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Excellent lesson plan for gr. 9-12 where students take on role of political analyst. Designed for 2004 election but could easily be modified for 2008. Another great lesson plan from HotChalk.

comprehensive lesson plan for gr. 9-12 including assessment, discussion questions, etc. Overview Students take on the role of a political analyst, forecasting the electoral vote count for the 2004 presidential election. In order to make a prediction, students are introduced to campaign issues, the Electoral College, the role of swing states, and the importance of political participation. The lesson plan includes a fun, interactive classroom competition where students make electoral predictions and compare with the actual results following the November 2nd voting deadline.

The number of voters under 30 in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections remained stagnant at just 17 percent. Teens become apathetic because politicians are unresponsive, politicians become indifferent to teens because they are apathetic and don't vote.
The way to break this cycle is to make teens feel like they have a voice that politicians will listen to. Politicians have been reaching out to youth by holding events on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. CNN even held the YouTube debates, allowing users to submit questions directly to candidates. Making politicians answerable to young people forces their interests to be considered.\n\n

By running an attack campaign that is almost a parody of George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 exertions, McCain is chucking away his greatest opportunity, which is to show that he could reform Republicanism and offer voters an alternative way of breaking with a past they have come to loathe.

The Democratic Party's outreach to young people and to people of faith seems to be paying off. A new survey on faith and American politics shows Democratic nominee Barack Obama making inroads among some believers and moving ahead of Republican John McCain among Roman Catholics, largely because of young Catholics' support. In the biggest shift over the past four years, Senator Obama now wins the backing of 60 percent of voters who attend religious services once or twice a month, a jump from the 49 percent the Democratic nominee won in 2004.

No controversy looms larger than that about "likely" voters. Polls that count them, rather than registered voters, are usually more accurate, but maybe not this year. Pollsters determine who is likely to cast a ballot by asking questions such as whether they voted in 2004, are following the campaign and plan to vote. Respondents get a point for each "right" answer.