Presidential Campaign Project
Assigned:______Due:______
Objective: This project is designed to help each student learn about the decisions that go into running a successful political campaign for president.
Government Standard: SSCG8 – The student will demonstrate knowledge of local, state, and national elections.
a. Describe the organization, role, and constituencies of political parties.
b. Describe the nomination and election process.
c. Examine campaign funding and spending.
d. Analyze the influence of media coverage, campaign advertising, and public opinion polls.
e. Identify how amendments extend the right to vote.
Directions: Within your group, develop a political party and make all of the decisions about political strategies in order to run a candidate for the office of the presidency. Record your decisions on a campaign wiki to be reviewed to the F.E.C. for audit. Your F.E.C. guidelines are detailed below.
Part One: Political Ideology (forming the party)
1. Choose 15 or more political planks that form the party’s political platform. Write issue statements for each of the planks.
2. Determine the political ideology of your party. Go to the following web sites and answer based on the views of your party’s platform. Print your entry and the results to include in your strategies notebook: www.self-gov.org/quiz.html and www.politicalcompass.org.
3. Determine the name and symbol of your political party.
4. Who will be the party leaders running for President and Vice President? Why? Submit a profile highlighting the characteristics that represent the party’s ideology.
5. Investigate the Constitution for information about electing a president and vice president. What does the Constitution say about how this process works? Include a brief summary of the Electoral College process and don’t forget to mention any amendments that have altered the original vision of the Framers in presidential selection.
6. By your party’s political ideology, what groups of people will form the constituency or base of your party? (gender, race, age, religion, education, income, interests, etc.)
7. Determine your campaign slogan based on all of your ideological decisions.
BENCHMARK #1 – You need to have the name, symbol, and campaign slogan for your political party on a visual display by the end of the first unit.
Part Two: Making Campaign Decisions
(You are to assume that your candidate is going to accept public financing of his/her campaign and that your party/candidate must raise a minimum of $50 million for the campaign from various sources. You will probably find that this amount will not be sufficient for what your candidate wants to accomplish.)
1. Organize your campaign staff. What types of organizers will the party have?
2. What voters will your party target? Why?
3. What issues will the party focus on, which ones will the party ignore? Why?
4. What states or geographical locations will the campaign focus on? Why? (Don’t forget the primaries.) Include a U.S. map that charts your strategy for winning.
5. What role will the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates play during the campaign? (Remember to consider their travel schedules.)
6. In what ways will your campaign measure public opinion? How will the results affect your campaign strategies and decisions? Be sure to define your sample.
7. Plan your fundraising efforts. Where is the money for your campaign going to come from? (Be realistic! Remember that a violation of F.E.C. regulations results in fines and possible disqualification.)
8. What PACs are going to support you? Why?
9. Organize your budget based on your fundraising efforts. How will you use your money to target voters and run the campaign?
Examples: Printing (bumper stickers, mailouts, posters, billboards,)
Advertising (TV for 30 seconds = $200,000; Radio for 30 seconds = $20,000; One page newspaper ad = $2,000)
Travel Expenses
Campaign Staff Salaries
BENCHMARK #2 – You need to have a map of the United States illustrating your Electoral College strategy for winning the presidency by the end of the second unit.
Part Three: Running the Campaign
1. Draft a letter to the voters that explains who you are and why you want to serve as their next president (as part of your fundraising and/or awareness campaign).
2. Write a public opinion poll that will measure the value of your platform to the voters. Use random sampling techniques to give your poll and interpret the results using tables, graphs, and/or charts.
3. Develop a minimum of ten questions to be submitted to the moderator of the upcoming presidential debate.
4. Write the script and design the storyboard for a 20-30 second, issue-focused campaign ad for television (and don’t forget to include it in your budget). Create a 20-30 second video/DVD/radio (audio) spot for your proposed ad.
5. Plan one fundraising event. Design an invitation, plan the menu and program, determine how to publicize the event, and develop a list of priority guests.
BENCHMARK #3 – You need to have graphic results of your public opinion poll on a chart by the end of the third unit.
Part Four: Winning the Campaign
1. Organize a transition team and determine who you want in the following roles:
a) White House staff (key positions – think West Wing)
b) Cabinet secretaries (all 15)
2. Draft an inaugural address that you will be ready to give once you are sworn in as president. The address should be approximately 10-15 minutes in length. Remember to include many of your platforms or promises you made during the campaign.
3. Evaluate current congressional control of the House and Senate. How many Democrats? How many Republicans? How easy is it going to be to get your agenda passed by Congress? Who will be your allies? Enemies?
4. Sketch out a plan for your first 100 days. Presidents (whether unfair or not) are judged by the success or failure of their first 100 days in office. What are the most pressing concerns that you have to deal with and what can wait until later in your term?
5. Decorate the White House. Choose a new china pattern. Pick what items you will put on your desk, paintings on the wall, etc. Choose a new Secret Service call sign.
6. Bush had his ranch in Crawford, Texas; Kennedy had his compound in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. Where will you go to get away from the pressures of political life in Washington, D.C.? Decide where your presidential retreat will be located and design the compound by including a detailed layout of the grounds.
BENCHMARK #4 – You need to have a sample calendar of your first 100 days by the end of the fourth unit.
Part Five: Evaluating Your Campaign
You must complete this part individually. Each response below should be at least one paragraph or more in length.
1. What would the difference be in running a campaign if the candidate was running as an incumbent (if he or she were already in office as the president)? What if the candidate was running against an incumbent?
2. How do political parties, in general, help candidates get elected? Do you think this political party would ever stand a chance at getting a president elected? Why or why not?
3. How do you think voters would react to your party and its platforms? What aspects of your campaign would attract certain voters? What aspects would discourage potential voters from supporting your candidate? What role would interest groups and the mass media have in your campaign? How do you think interest groups and the mass media would react to the style and substance of your campaign?
4. Compare and contrast your campaign strategies to those of the real-life candidate or candidates that most closely paralleled the ideology of your fictitious party and candidate.
5. What is the most difficult aspect of running (and winning) a presidential campaign? What is the easiest aspect?