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Chapter 7: Political Parties and Elections
Get Involved

Political Parties

Few Americans read the official party platforms that are produced every four years at a party’s presidential convention. But that does not mean the statements are unimportant. As South Carolina Republican party chair Katon Dawson explained in 2008 in a National Journal online article, “It’s your mission statement for your party. It’s the vehicle you use to get involved as an activist in the issues that matter.”

The national platforms are only one way for America’s parties to use new technologies. And while the major American parties, Republican and Democrat, have extensive online outreach, arguably the Internet is even more valuable to America’s third party movement, partisans who often have difficulty obtaining valuable media coverage and publicity for their candidates.
1. Research America’s third party tradition by visiting Project Vote Smart’s website:

http://www.votesmart.org/resource_political_resources_state.php

This site allows you to select your current state and to get a list of active parties and website locations.

Look up the website of a third party in your state? What is this party?
1b. What are some of the issues it promotes?
1c. Do you wish this party had a competitive candidate running for the United States Presidency in the 2008 election? Why or why not?

Elections

The Internet is a tool to study the history of American presidential elections. The Living Room Candidate includes archived television ads from 1952 to the present. It allows you to view some of the ads used in previous contests (and ads from the most recent election in 2008, some of which are featured in this chapter’s Video Exercises page on the StudySpace).

When you watch previously aired ads from past campaigns, keep the following questions in mind: how have the messages of campaign ads changed over time? How have campaign messages stayed the same?
2. As an example of how advertising has changed over time, look one at the earliest presidential ads run in the 1952 election, “Eisenhower Answers America.”
2b.

Eisenhower Answers America, 1952

Describe this ad. What do you think the reception would be if it aired today?
2c. As an example of how campaign messages stay the same over time, compare the 1972 Richard Nixon ad, “McGovern Defense,” and the 2004 George W. Bush ad, “Weapons.”

McGovern Defense, 1972

Weapons, 2004

What are some of the similarities between these ads?

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