Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Politicians Target Democratic 'Blue' States, 08/02/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec04/bluestates.html

Initiating Questions:

1. If you could vote, which presidential candidate would you choose in November?

2. Would you consider your state a Republican or Democratic state?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Which states voted for Al Gore in the 2000 election?

In 2000, Democratic candidate Al Gore won 20 states to George Bush's 30. The Pacific coast, the Northeast (except New Hampshire), and a handful of states in between voted "blue" - or Democratic - some by less than a percentage point.

2. What about John Kerry's background may turn blue-collar workers off?

For John Kerry, this year's Democratic nominee, that means working hard to motivate and energize the party's traditional supporters to be sure they turn out on Election Day. Among blue-collar workers and minorities, though, two groups that traditionally vote Democratic, his privileged Boston upbringing and 20 years in Washington's inner circle aren't necessarily pluses.

3. What might help Kerry in the upcoming election?

But, with his choice of charismatic Southerner John Edwards as a running mate and lots of campaign stops aimed at small-town voters in blue-collar towns, Kerry hopes to solidify his grip on "blue" states while strengthening his position in states that went for Gore by a narrow margin in 2000, states like Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon and New Mexico.

4. Why did the Republican Party choose New York as the site of the Republican National Convention?

For their part, Republicans are heading for New York City - a Democratic stronghold - to hold their nominating convention at the end of August. By selecting the site of the 9/11 attacks, George Bush's party hopes to strengthen his image as a strong leader in dangerous times.

5. What are Republicans doing to win over blue state voters?

The GOP, or Grand Old Party as the Republican Party is sometimes referred to, is also mobilizing a virtual army of volunteers to rally grassroots support for their candidate in Democratic-leaning states like Wisconsin, which the president recently visited for the first time since 2001. The Bush campaign also has touched down recently in Oregon, Iowa and Michigan, states the campaign thinks it may have a chance to win back in November.

6. What are some of the issues that Republican and Democratic voters care about?

In fact, it may be social issues that sway voters one way or the other. Democratic voters may be concerned about security at home and abroad and may be drawn to the policies of George Bush, but when it comes to gay rights, abortion rights and civil rights, they often stand firmly behind their party's candidate.

On the other hand, the president's appeals to his far-right, conservative support base -- for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, for example, and his financial support for "faith-based" community initiatives -- may hurt him in "blue" America as much as it helps him elsewhere.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Using the Online NewsHour's interactive electoral map at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2004/politics101/politics101_ecmap.html, research which way voters in your state voted in the 2000 election. Would you consider your state a blue, or Democratic, state, a red, or Republican, state or is it a battleground state, where the results could go either way? Which way do you expect your state to go in the 2004 presidential election? Why?

2. How have the two major presidential candidates been campaigning in your state? Have you seen television or print ads? What about the candidates' speeches themselves? If you have, what message do you think each candidate is trying to send to voters in your state?

Write a 500-800 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org]. Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.