I’ll have longer thoughts on Game Change, HBO’s adaptation of John Heilmann and Mark Halperin’s 2008 campaign book, closer to the movie’s air date. But one thing that struck me as strange about the movie was that it focuses entirely on John McCain and Sarah Palin, a story that’s both been done to death and is essentially irrelevant: Palin is a PR phenomenon and McCain will never be president. They’ve both returned from whence they came. By contrast, the story of how President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarded each other in the buildup to and during the 2008 campaign, and how they came to be partners rather than enemies, is both directly relevant to ongoing events and a much richer story than that of John McCain’s taking a flyer on his VP selection.

But I wonder if part of the problem is that it would be extremely difficult to cast a credible Obama. Fred Armisen’s impression of the president is laughable. Jordan Peele has Obama’s voice entirely locked down, but he doesn’t particularly look like him. I have no idea if Adrian Lester has the voice, or could figure out how to do it, but he’s got the look, or could pull it off plausibly. I also really like the idea of the main character from Primary Colors, who was responsible for wrangling John Travolta’s Bill Clinton stand-in character, returning to the movies as Obama. There are obvious decent stand-ins for Hillary: Emma Thompson could also step back into those shoes post Primary Colors, not to mention my personal favorite candidate Judith Light. But Obama is tricky—and important—to get right.

My ThinkProgress colleague Scott Keyes has a fun piece in The Atlantic about why Settlers of Catan is poised to be the next Monopoly:

Where games like Monopoly fall short—with playing times that far outlast the players’ interest, particularly those who have little hope of victory—Settlers is designed to maintain close competition. Unlike games of Risk that can famously last for days, Settlers usually takes 90 minutes or less. And unlike many pastimes that quickly descend into cutthroat competitiveness, Settlers of Catan is not a zero-sum game. A single roll generally produces resources for multiple players, and trades are almost always mutually beneficial. Because Settlers is a unique game that rewards cooperation as much (if not more) as confrontation, Weisberg argues that it “brings out competitive spirits in a positive way.”

Scott quotes another analyst who argues that the game’s gotten popular because its challenges and constraints mirror ones that exist in the real world. If that’s really the key to its appeal, then Settlers is more in the model of Monopoly, which has its roots in “practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences.” All of which makes Ridley Scott’s plans for his upcoming Monopoly movie, which is supposed to revolve around an evil, Donald Trump-like real estate developer, a lot more plausible and a lot less goofy. I’m not saying said movie is a good idea, just that it’s marginally less preposterous given the context.