It seems really simple on the surface, but only because our brains are wired to spend a lot of brain real estate on thinking through social situations. From a complexity standpoint, we’re all ’savants’ in the social arena. We just don’t notice it because everyone without a mental disability shares this talent.

I’m interested in this because I tackled a similar problem before. I’ve actually worked out a design for a possible game based on social/political challenges, but I eventually had to give up try to work out a system for having computers understand if/then possibilities and managing perceptions and reputations. Closest attempt I’ve seen at actually doing this is Storytron, which remains too clunky to be marketable at the moment:

http://www.storytron.com/reference/ref_index.html

I encourage you to try to work this design out more specifically. Writing my design for my game forced me through a lot of mental hoops; it was a good learning experience. And no, my design isn’t about presidential politics, but it is vaguely isomorphic to them (politics in the White House really aren’t that fundamentally different from politics in the frat house).

Cool site, by the way. I’ve enjoyed reading some of your ideas.