But take a quick look at the official 2012 platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties, and you’ll quickly some pretty extreme contrasts in philosophy on everything from taxes to abortion. In their national party platforms, the Democrats and Republicans have laid out a set of fundamentally different visions for America and the role its government should play in our lives.

On the show This American Life, host Ira Glass notes the widening chasm between the two parties:
“Everyone knows that politics is now so divided in our country that not only do the two sides disagree on the solutions to the country’s problems, they don’t even agree on what the problems are. It’s two versions of the world in collision.”

Even the frequency of key words used in the two documents is indicative of the parties’ very differing perspectives. Take the mention of “God” for example: In the Republican party platform it appears 10 times. In the Democratic platform: once (added in only after a lengthy debate). Likewise, the Constitution (or some variation thereof, like “constitutional”) is referenced 60 times in the Republican platform as compared to just six in the Democratic one.

Taken directly from the Republican and Democratic party Platforms, here are some of the widest divides on major issues that may impact you (click on the image link – above left – to download PDF).

Take the Procon.org party platform quiz to see which party you best fit into.

Flickr

By Donelle Blubaugh
Contributor

What are political party platforms and how much impact do they have in actual political decision-making?

During the Republican and Democratic national conventions this summer, you probably heard a lot about the party platforms”  These are actual documents that communicate the key principles of a political party and its core ideologies. Namely, what’s our government for and how should it serve the people?  Recreational reading, they are not. But understanding them can help voters steer through some of the election-season spin. The platforms actually provide some real, concrete insight into how party officials and candidates stand on critical issues – things like the economy, education and foreign affairs and social policies.

How are political platforms created?

Every four years, prior to the party conventions, the national committees for the Democratic and Republican parties (DNC and RNC) choose key party members who meet to contribute, debate and vote on policies stances that become the basis of their parties official platform. Party delegates—citizens selected to represent their states at national conventions—vote to support or amend platform drafts. Eventually, each position is presented as a carefully worded “plank” in a final platform document.

In 1840, the newly formed Democratic Party generated the first national political platform. It contained nine planks and fits onto a single page, a steep contrast to the lengthy documents that each party produced this year. Republicans got into the game in 1856.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the party platforms constantly evolve. So the 2012 Republican platform, for instance, could have some significant ideological differences from the party’s platform in past election years.

How important are the national platforms in an election year?

Today, party platforms are marketing tools as well as political ideologies. They’re used both to rally the troops and convince undecided voters. Speechwriters often mine the platform documents for key talking points that can be included in a candidate’s stump speeches on the campaign trail. Political analysts and journalists dissect every word to decipher each party’s motives.

Are the platforms still important after the election is over?

Party platforms can be used to guide an elected official’s decision-making process, but they aren’t legally binding. If elected officials stray too far from the party line, though, they can risk alienating themselves within their own party or being accused of hypocrisy by the opposing party. That said, elected officials inevitably have to respond to unanticipated events and – ideally – will draw compromises to reduce political gridlock.

In the gloves off sport of politics, opponents often highlight when a candidate deviates from the party platform. For example, the 1988 Republican National Platform had this to say about tax increases: “The Republican Party restates the unequivocal promise we made in 1984: We oppose any attempts to increase taxes.” And when George H. W. Bush accepted his party’s nomination at the Republican Convention, he famously promised, “Read my lips: no new taxes.”

Then reality set it. During the senior Bush’s administration, an economic recession began, the national debt skyrocketed, and taxes were increased, leaving the candidate weakened and vulnerable when he ran for re-election four years later against Democratic challenger Bill Clinton.

In like-minded fashion, this year Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign is taking a shot (among many) at President Obama for his failed promise to close the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, one of the planks that appear in both the 2008 and 2012 Democratic platforms.

Do other political parties have platforms?

They do. The Green Party, The Tea Party Movement and the Libertarian Party all have platforms, as do all the parties represented on the national ballot this year.Actually, if you so desired, you could actually write your own political platform, one that reflects your personal take on the major issues. For real. You could circulate it among people who have similar perspectives, invite their input, publish the official My Party Platform and start your own little third-party political movement. There’s always 2016!

What’s the deal with “the safety net”? The presidential candidates spend a lot of time talking and arguing about it, and the Democratic and Republican party platforms both seem to have pretty different perspectives on the role it should play in our lives.

So what is it? And who needs it? And why’s it gotta be such an issue?

In short, the safety net is a general term for the many government-funded social welfare programs intended to keep lower-income citizens from falling through the cracks – things like food stamps and subsidized health care. But the thing is, these programs aren’t cheap, and deciding how much of our tax revenue should go to pay for them is always a major point of contention – especially in hard economic times. Liberals often argue that providing necessary public services to society’s lower classes is not only the moral path, it’s actually good economic policy, in that it helps lift folks out of poverty and into more economically productive roles. Conservatives, though, often contend that the safety net is another example of big government reaching too far into our private lives. It’s and inefficient and financially irresponsible system that makes poor use of our hard-earned tax dollars, and creates a cycle of dependency, not independence.

So who’s right?

Check out the video, produced for The Lowdown by the folks at Explainer Music.

The first ever televised presidential debate didn't happen until 1960. Candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy squared off – just once – in front of the camera, an event that proved extremely beneficial to the smoother and more youthful Kennedy, who went on to win the election against his stodgier opponent. The next presidential debate wouldn't happen for another 16 years, when President Gerald Ford – who made a notorious factual gaffe – fared poorly against his Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.

Ever since, presidential debates have become a fixture of our electoral system. It's now standard protocol for candidates to face off three times in the grueling weeks leading up to election day. The impressions they try to make, as they appear live before millions of viewers, can significantly influence the outcome of the election.

The first debate, which was on October 3 at the University of Denver, focused on domestic policy and followed a traditional debate format, in which moderator Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour asked questions, and the candidates took 2-minutes to respond. Mitt Romney, who delivered a much stronger performance, was widely considered the winner of this match-up. Following the debate, poll numbers – which had previously favored Obama – shifted slightly to put the candidates in a near dead heat.

So a lot is riding on debate number two, which takes place Tuesday, Oct. 16 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. Moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley,  for CNN takes the format of a town hall meeting, in which undecided voters in the audience have an opportunity to directly ask the candidates questions on both foreign and domestic issues. Candidates each will have two minutes to respond, and an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate a discussion.

The third and final face-off in the trilogy happens the following week, on Oct. 22 at Lynn University, Boca Raton, FL. It's hosted by Bob Schieffer of CBS. The format will be identical to the first debate, with a focus on foreign policy.

For more on the debate system and full-length videos and transcripts of past debates, visit Commission on Presidential Debates.

Watch Map Center: What If the Battleground States Go Red? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Because nearly every state in the nation has a winner-take-all presidential electoral system (except Nebraska and Maine), the outcome on election day in most states is fairly predictable. No Republican presidential candidate, for instance, has won California since 1988, and there’s no sign of that trend changing anytime soon. So it wouldn’t be the smartest move to put your money on Mitt Romney here.

Likewise, Texas hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976. So Barack Obama’s chances of winning over the Longhorn State this election? Pretty slim.

Of course, on the rare occasion there have been some monumental upsets. Take Indiana, which hadn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, but in 2008 picked Obama (albeit narrowly and ephemerally: the state is back to it’s solid red roots this year).

The majority of the presidential race is downright predictable.

So where’s the suspense? Where’s the action?

A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the election, so in most elections, the race comes down to the battleground states: those toss-ups that are divided pretty evenly between Republicans and Democrats and have lots of unpredictable independent voters.  It’s these states that typically have been the wildcards in recent elections, the one’s with the power to literally “swing” the outcome of a presidential race, and the places you’ll very likely find the candidates in the weeks and months leading up to the election.

As in 2008, the biggest swing states this year (the one’s with the most electoral votes, that is, and a history of vacillating) are Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina. All of them chose Obama in 2008, and current polls show him retaining a slim lead in most. The individual outcomes, though, still remain very much up in the air.

There are a ton of good interactive electoral maps out there (so I’ll restrain myself from creating another one). I particularly like the Los Angeles Times interactive, which provides an electoral calculator, a clear breakdown of past election results, and an interface users to play with different swing state scenarios.

latimes.com

270ToWin, which I’ve referenced in past posts, also has a great set of maps and resources, including state-by-state historical voting patterns. The site includes an interesting electoral college prediction calculator based on current polling numbers.

Additionally, the BBC has a great interactive to learn more about battleground states, their populations, and the most compelling issues that might sway voters there.

So, then, what are the main factors that determine how a swing state might lean in a given election? There are many, of course, but among the most influential is the economy equation, A lot of voters evaluate the sitting president’s performance on current economic conditions (even if those trends had already taken shape prior to a president assuming power). Because the U.S. economy continues to be sluggish, and unemployment rates are particularly high in key swing states like Ohio, many of the on-the-fence voters who chose Obama in 2008 will likely be quite a bit harder to win over this time around.

Here’s a little factoid that never fails to mightily confuse most voters. As Americans, we actually DO NOT directly elect our presidents and vice presidents. I repeat, the U.S. president is not chosen through a one-person, one-vote system!

Simply put: this is not direct democracy!

When we head to the polls on election day to choose a presidential candidate, we’re not actually really voting for that person. Instead, we’re throwing our support behind a group of “electors” who belong to a strange institution called the electoral college. And it’s that group that actually casts the direct votes to decide who the next president and vice president will be.

Don’t believe me? Check out Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Says it right there. Honest.

Weird, right?

Here’s how it works:

First off, what is the Electoral College (and do they have a good football team)?

It’s more of an institution than a place. No dorms.  No frat boys. No teams. No crazy parties. Basically, none of the fun stuff.

Here’s what it is: During the presidential election every four years, the various political parties in each state (for instance: California’s Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, etc.) choose a group of “electors,” generally party activists who have pledged their electoral votes to the presidential candidate of that party should he/she win the popular vote in that state. Pretty much anyone who’s registered to vote is eligible to be an elector, with the exception of members of Congress and federal government employees).

Who better to explain our confusing electoral system than … the British!

When do the electors cast their official votes for president?

Oddly, it’s actually not until after election day. On the Monday following the second Wednesday of December (stay with me here!), each state’s electors meet in their respective state capitals and cast their votes — one for president and one for vice president. This event never really gets a whole lot of attention because everyone already knows that those electors are almost certainly going to vote for the candidate in their own party. The results are announced on January 6 and the president is sworn in two weeks later.

Technically, electors can change their minds, but that’s  only happened about five times in U.S. history (these electors are labeled “faithless”). Interestingly, most instances have been within the last 30 years, according to Time Magazine.

How many electors does each state get?

It’s based on the number of U.S. congressional representatives that each state has, plus its two senators. So, every state (and the District of Columbia) is guaranteed at least 3 electoral votes. A sparsely populated state like North Dakota – which has two senators but only one congressional representative – gets just three electoral votes. So, in North Dakota, each political party comes up with their own list of three electors to represent the state in the Electoral College (should the candidate from that party win the popular vote).

California, in comparison, is the most populous state, and gets 55 electoral votes (53 congressional reps plus two senators).

How does a candidate win electors?

The presidential election is decided state-by-state. And for almost every state, it’s a winner-take-all scenario. Which means that the candidate who receives the most popular (aka direct) votes in each state, gets all of that state’s electors. And the other candidates in the race – even if they lose the popular vote by just a couple of actual votes = get no electors from that state at all. Nada. Squat.

So, looking at California again, If Barack Obama were to win the state, he’d get all 55 Democratic electors and Mitt Romney wouldn’t get a single one of his 55 Republican electors.

And that’s why very populous states like California, New York, Texas, and Florida are political jackpots; they just have so many delicious electors for the taking.

The two exceptions to this rule are Maine and Nebraska. They use a proportional system, in which two electors are chosen by popular vote and the remainder of the electors are decided by the popular vote within each congressional district.

Why is 270 the magic number?

There are 538 electors nationwide, and to win the the presidency, a candidate needs 270 of them. So, if you win a state like California (even if you win it by a single measly popular vote), you’ve just gotten about 20 percent of the votes you need to be sitting pretty in the White House come January.

Conversely, presidential candidates generally don’t spend too much time on the campaign trail in  places like the Dakotas (no offense guys – we still love you). Although, you probably won’t find them spending that much time in California either – because it’s pretty safely in the Democratic category. It’s the big swing states (or battleground states) – places like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia – that you’ll see the candidates spending most of their time as the election nears. Because it’s these states that are still up for grabs and chock full of  electors – they’re the one’s that will usually decide the election.

PBS NewsHour’s election map center and the site 270 To Win both provide good interactive maps that allow users to play around with the variables and simulate various outcome. They also show the state-by-state breakdowns in past elections.

This is all really confusing! Give a real example already.

OK. Let’s look back at the 2008 election. First off, in terms of electoral votes, Obama pretty much killed it – he ended up with more than twice as many as John McCain: 365 compared to 173. But the weird thing is, Obama actually won the election by less than 10 million popular votes. The reason being that he was able to just squeak by in the big critical swing states (namely Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida), which collectively got him a huge number of electoral votes.

What happened in Florida is a actually a great example of just how peculiar our electoral system can be:

The Sunshine State is the quintessential mother-lode swing state; always unpredictable and worth a big chunk of electoral votes. In 2008, Obama won it by a margin of less than three percent (he got about 51 percent to McCain’s 48 percent). We’re talking about a victory of less than 300,000 votes. But because of the winner-take-all rule, Obama still got all 27 of the state’s electoral votes (and McCain got none). So depending on how you look at it, you could technically argue that the votes cast by the more than 4 million Floridians who chose McCain didn’t really end up counting for much at all.

Can a candidate win the presidency without winning the popular vote?

Indeed! It’s actually happened four different times in America’s history: In 1876 and 1888, Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison, respectively, won the White House even though they lost the popular vote (but won the electoral vote). And then there was the strange 1824 election, in which Andrew Jackson won more popular votes and electoral votes, but still ended up losing the election to John Quincy Adams. Turns out that Jackson’s 15 electoral vote advantage wasn’t enough to secure a required majority, and the presidency was ultimately decided by a vote in the House of Representatives. Pretty wacky.

And finally, who could forgot the 2000 election, in which Al Gore won more popular votes than George W. Bush, but lost the election (guess who’s now a big proponent of getting rid of the Electoral College?).

Why did the Founding Fathers come up with such a zany system? 

Two main reasons:

a) They wanted to steer clear of the British parliamentary model, in which the chief executive (prime minister) is chosen by elected representatives of the majority party. The founders thought that it was more democratic to appoint electors from each state than to have a system in which the president was elected by Congress.

b) It came down to an issue of old-school logistics: Back in the day (like way, way back: I’m talking before phones, and trains and wheels – OK, fine, they had wheels), long distance communication and travel was a challenge. Voting for delegates at a local level was easier and less susceptible to tampering and corruption than was counting every last person’s vote throughout the whole country.

What are arguments for keeping the Electoral College?

• It forces candidates to pay at least some attention to less-populated states. It also guarantees some political recognition to rural areas, as opposed to politicians being entirely focused on on voter-rich urban centers.
• It gives a greater degree of power to minority groups by allowing the opportunity for a relatively small number of voters in each state to determine the outcome.
• It’s consistent with America’s representative system of government, and it’s just the way we’ve always done it; it’s in our Constitution dagnabbit, so leave it be!

And how about against?

• Under our current electoral system, not all votes are equal; voters in swing states and less populous states have disproportionate power. And that disenfranchises millions of voters whose votes are not as important. In a direct election, everyone’s vote would have the same weight regardless of geography.
• It gives candidates the negative incentive to focus their campaigns mostly in swing states while largely ignoring the millions of voters in populous states that tend to consistently favor one party (like California and Texas).
• It’s a super outdated system that creates the potential for a candidate to win the popular vote but still lose the election.

What’s the electoral college, who are delegates, and why in the heck do we vote on Tuesday?

National elections, especially presidential ones, offer great teaching moments. But explaining the basic mechanics of America’s ever confusing electoral system can be daunting, especially for students who lack a basic understanding of the process.

Fortunately, there are a ton of great free digital resources out there to help your students demystify the process, using pretty engaging and creative formats. Of course, finding them entails the equally daunting task of spending hours online in search of the best unbiased content out there.

So, with that in mind, rather than adding to the cyber-pile, I’ve compiled a list of six excellent sites that do a good job in driving home basic election concepts, and, hopefully, encouraging your students to think critically about the process (rather than just learning about it as a given). This is by no means a comprehensive list (a good longer list can be found at the National Writing Project’s site), so if you have additional suggestions, please share in the comment box below.

1. Scholastic election guide

An excellent one-stop-shop comprehensive resource on the electoral system and the presidential race, including an interactive glossary of election terms, timelines, videos on the electoral college (and if it should be abolished), interactive games about the process, and candidate backgrounders.

2. New York Times Learning Network Lessons

A great list of lesson plans and ideas – with Common Core State Standards alignment -

for using the New York Times’ exceptional multimedia and print election-related. Lessons delve i

nto a wide range of details, from super PACs to stump speeches. The site also offers a good consoli

dated list of 10 ways to teach about election day. Additionally, there a lots of links and references to the multimedia election content on the main New York Times site, which is a pretty exceptional teaching resource in and of itself.

3. PBS LearningMedia Election Resources

PBS LearningMedia aggregates a huge (and growing) volume of multimedia content produced by PBS stations around the country. There is a wealth of election-related resources, including videos, interactive maps, and standards-aligned lesson plans on election processes and current races. You can search for specific content by grade level, subject and media type. It also includes excellent multimedia election content produced by the PBS Newshour team, including a series of interactive maps, highlighting state and national data that students can experiment with and manipulate.

4. iCivics Interactive Games

Pretty neat – especially for students who need the full interactive experience. This is  a project started up by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner. It’s packed with interactive games simulating election races and navigating the electoral process. Students can participate in a mock presidential election, in which they face all kind of real-life decisions and challenges, like polling, media campaigns, and raising campaign funds. There are also a number of election lesson plans.

5. C-SPAN’s Election Library 

A great collection of videos and other multimedia election resources exploring the current races as well as looking at the evolution of America’s electoral system in an historical context. C-SPAN also offers a site that’s specifically for educators, with a series of election-related content, but I actually think the original footage and primary source material they provide in their general audience election site is the most useful for students.

6. 270 To Win: An awesome map site

This is a site I just randomly stumbled upon the other day. It offers amazing interactive mapping resources, in which students can play around with delegate count possibilities, explore past election breakdowns, examine state voting trends, and watch various election-outcome simulations. Cool stuff!

So … Why do we vote on Tuesday???

Oh right – as promised: This video sheds light (very entertainingly) on America’s outdated voting tradition (and the many political leaders who don’t have the slightest clue how it all came to be):