Marty O'Donnell has had a long and successful career as a composer, but remains best-known for his near two-decade association with developer Bungie. O'Donnell was audio director and composed the music for all of Bungie's Halo games, with his final project being Destiny before things went badly south between the musician and the studio. Since his firing in 2014 O'Donnell has been involved in various legal actions against his former employer and Microsoft, some of which have gone his way and some… not so much.
O'Donnell founded Highwire Games after leaving Bungie and composed the soundtrack for its debut release, Golem, but after that seemed to have quietly retired (aside from the lawsuits). Well, it turns out that the devil will find work for idle hands to do: O'Donnell has now announced his intention to run as a Republican Party candidate for Congress in Nevada.
"I never wanted to be a politician and I still don’t," O'Donnell begins, somewhat implausibly. "I was ready to retire and spend more time with my family–which I’ve done for the past 3 years. I think they’re ready for me to find something else to do."
O'Donnell's announcement is lengthy and can be read in full here. He says the USA's "toxic divisions" are "tearing apart our families and society", and the economy has "gone horribly wrong." In a colorful metaphor O'Donnell says "the goose that lays the golden eggs for our country has been kicked around and squeezed to the point where laying more golden eggs is almost impossible."
It's the little man that gets the squeeze and O'Donnell knows who's to blame: "Big corporate executives and big union bosses. Big tech, big pharma, big media, big whatever—all trying to control big government in Washington DC."
If this is all sounding a little familiar, then it may not surprise you to know that O'Donnell is a supporter of former president Donald Trump, who is of course once again going to be the Republican candidate in 2024 ("I have voted for President Trump twice and will vote for him a third time this fall"). To that end we move on from the above points, some of which arguably have an element of truth to them, onto blaming border control and the immigrants "being given access to all sorts of handouts at our expense."
O'Donnell goes on to some of the Republican Greatest Hits. Big government is wasteful and spends far too much money, and what the USA needs are some good old family values. He says "our society's strength… has been eroded" and "I want to champion the traditional family as critical for a child’s development and success." While the data bears this out, it's unclear what connection it has to an overbearing government, nor exactly what O'Donnell's proposing.
The call-to-arms ends with the declaration that "we need bold leaders for such a time as this" and links to the Marty For Congress website, where you can sign up to join "Marty's Army", and donate to the cause. One notable touch that may interest his former employers is that O'Donnell's Donate link lists fixed amounts that relate to Halo: you can donate $117, for example, with Master Chief being John-117. There's a $343 amount for 343 Guilty Spark. He even has a donate button for $7, which isn't Halo-specific but just Bungie's special number.
The announcement has attracted an influx of new followers to O'Donnell's Discord, who are asking him about things like his stance on Israel / Palestine and LGBTQ+ issues. It's going about as well as you'd expect, which is to say: don't go there.
O'Donnell will be a candidate in Nevada's 3rd congressional district in the 2024 House of Representatives elections, which are held on November 5, 2024. Should his campaign be successful, he will become one of the state's four Congressional representatives.
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