Who Should You Vote For in the Presidential Election? (Please respond by 3:00 PM on Friday, December 2)

For our blog this week, I found a creative way to see who all of you might vote for if the presidential election were this week. Please sign up for a free account on the link I have posted below. Once you sign up, the site will instruct you to follow some pretty simple steps about what issues might be important to you followed by a series of questions. Please use your school email when signing up. After you have been "selected" with your presidential choice, post your choice on here. Do you agree or disagree? Could you see yourself voting for this person if the election were today? Have fun!

http://www.electnext.com/

Political Endorsements (Please respond by Friday, November 18)

As far as most of us know, political scientists have not found any direct evidence that elected officials' endorsements make much difference with the electorate. However, this is a concept we must learn about in this class.  Take a look at the video I have included in this post from current Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (R). He released this campaign ad in support of George Allen (R) for senator of Virginia in the 2012 election. Allen will be running against Tim Kaine (D), former Governor of Virginia and director of the Democratic National Committee. This race will be one of the biggest in the country next year as Virginia will be heavily targeted in the presidential competition. After viewing this ad, do you see any correlation between endorsements and voters heavily using those ads when deciding on whom they will vote for? How effective do you believe this ad was? Could this ad help or hurt George Allen in his election campaign?

Open Blog Post (Please respond by Friday, November 11)

We are going to try a rather unique approach to the blog for this week. Here are your tasks:

1) Post a comment on a news story/issue/something you have found happening in the world of politics, United States, or the world stage. The goal in finding something to post on is to generate further responses from your classmates.

2) After you have posted your story, comment on another story which one of your classmates has posted. Simply give your feelings or reactions to what they have said.

This obviously will involve you having to do some research to look for a good story. Here is my only rule: ONCE SOMEONE HAS POSTED A STORY, YOU CANNOT USE THE SAME STORY! We are going to use the first come, first serve policy. This means you might need to find another topic or story. Please email me with questions.