LASA 1 Create Your Own Political Party

Scenario:

Your family has always been very politically active. From a young age, you have been politically aware. When you were young, you worked with your parents as they supported their political party and you even helped during campaigns for the candidates your parents supported. In college, you were a leader of the organization on campus that was part of the political party you supported. This could have been the Young Democrats or the Young Republicans or any college group that supported the political party of your choice. Until your exposure at college, you always supported the same political party as your parents, but then your views began to change and you developed your own ideas, ideals and expectations. While you continued to remain politically active, you have become more and more disillusioned with the current major and third parties and movements on the political scene, having studied all thoroughly. You have come to be completely discouraged by the state of the political process as it pertains to political parties. In your opinion, none of the major or third parties truly represents the best interests of the citizens, and you have decided to create your own political party.

Directions. In a 4-5 page Microsoft Word document, include the following:

1. Name your political party and evaluate why you have chosen that name.

2. Create a symbol for your political party and explain why you have chosen that symbol.

3. Create a slogan for your political party and justify why you have chosen that slogan.

4. Develop a platform for your political party. A platform is a written outline and explanation of what your party believes in and why. Your party can be a single-issue party, an ideological party, a splinter party, or a regular broad based political party. Your platform must have at least four positions under the following topics. Summarize each platform position.

a. Social Issues
b. Domestic Issues
c. Foreign Policy

5. Design a brochure or one-page flyer for your political party that you would hand out to voters to introduce and explain your party. In this flyer you want to include the essentials of what your party stands for, points of your platform, and the benefits of joining your party.

6. Project what demographic groups would vote for your political party and why. What demographic groups will your political party reach out to and seek support from?

7. Predict what regions of the country will support your political party and why? Or, what regions of country will your party win? Justify your claims.

8. Compare the areas of support with those of other political parties.

9. What main idea or belief is your political party based upon? Why? For example, in the 2008 election, the Democrats focused a lot on the economy and the war in Iraq.

Some links that may help you understand and assess current political parties, which in turn may help you to create your political party.

o The Democratic Party Web site http://www.democrats.org/
o Republican National Committee http://www.rnc.org
o Politics 1 http://www.politics1.com/ (directory of U.S. political parties)