Well I just won my first game out of probably over 10 losses, and I wanted to make a post on how I've taken tips from here and tips from economics.
First, EVERY ACTION HAS AN OPPORTUNITY COST, which is by the way awesome. I've seen posts that almost want to eliminate this, which would be insane.
-1) You can produce Bells early to get Founding Fathers quickly, but this has the cost of making a huge REF (which in my win was not worth it). OR, you can produce Political Points to get Founding Fathers quickly, which has the cost of taking up your production queue in the town (this is the strategy I employed. DON'T JUST MAKE STUFF BECAUSE YOU CAN. If you don't have anything useful to build, build Political Points).
-2) When offered a Founding Father, you can accept him which gives you a bonus, at the cost of the cost of the Points. The earlier you get him/her, the longer you enjoy the bonus.
