Mock 2008 Presidential Elections

The Presidential Elections only come once every four years, and are a huge part of American democracy. To recognize this year’s election we did a mock election. Leading up to the election, each class was split up into groups of three (one for each candidate). And when we met in our groups we decided on what topic we wanted to specialize on researching. The debate itself took all day. We had to go through every candidate’s issues from both major parties. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all bad, we all learned a lot about major issues that our the U.S. and all other countries are faced with. I thought that this was a very interesting way of learning about the Presidential Elections. The topic I was assigned to research and debate on was Hilary Clinton’s view on stem cell research. While researching this topic I had found some very interesting points. Before doing this I had no idea what stem cells were or what potential they hold. For most of the notes that I got, I had to actually do a lot of research to find them. The reason that it was so hard to find was because stem cell research wasn’t a direct issue that Hilary was focusing on so therefore it wasn’t on her website. Also it was very hard to find research on her views on stem cell research and the other candidates’ views. This leads me to the most useful bit of knowledge that I gained from doing this mini project. Not “book smart knowledge” its “street smart knowledge”, I learned that if you don’t even know anything about a topic, there are still ways of getting out of it. For example, our teachers asked me about stem cell research leading to cloning, I knew nothing about the topic, yet I found a way to avoid it and yet still sounding professional. I think that this skill will help me all throughout life in getting myself out of “sticky situations”. My views are pretty much the same with Hilary Clinton’s regarding stem cell research. I am glad that I wasn’t on the republican side though; they had to fight for something that they didn’t necessarily believe in. But throughout this whole learning experience, I have noticed one thing; if our county wasn’t a democracy it wouldn’t be anywhere near as advanced as today. There are just way to many different opinions, and so many people that all have different thoughts, and yet most citizens don’t realize what power they posses with voting alone, one vote could change a life.