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I'm excited about this class. Our text is whatever happens between now and November 4 in the presidential, governor's, senate, and any other elections the class wants to focus on. There's a lot going on...

Sources we will consult include the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal (though it requires a subscription), CNN, blogs, and whatever other sources we find.

This [|google source] may help also for videos.

Here is polling data from [|Pollster]

[|Who will be Obama's choice as running-mate?] This article from the Washington Post addresses that question.

Here's a [|chart from NPR] listing the possible VP candidates. 1. Electoral map with numbers of votes on each state: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/retro-POLCALCULATOR.html 2. running mates search article from WSJ http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121936780869462335.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_leftbox 3. McCain VP analysis (keep his name in news during DNC convention) http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121937683354562859.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox

We'll be looking at the Presidential election, and whatever other races are of interest to you folks. North Carolina could have its first female governor, and the NC Senate race looks to be a close one as well.

We will have some speakers come to our class. Usually this will happen on Thursday block days so that we can have time to talk with them and to think about what they said. If you can think of a speaker you'd like to hear from, let me know and we'll try to set it up.

Here are the speakers who have agreed to speak with us, as of August 13:


 * NPR media reporter [|David Folkenflik] (via phone from New York on Sept 11)
 * Duke Political Science Professor [|Kerry Haynie] on Sept 25
 * Journalist [|Hodding Carter III] (now a professor at UNC) -- Time TBA
 * NPR political reporter for North Carolina [|Laura Leslie] -- Time TBA

As context, it would be useful to know something about the [|history of political parties] in the United States.

America's first political parties, the Republican Party (now the Democratic Party), and the Federalist party (now the Republican party) originated in the 1790's. The Republicans supported state's rights, and a strict interpretation of the constitution, while the Federalists supported a loose interpretation of the constitution and strong central government. The Republicans were led my Thomas Jefferson and James Madison while the Federalists were led by Alexander Hamilton. In 1828 the National Republican Party was formed in place of the defunct Federalist Party. The National Republican Party was led by John Quincy Adams and they shared many of the same ideals as the former Federalist Party. This prompted the Republican party to change their name to the Democratic-Republican party in order to make a distinction between the two parties. Later on they would drop the Republican and become known as simply the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party was led by Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828. Many of his opponents began calling him a "jackass", prompting Jackson to playfully put the symbol on his campaign posters. Cartoonist Thomas Nast portrayed the Democratic party as a Donkey in his cartoons in "Harpers Weekly" and the symbol stuck. Nast is also credited for inventing the symbol of the Republican Party. In 1874, Nast drew another cartoon that depicted a donkey in lions clothing scaring away the other animals in a zoo. In this cartoon, the Elephant was labeled as the Republican party. The Republicans made this symbol their own in similar fashion to the Democrats. Now both symbols are well associated with each party. Not only does each party carry a logo, but also a color. The Democratic Party is associated with the color blue and the Republican Party with the color Red. This trend began in the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush during which the TV maps illustrating which state had been won by which party, using the colors red and blue, red representing a state won by Bush and blue representing a state won by Gore. The late NBC TV anchor Tim Russert coined the terms "red state" and "blue state", now a term used to "differentiate between" a state that traditionally votes Democratic and a state that traditionally votes Republican. http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0881985.html http://www.edgate.com/elections/inactive/the_parties/ http://www.mury.k12.ut.us/MHS/apus/handouts/politicalparties.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states#Purple_States

Once we have that basic context (and I'm presuming most of you learned about those parties in your US History class last year -- juniors, please email me if you need more background), I'd like us to gain some background on the presidential elections. I thought that as an early assignment, we would each look at one of the past ten presidential elections (see the "Past Presidential Elections" link at left).

Then, we will start following in some depth what's going on in the national campaigns...





We will certainly look at what happens at the [|Democratic] (Aug 25-28) and [|Republican] (Sept 1-4) conventions.

//Birthday trivia: Obama turns 47 on August 4; McCain turns 72 on August 29. The 25-year age difference is the largest between the two main rivals for the presidency in U.S. history.//

After those conventions are complete, I thought it might be interesting to break into groups, with each group looking in some depth at one or two of the [|battleground] states that will likely determine the course of the election (if you click on the states in that link, you can change them from Undecided to Republican to Democratic).

Perhaps three of you would "cover" Florida, and would read the papers in Florida and get some sense of what issues seem to matter there. Another two of you might "cover" Ohio, and so on...

Here's [|one possible scenario] I made up (but that I think might happen) where Ohio would determine the electoral result.

Other ideas I am thinking about:

Have students "cover" the candidates -- at the beginning of class, brief the rest of the class on where Senator McCain and Obama have been and where they are going. What do they seem to be focusing on?

Early in the course, we will need to have a discussion about the [|electoral college]: - What is it and how does it work? - What are its benefits? - What are its historical roots? - Why do we still have it/should we get rid of it?

paste your paragraph here

What about [|electronic voting]? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Why?

Also, we'll look at the question of **who votes?** (and [|who doesn't vote])

See this [|article from the census bureau] (fascinating breakdown by

Presidential Debates (from Wikipedia)

 * September 26: First Presidential Debate at the [|University of Mississippi] on domestic policy.
 * October 2: //Vice// Presidential Debate at [|Washington University] on domestic and foreign policy.
 * October 7: Second Presidential Debate at [|Belmont University] will be in a town meeting format and will include any issues raised by members of the audience.
 * October 15: Third Presidential Debate at [|Hofstra University] on foreign policy.

OTHER RESOURCES

As we find interesting articles that pertain to this election, we can share them on this wiki.

According to this [|analysis by presidential historians], Senator McCain is going to have a hard time, given President Bush's current approval ratings.

What is the role of money (aka campaign finance) in this campaign? This [|criticism of Barack Obama's decision to abandon public financing] is worth discussing. As is this [|defense of Obama] by Larry Lessig (and the accompanying comments on Lessig's blog).

Hillary to appear on Roll Call

//AS YOU COME ACROSS ARTICLES YOU THINK WOULD BE GOOD FOR CLASS DISCUSSION, PLEASE POST LINKS TO THEM HERE//


 * COURSE DESCRIPTION**

This trimester elective will follow the Presidential election, as well as other elections of interest to students enrolled in the class (such as the NC Governor's or Senate race). Students in the class will examine the candidates' policy positions, electoral strategies, and track major campaign issues. Students will act as political analysts and will strive to put the election in context. On a regular basis, students will read and discuss sources from all sides of the political spectrum. Together, the class will produce and update an online resource that will help the rest of the CA community make sense of the elections. The course will utilize guest speakers from the local Democratic and Republican parties, as well as political science professors from the local universities. After the election, students will write an essay that analyzes and explains the results in the 2008 Elections.

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