United States Democratic Party

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The U.S. Democratic Party is one of the two big political parties in the United States. The other one is the Republican Party. The U.S. also has many tiny, minor parties known as "third parties."

The Democratic National Committee (see http://democrats.org) coordinates in all 50 United States most of the activities of the Democratic party.

Supporters of this party are known as Democrats.

1 History
2 Philosophy and Role in Government
3 Symbols
4 Famous Democrats other than U.S. Presidents
5 U.S. Presidents who were Democrats
6 External links

[edit] History

President Andrew Jackson

The Democratic Party is one of the oldest political parties in the world. Most historians agree that it first became a party with the Democratic-Republican Party created by Thomas Jefferson in the 1790s. The other political party in the USA then was called the Federalists, created by Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson first called his party the Republican Party because it believed the USA should be a republic instead of a direct democracy. The name of the party was changed to Democratic-Republican in 1798.

In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected President. He was a new kind of politician who got support from many different kinds of people, especially poor and working people in the country, rather than just from rich people in the city. He changed his party's name to the Democratic Party, because he believed in democracy. He is called the first President of the United States from the modern Democratic Party.

During the Civil war, some members of the Democratic Party supported the Confederate States of America, but many others in the party did not. This led to a weak and confused party that lost many elections after the war was over.

By the time of World War I, Republicans had ran the government for many years, with only a few times where Democrats were able to win the Congress or the Presidency. Woodrow Wilson was elected over two Republican candidates in 1912. He led the USA to victory in World War I.

The next Democratic President was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected in 1932 during the Great Depression. Roosevelt was one of the best and most popular Presidents of all time and he is the only one who has ever won four terms in office. During these years, Democrats had big majorities in Congress.

After World War II, Democrats had big majorities again in both houses of Congress (Republicans won some elections in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1980's) until the election of 1994. Since then, the party has had to think about how it can win back voters and rebuild its support. Democrats won back Congress in the election of 2006.

[edit] Philosophy and Role in Government

A Democratic Party Donkey

Sometimes Democrats are called "the left" or "liberals", even though not all Democrats are left-wing or liberal. Many Democrats, particularly in the South and Rocky Mountains of the United States, are conservative or middle-of-the-road (moderate). In the United States, each of the parties are a large coalition that covers many different kinds of ideology.

There are few issues on which all Democrats agree, but most support graduated income taxes (rich people pay more than poor people), ethics reform in the Congress, health care reform, abortion rights (pro-choice), more stem cell research to cure sickness, and a timetable for taking American troops out of Iraq. Most support for Democrats comes from states in the Northeast, Midwest, and Pacific Coast areas of the USA, but there are Democrats elected to office in all other states too.

By tradition, the Democratic Party represents liberal values, and uses government to help weak groups, such as children, "senior citizens" (old people), the poor, and minority groups. Democrats wrote many important laws such as the Social Security Act of 1933 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Because of the strong support of Democrats for civil rights, most African Americans support the Democrats in elections.

Democrats had not had a majority of seats in the House or Senate since the election of 1994. However, they won control of both houses of Congess in the election of 2006. They have not held the Presidency since the election of 2000. Every four years the party holds a National Convention where they agree on their candidate for President. The last National Convention was in Boston, Massachusetts in 2004 where John Kerry was nominated for President and John Edwards was nominated for Vice President.

[edit] Symbols

The symbol of the Democratic Party is the donkey. Since the election of 2000, the color blue has become a symbol for Democrats.

[edit] Famous Democrats other than U.S. Presidents

Senator Hillary Clinton

Governor Howard Dean

Nancy Pelosi (California), Speaker of the House
Steny Hoyer (Maryland), House Majority Leader
Harry Reid (Nevada), Senate Majority Leader
Dick Durbin (Illinois), Senate Whip
Howard Dean (Vermont), former Governor and current head of the Democratic National Committee
Hillary Clinton (New York), Senator and former First Lady
Barack Obama (Illinois), Senator
Mark Warner (Virginia), former Governor
Al Gore (Tennessee), former Vice President
Janet Napolitano (Arizona), Governor
Brian Schweitzer (Montana), Governor
Jon Corzine (New Jersey), Governor
Bill Richardson (New Mexico), Governor
Eliot Spitzer (New York), Governor