Negotiation or Not?
One problem all board games face is that only the game owner tends to read the rules. As a consequence it's possible that in every playing group only this person sees a lot of the extras that go into an instructions booklet, such as design and play notes, extra scenarios and variants.

Founding Fathers contains all four types of items, but it is a variant that I would like to mention here. Some players have mentioned that they don't care for the negotiation in the game. Personally, I prefer it. Not only does it remind me of the much-admired The Republic of Rome, it feels more like what I imagine the real White House and Congress must be like.

But I also understand that this is not to everyone's taste, especially considering the game length. As there is more than one way to skin things, to satisfy such players the instructions also include the "Less Negotiation" variant. This converts the assignment of offices into a matter of drafting and removes the Congressional approval requirement for all issues. With this variant in place the only negotiating you really need to do is left to you, including none at all if you prefer.

^{Founding Fathers}