"One of the ratings on our candidates is intelligence and one of our designers had given Donald Trump a three out of ten. If we have Donald Trump rated as a three he is basically a moron. You’ll find plenty of people who will say “Donald Trump IS a moron” but do you really think Donald Trump is that mentally handicapped?"

In defense of low-intelligence characters, I thought Intelligence was mainly used for available interview questions. The fact is, there are certain candidates who appear more well-versed in the issues than others. This isn't really a matter of intelligence so much as the kind of answers they are likely to give in interviews based on how prepared or issue-familiar they are.

Should the stat "Intelligence" be re-named so as to reflect its actual purpose and not insinuate something about their intelligence? Donald Trump, as a great example, is no idiot. But if asked, in an interview, about illegal immigration or Syria, he is unlikely to give an overly-nuanced, political, or thorough answer. He is known to be blunt, but not very specific about policy. Maybe this could be better reflected with "Issue Familiarity" or "Political Acumen" or something so that low-intelligence characters aren't taken to be actually of low-intelligence.

That's part of the strategy anyway, right? Strengths and weaknesses. Trump has a lot of money and charisma, but he should have a low "intelligence" to reflect his blunt, simple answers on policy. That also means that he should go on shows like O'Malley where those kind of answers are the norm, but stay away from the other show which tends to favor longer, more knowledgeable answers.

Just a thought - I really enjoyed playing Bachman in TPM '12 because of the few and odd or offensive answers she had available to her. It gave her a lot of character and if you wanted to win, you either had to overcome that or just avoid certain shows all together!