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Alpha Stage
Obama
April 5, 2007







The Boston Globe is running an article entitled, "Obama is a Close
Second with $25m."

The article begins, "Senator Barack Obama announced yesterday
that he had raised more than $25 million for his presidential
campaign in the first three months of this year, putting the first-
term senator from Illinois in close competition with Senator Hillary
Clinton of New York and undercutting Clinton's effort to establish
herself as the inevitable Democratic nominee."

According to the article, this presidential primary campaign is
shaping up to be the most expensive ever. Interestingly, more states
are holding their primary elections early in 2008 than ever before.

Read a Similar Article!!


Discussion-Starters for Younger Children

  • Ask your students what money is. What does money let
    them do? Encourage them to provide multiple examples of
    things they can buy with money. Who do your students
    think gets more of what they want, people with a lot of
    money or people with little money? Why? (Though the
    answer to this last question can be very complicated, it can
    be answered at different levels.)
  • Consider asking students to draw pictures or create
    collages, from magazine/newspaper cutouts, of things
    that they can buy with money.

  • Do your students think that their time at school would be
    different if they had different teachers? How might their time
    at school be different?
  • Consider having students conduct a survey to find
    out how different classes are different. Does one
    class hear more stories than another class? Does one
    teacher read aloud more than another teacher? Does
    one class play more learning games than another
    class? Remember to celebrate differences!!

  • Do your students like relay races? Ask them to tell you about
    a time that they were in a race. In a relay race, does the
    runner who starts off the fastest always win? Why/why not?
    What types of skills does somebody have to have to win a
    race?
  • Consider asking students to make a list of qualities of
    successful runners. The entire class might do this
    together.

  • If your students wanted to raise $100 how would they get
    the money? Encourage them to be creative.
  • In groups of two or three, ask students to develop
    plans for raising money.



Discussion-Starters for Older Students

  • Vocabulary terms to discuss: Undercutting; Inevitable;
    Formidable; and, Winnow.

  • Pose: Imagine that you were the advisors to Senator Barack
    Obama. He asks you for advice as to how to best spend
    campaign money to get the most votes? What would you
    advise? Why? How does the price of different forms of
    communication influence how the campaign should spend its
    money?
  • Students could develop proposals in groups of three
    or four.

  • Do your students think that candidates should be allowed to
    spend as much as they want in a campaign? Why/why not?
    How could the answer to this question potentially influence
    the type of government that the U.S. has?
  • Consider asking students to write persuasive essays
    in response to these questions. Ask them to reference
    at least one core democratic value.

  • If your students were in charge of a campaign's finances
    would they prefer to get small contributions from a lot of
    people or large contributions from a far smaller number of
    people? As in the contest between Senators Clinton and
    Obama, assume that the amount of money raised was about
    equal. Encourage your students to explain their answers.
  • These questions could prompt an interesting class
    discussion.
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