New 527 Ad Which Will Debut Tomorrow
Yes McCain-Feingold is supposed to stop third party ads in the last 60 days of an election, BUT, the way around it is to become a 527 (so named from the part of the tax code which you have to file when you organize). So Vets for Freedom, a 527, will come out on Wednesday with the commercial above.

Googe Election Video Search

Google Elections Video Search allows you and your students to directly query YouTube political videos for their spoken content. Using speech-to-text technology, videos from political channels are automatically transcribed and indexed. Simply enter a search term to find relevant videos and jump immediately to where your term was mentioned.

Slate.com

Slate has a number of articles, but for those of you who want cartoons, it also collects them together here. This week, it has a bunch of McCain ones, which are here.

Great News Site
The News Room is a great site that has local and national news clips. For example, the above clip from WRC4 is about the recent Gilmore-Warner debate. I went to the site, typed in "Mark Warner + Senate" and found it as well as clips from his speech at the Dem National Convention.

Latest McCain/Obama Ads
Click here for the first post debate ad from McCain (using lines from it) and here for the first one from Obama.

Word and Message Testing
Frank Lutz has long been one of the leading Republican pollsters. In this video he looks at what is called word and message testing and uses the first presidential debate to make his point.

Watch CBS Videos Online
Debate Prep 101 Give it 10 seconds to load.

Obama vs. McCain, Round One
Click on the video above to see the beginning of the debate. Click here to get see a series of videos broken down by topic. If you just want highlights, go here.

Political Fact Check Site

Here's a link to the to FactCheck.org, which is run by Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Free Response Question Strategy

Here's the strategy I place on every FRQ I give my students. I require them to write using these strategies. I believe it helps focus the student's attention and will hopefully help them earn as high of a score as possible. Some of these ideas are my own and some are from colleagues who have served as readers and table leaders.

Free Response Strategy

* Mark-up the question.
* Count up how many points you are trying to earn. (Look for number references, count the verbs)
* Write as many sentences as there are points.
* Write simple, declarative sentences.
* Answer the question asked. Nothing else.
* Look for time references. Patterns, passage of time.
* Do not argue with the premise of the prompt.
* Add an extra response just in case.
* Answer the question in the order asked.
* Skip a line between parts, but do not label.

Frank Franz
Madison HS

Yes it's Civics, but this site is made by a FCPS teacher and has a lot of great Power Points and even if you don't use the entire slide, you might want to incorporate some of the pictures.

vs. Gilmore
Lest we forget, VA has a senate race this year. The top ad is Warner's most recent and below it is Gilmore's. Click here to see Gilmore's money and here for Warner's and here for polling.

Historical Ads

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2008

This site has indexed all of the major party presidential campaign ads since 1952. The students get a kick out of "I like Ike" while the images of the 1964 Goldwater "Daisy" ad are still chilling today. They have been keeping up on this years ads as well.

Talking Points Memo
Be warned up front that this is a liberal site (please leave a message if you know an equivalent one on the conservative side) that has a lot of video (from the talk shows today (see above video), the latest political ads, polls, articles and more. Also all of the video can be embedded on your school sites or linked so you can show your students. Finally despite the date below, this embedded video is from Sunday September 28th.

Targeted Races in the House and Totals Raised by Congressional Campaigns
I can't find a comparable site at the NRCC, but click here or on the picture and you can find out about the Dem's targted races. If anyone knows of a comparable Republican one, please tell me with a comment. Also if you want to see what the Congressional or Senate candidates have raised this year, go here.

FEC and Redistricting

A couple of web resources from Pete Garvey at Mountain View:

www.fec.gov for contributions

and the redistricting game http://www.redistrictinggame.com/

FEC Website
This is the site to see how much your House, Senate or even presidential candidates have raised. It is done in a very easy format so you can quickly share the information with your students.

New Ads. Obama on top. McCain on bottom

270 to Win

This is an interactive web site that allows you to explore possible outcomes in the presidential election. It is a great visual to help students to understand that you do not need to win the popular vote to become the president. It also has the historical data from the previous presidential elections as well

Here is the actual up to date electoral count from Rasmussen polling.


http://www.270towin.com/

A Way for Students To Discuss Ideas
Have an Idea that can help the Commonwealth of Virginia? On this site you: Submit your idea so that others can comment and vote on them. Discuss your idea with others, and collaborate.
Vote on other ideas, and help promote them so that they become one of the ideas that creates new innovation in Virginia!

New Obama/McCain Ads for Swing States

Living in a swing states allows us to see these often, but just click and show your students and have them compare which is better, if either, and why.

Politic.com
One of the most used sites inside the beltway. It has up to the minute articles, video, etc. The articles are extremely elluminating and a quick read.

Real Clear Politics
This site has video, analysis, and polls (which are great because they give you the aggregate of all the major ones so you can avoid the bias).

Five Thirty-Eight
The name of this site is derived from the 538 electoral votes in the presidential election. It is filled with polls, graphs, charts and more about the presidential election. Come here to see how the swing states are doing.

Too Conservative
The opposite VA prospective of the site below. It too has great links and great video, inside info, etc.

Progressive VA Blog
If you want the early scoop on all liberal VA politics, come here. There are also links to many other liberal and conservative sites.