Election Spending (A Think)

The November elections are four weeks from tomorrow. One must only watch the news or read newspapers to see that races have heat up around the country. The New York Times is running an article entitled, In Final Weeks, G.O.P. Focuses on Best Bets. The article states:

Republicans said they remained confident that the party’s considerable financial advantage would allow them to hold back a Democratic onslaught over the next three weeks, and they said they were preparing to spend significantly to bulk up any Republican who their polling over the next few days suggested might be faltering.

It certainly will be interesting to see what happens on national, state and local levels. Let's include our students in the election excitement.

Lesson Ideas:
1. Each political party must decide where to spend its money to best support it's own interests. Tell students to pretend that one of the major parties has come to them asking for advice as to how to allocate funds. Tell them to make a list of criteria that should be considered when allocating funds. Should every candidate get an equal amount? Why/why not? Should candidates who are the most qualified get the most amount of money? Why/why not? What if a highly qualified candidate will likely win her election but a less qualified candidate is uncertain as to whether or not he will win. Should the money go to the less qualified candidate? Why? You might ask students to do this work in groups. You might ask them to blog their answers.
2. We live in a day and age in which political parties and candidate use negative advertising against their opponents all the time. Ask students if they've seen any negative campaigning? Ask them if they think that negative campaigning should be banned. You might ask students to develop interviews which they can use to ask other students and/or their parents/other adults about negative campaigning. Students might even be encouraged to podcast their interviews.
3. The New York Times article linked to above could not have been written without investigative reporting. Ask your students to investigate the ways in which a candidate in your local community is both raising money and spending money on the campaign. You might ask students to work in groups and ask each group to select a candidate to investigate. Though they can call the campaign office to solicit information there is also likely a lot of information in your local newspaper.
4. Candidates are asked questions all the time when they are campaigning. Indeed, well prepared candidates have platforms that explain and define their positions. Tell your students to develop a series of questions that they would like to ask a candidate. Then tell them that it's not always possible to speak directly with a candidate but candidates have spokespeople who can answer questions for them. If possible call a candidate's office during classtime and invite students to ask questions. (Among many other things, they might ask about standardized testing, curfews, smoking and more.) You could ask students to write up these interviews and place them on a wiki. Interestingly, if the candidates refuse to take the time to speak with your class you can ask your students to write about this too. Candidates, or their representatives, should take the time to speak with everybody who wants to speak with them. Be sure to interview all contestants for an office.


Edit and expand upon these lesson ideas on our Lesson-Wiki.