Friday, November 7, 2008

Time Travel Tuesday: Elections

I am so far behind this week and I apologize. Here is what I am doing for election history:

- Today, a presidential candidate (vocabulary word) chooses their vice-presidential running mate, but in the first four US elections (1789, 1792, 1796, and 1800), the president was the person who received the most votes and the vice-president was whoever received the second highest number of votes.

- The mainstream political parties today are Democrat and Republican. Past presidential political parties include Whig, Federalist, and Union. Learn about one of the politcal parties listed (Democrat, Republican, Whig, Federalist, or Union) and write a paragraph summarizing their political beliefs.

- 2 women have run for vice-president on a major political ticket. Geraldine Ferraro ran with Walter Mondale in 1984 on the Democratic ticket and Sarah Palin ran with John McCain in 2008 on the Republican ticket. 2008 was the first time a woman stood a real chance at being a presidential candidate on a major political ticket when Hillary Clinton campaigned in the Democratic primary.

- Barack Obama is the first African-American to run for preisdent on a major political ticket and the first to be elected president (2008).

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