we furnish suggested league guidelines for your convenience. So we'll start with that, then furnish our draft board, then our mock draft recap.

SUGGESTED LEAGUE GUIDELINES

^ A standard serpentine-style draft serves as the best place to begin. The ideal distribution of talent would be as follows: 3 politicians drafted by 7 owners. "Position requirements" are as follows: each owner must draft at least one Republican and one Democrat. The third pick, the "flex pick," may be used on a politician of either party, a third party or an independent.

^ In terms of correctly picking which politicians can accomplish what in 2008, scoring is as follows: 25 points for President, 18 points for the losing presidential nominee, 15 points for Vice President, 11 points for the losing vice presidential nominee, 10 points for the Republican with the second-most delegates in the final count at the convention, 10 points for the Democrat with the second-most delegates in the final count at the convention, 10 points for a third-party or independent candidate earning at least 10% in the general election, 6 points for a third-party or independent candidate earning at least 5% in the general election.

DRAFT BOARD

Top Tier

1. Hillary Clinton (Democrat)

2. Mitt Romney (Republican)

3. Barack Obama (Democrat)

4. John McCain (Republican)

5. Mike Huckabee (Republican)

6. Rudy Giuliani (Republican)

7. Fred Thompson (Republican)

8. John Edwards (Democrat)

Second Tier

9. Evan Bayh (Democrat)

10. Ron Paul (Republican)

11. Dennis Kucinich (Democrat)

12. Mike Gravel (Democrat)

13. Tom Vilsack (Democrat)

14. Bill Richardson (Democrat)

15. Mark Sanford (Republican)

16. Lou Dobbs (Independent)

17. Al Gore (Independent)

18. Jim DeMint (Republican)

19. Kathleen Sebelius (Democrat)

20. Jon Kyl (Republican)

21. Ken Salazar (Democrat)

22. Haley Barbour (Republican)

23. Sarah Palin (Republican)

MOCK DRAFT RECAP

Our draft was held with five contestants in this order: FDH Lounge Dignitary Chris Galloway, FDH Managing Partner Rick Morris, FDH Senior Editor Jason Jones, FDH Lounge Dignitary Burrell Jackson and FDH Lounge Dignitary/Producer Sean Mina. Aside from Burrell and Sean, many of us loathe our teams on a personal level, which makes our selections all the more intriguing!

Round One

1. Chris: John McCain 2. Rick: Hillary Clinton 3. Jason: Mitt Romney 4. Burrell: Barack Obama 5. Sean: Ron Paul

Round Two

1. Sean: Fred Thompson 2. Burrell: John Edwards 3. Jason: Mike Huckabee 4. Rick: Rudy Guiliani 5. Chris: Bill Richardson

Round Three

1. Chris: Ted Strickland 2. Rick: Evan Bayh 3. Jason: Dennis Kucinich 4. Burrell: Arnold Schwarzenegger 5. Sean: Mike Gravel

Analysis

Chris, Rick and Jason all had to swallow a lot of bile with their first-round picks! Burrell and Sean liked their picks much more on a personal level. Ultimately, in terms of strategy, Chris ended up with three picks he believes could qualify for "VP points," Rick opted for the chalk picks every time according to the draft board, Jason was fairly chalk-heavy as well, Burrell cornered the market on viable anti-Hillary Democrats and went way off the board with the selection as a possible VP of "The Governator," and Sean paired Senator Fred with two spoilers. There were a wide range of strategies deployed here, and it will take until November to sort out our ultimate winners and losers.