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A Skill Challenge, difficulty and DCs determined by how likely you want the party to succeed. It would be focused on Cha/Int/Wis skills.

The scenario is that the guy running for PM is giving a rousing political speech to the assembled masses, the rest of the party are the speech writers.

Diplomacy: Counts as a success, limit the number of times it can be attempted.
Bluff: Cancel a failure

Nature/Religion/Arcana and other Cha/Int/Wis skills, pandering to particular bases. So nature is aiming for the Farmer/hunter vote, Religion is the well religious vote, Streetwise could be crafter/townsfolk.

You'll need to flesh the idea out a bit, and of course adapt it to your game, but could be one way to run the idea. If you wanted to make it a longer affair, you could create a nested skill challenge and probably have the election be multi-session.

On a meta-level...

Does it fit your campaign if the PC rogue wins? It would not fit mine. I am not into Politics and Parties in my D&D. But if it fits yours, run with it. I would assume the riogue has to retire, as being prime minister takes more time than the other players would likely be willing to give him.

Assuming his winning does not fit your campaign, rather than just saying "you lose", run with the skill challenge ideas described above to determine how badly the PC loses. And let the outcome of each challenge element create plot hooks for the future. Uncover vote rigging. Learn of some political insiders who can serve as patrons. Perhaps even some campaign contributors who decide they want some return on their unsuccessful investment. And certainly, by running for office, the rogue has guaranteed recognition in any tavern, bank, and jewelry shop in the land.

Turn it into a little mini-game.  Build a campaign staff for each of the candidate's rivals.  Have them "fight" one another in an abstract campaign game.  Each round represents a single news cycle.  Roll initiative and have each character announce what they plan to do that news cycle.  Each skill would be opposed by a skill of the rival's camp or by a generic DC.  Give each candidate a number of "candidacy points" ("CP"), like hp, to represent their likelihood of victory at the start of the campaign.  If someone drops to zero hp, they drop out of the race.  A campaign lasts 10 rounds.  Candidate with the most CP at the end of the campaign wins.  If there's a tie, have a runoff election two news cycles long.  The candidate himself alwasy gets a +2 bonus to any Skill check he personally rolls.

No character may roll the same skill twice in a row.  Here's some examples.  (Having trouble with coming up with reasonable uses of Acrobatics, Dungeoneering, or Heal.)

Athletics (candidate only, moderate DC): Go on a photo op that demonstrates your virility.  On a success, gain 10 CP.  If you fail by more than 5, take 10 ongoing damage (save ends)

Arcane (opposed by Insight): Use astrology and divinations to figure out what a rival will do.  Opposed by rival's Insight.  If successful, allows you to force someone in rival's camp to reroll one of their Skill checks this news cycle.

Bluff (opposed by Diplomacy): Spread a lie about a rival.  On a success, the rival takes 10 ongoing damage (save ends)

Bluff (staff only): Style Consultant.  Until the end  of your next turn, replace your caniddate's Bluff check with your  own whenever a rival makes a skill check opposed by your  candidate's Bluff.

Diplomacy (difficult DC): Set forth you or your candidate's platform.  If successful, the candidate can spend a healing surge.

Diplomacy (opposed by Diplomacy): Attack a candidate's platform.  If successful, you inflict 10 hp damage.

Diplomacy (staff only): Spokesman.  Until the end of your next turn, replace your caniddate's Diplomacy check with your own whenever a rival makes a skill check opposed by your candidate's Diplmacy.

Endurance (candidate only, moderate DC): Whistlestop tour.  You try to visit every voting district in a single news cycle.  If successful, you gain 20 CP. Only usable once a campaign.

Endurance (staff only): Damage control.  Until the end of your next turn, replace your caniddate's Endurance check with your own whenever a rival makes a skill check opposed by your  candidate's Endurance.

History (opposed by Perception): You use your knowledge of prior campaigns to outmaneuver an opponent.  If successful, you inflict 10 damage.  Gain a cumulative -1 penalty each time you use this Skill to attack.

History (staff only): Outmaneuver.  Until the end  of your next turn, replace your candidate's History check with your  own whenever a rival makes a skill check opposed by your  candidate's History .

Insight (opposed by History): You discern a candidate's strategy against you.  You or your candidate gains Resist 5 against attacks by that candidate.

Intimidate (opposed by Diplomacy): Fearmonger by raising a parade of horribles you claim rivals can't handle.  Each rival you hit takes 5 damage.  If you hit fewer than half your rivals, you look paranoid and take 20 damage.

Nature (candidate only, moderate DC): Show your love for the environment (i.e., hunting, conservation, whatever the people want).  On a success, gain 10 CP.  If you fail by more than 5 you seem like a kook and take 10 ongoing damage (save ends)

Perception (opposed by Bluff): Find a weakness in a rival's campaign style.  That candidate becomes vulnerable 5 to attacks by you or your candidate.

Perception (staff only): Until the end of your next turn, replace your caniddate's Perception  check with your own whenever a rival makes a skill check opposed by your  candidate's Perception.

Religion (candidate only, moderate DC): Demonstrate piety.  On a success, gain 10 CP.  If you fail by more than 5 you seem like a zealot and take 10 ongoing damage (save ends).

Stealth (opposed by Endurance): Find a dirty secret about the candidate, if he has one.  (Most should have a few.)  The next time you or your candidate attacks that candidate, he also inflicts ongoing 20 damage.  If you fail by 5 or more, you are exposed, embarrassing the candidate and inflicting ongoing 20 damage.

Thievery (opposed by Perception): Sabotage a rival's campaign stop.  If successful, until the end of your next turn the rival's skill checks (though not his staff) incur a -2 penalty.

In addition, throw in some social combats.  There could be a few debates where it's candidate against candidate.  Or have some sort of outside disaster like an earthquake or flood that challenges the candidates to look like they care, without turning the tragedy into a photo op. Or even some other news item that threatens to throw the election off the news for an election cycle.  Maybe if the candidate is bloodied, he is deemed "irrelevant" and his and his staff's actions are ineffective until he does smoethign dramatic to get back into the race and restore credibility.

Dynasties & Demagogues contains rules for running elections, and politically oriented campaigns in general.  It is mostly skill based, so if you translate some of the skills used and the DCs to 4E, it should work fairly well.

Sep 19, 2011 -- 6:56PM, AJS_Detroit wrote:

Echoing salla. Political leadership is a full time job of rubbing elbows and tending relationships. An absent leader would have his power base snatched up in the blink of an eye. Anyone who wins office has changed careers.

This is a fantasy political leader. I'm sure you can find some examples from fiction of leaders who are secretly (or not so secretly) heroes, and for whom this bit of realism doesn't apply. Or simply fit the adventures in as political recess, spread out over several years (in game time, a PC need only spend 60 or 70 days of actual solid adventuring to get from level 1 to level 30, it is in fact something that by RAW you could do in your summer holidays). Some of them may include rationale for why it works, such as a very loyal minister who looks after the show whilst the head is away.

Also, of course this kind of event - an evil want-to-leader taking over whilt the good guys are away - could be a fine piece of plot.