November 30, 2015

Welcome to our AP Government class blog! Our activities on the blog will be in the green box located below. Read the activity and follow its instructions. When you are ready to answer the questions required, scroll down to the bottom of the blog page and click on add comment. Type your answers in the box that pops up and at the end of your answers, include your name. You MUST have your name in the comments box or you will NOT receive credit for your work. This is just like putting your name on your paper! ALSO, you must click anonymous from the drop down boxes listed below the comments box, since the comments are submitted to me for review and not published. If you leave the box for Google ID checked, your answers will be lost in space for all eternity (until you redo it!). If you have ANY questions, please let me know! Tip: If you have any doubts or fears about losing your work, do as I do, and copy and paste your answers into a Word document, Notepad, e-mail to yourself, etc., so you have an electronic copy as backup. I will be posting to the class blog on a weekly basis from now on, so stay tuned and check back frequently!

Be reminded that you lose participation points when you are caught on YouTube, Facebook, and similar sites. You may listen to music on a site like www.grooveshark.com that does NOT have videos. If music starts to interfere with your ability to complete your work or stay on task, you will lose that privilege.

Activity:

AP Government – *Be sure to show me your Chapter 10 definitions notes today if you haven’t done so already! *Ch. 10 Test Thursday on Elections and Campaigns definitions, Multiple Choice, and FRQ (Free Response Question). Here are the objectives for today (type your responses in Word or Docs and then copy and paste into the comments box on the blog): I can identify 5 things that has made Donald Trump’s presidential campaign controversial and respond to 2 of them. I can complete an FRQ on Campaigns and Elections. Tasks: click on the following link to go to an article about ten groups Trump has insulted or offended since he began his presidential campaign. Read the article andin the comments box on the class blog list the 5 groups you think should be the most offended. Then, choose two of those 5 and explain why you think offending that group will make it harder for Trump to get elected. Be detailed. Write about a paragraph for each of the two that you choose. Then, answer the following FRQ on Elections and Campaigns:

The presidential election of 2000 hinged on the outcome in Florida. First, the television networks said that Vice President Al Gore had carried the state. Then, the state’s election was considered “too close to call.” Then, the networks declared Texas Governor George W. Bush the winner. The presidential election was so close that it took five weeks to determine the winner. Vice President Al Gore carried the East and West Coasts and inland industrial cities, while Texas Governor George W. Bush won much of the Midwest and Plains, as well as the South. Gore gained a half-million more votes than Bush, but Gore lost the Electoral College when he lost Florida. Bush's official margin in Florida was by 537 votes. With the presidency hanging on a few hundred votes in a single state, there were lawsuits and requests for recounts. Bitter disputes centered on confusing ballots, missing names from voting rolls, and subjecting minority voters to multiple requests for identification. The punch card ballots posed a major problem--they were vulnerable to voter error. Many ballots were called into question because voters failed to punch a hole all the way through the ballot. In an extraordinary late-night decision, the U.S. Supreme Court halted a recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. A narrow majority of the Justices said that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court violated the principle that “all votes must be treated equally.” It also ruled that there was not enough time to conduct a new count that would meet constitutional muster. The 2000 presidential election was the first in 112 years in which a president lost the popular vote but captured enough states to win the electoral vote.

1.      Elections and Campaigns each play a significant role in the United States political system, yet they differ in some fundamental ways.

a)     Describe how the coattails of a presidential candidate can help another person running for office.

b)     Do you believe a candidate running for office in Florida in 2000 would have benefitted from the coattails of one of the candidates? Explain.

c)     Describe the issues of the vote in Florida. Why was it controversial? List the reasons.

d)     What steps could be taken to prevent the issues of the 2000 Presidential Election from recurring? Be specific and include details.

If you have time left over, review current events articles on the 2016 Presidential Candidates.