K-12 Government/Election Teaching Materials

Exit polls from the 2000 Presidential election

Summary: On NPR's Morning Edition, Mara Liasson asserted that a new McCain campaign ad "catalogued all of the false or sexist or awful things that Democrats and Obama supporters have said about [Gov.] Sarah Palin." In fact, the ad did not "catalogue" any "false" statements the Obama campaign or other Democrats have made about Palin and, as FactCheck.org noted, the ad "distorts" each of the three Obama campaign statements it uses "to make the case" that Sen. Barack Obama is "being 'disrespectful' of Palin."

A McCain-Palin TV ad accuses Obama of being "disrespectful" of Palin, but it distorts quotes to make the case.

For months, the magic that once surrounded Barack Obama's presidential candidacy was lost in a fog of petty politics: the negative ads, the Clinton dramas, the degrading of Obama to the status of a mere "celebrity," the back-and-forth with John McCain over who is an elitist and who is a flip-flopper. The recent direction of the campaign reflects a basic political fact: If this contest turns out to be a big election, Obama will almost certainly win. But if it is converted into a small election, Obama could well lose. And the McCain campaign has done all it could to bring Obama back to earth and to dissipate the sense of possibility he once inspired. If it did nothing else, this week's Democratic National Convention served as a reminder of the historical import of Obama's nomination and the astonishing transformation of the country in just three generations.

The GOP opens its convention here Monday as a party in peril. Hobbled by an unpopular president, a disillusioned and divided base, and low poll ratings on almost every domestic issue, the party of Nixon and Reagan and Bush may well be at the end of a historic 40-year grasp on power, say conservative thinkers and political historians. Republicans lost the House of Representatives in 2006, and are now at risk of losing the Senate. They were defeated in special elections this year in congressional districts that in some cases hadn't elected a Democrat since the days of Lyndon Johnson.

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Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies and English movies, comic strips, activity pages and school homework help for kids.

By all rights, there should be a revolt at this week's Republican convention against John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate--for the very same reasons so many Republicans opposed President Bush's selection of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. Palin is, if anything, less qualified for the vice presidency (and the presidency) than Miers was for the court. But there is one big difference: Palin passes all the right-wing litmus tests, which means she is unlikely to suffer Miers' fate. It's amusing to watch Republicans play gender politics. At the time Bush chose Miers, he was under pressure to pick a woman to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But most of the plausible women jurists were either too moderate to satisfy conservatives or so right wing that they faced serious confirmation problems.

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A new McCain ad calls Obama a celebrity (true) who says he'll raise taxes on electricity (false).