Election Fever

Today, Nov 7, is Election Day. Here in Florida, the election will decide the number one guy in the state (the governor) all the way to the local county commissioners. For this year, both the gubernatorial candidates are from the Tampa Bay area, assuring that the next governor will call Tampa Bay area his home.

Compared to Malaysia, the election fever here seems a tad subdued. There is no overhead banners strung between lamp posts; no fiery orations using hand-held speakers; no spectators/supporters spilling onto the road, and no policemen standing guard at conspicuous places. In their place, there are cardboard posters staked to the ground at road junctions, nothing aerial; moderated public debates among/between candidates, usually carried live on TV; and volunteers ushering in voters at the gates.

Most of the candidates are fielded by the two parties: the Republicans and the Democrats, with a handful of independents. I’ve never really understood what the two parties actually stand for, save for the hazy notion that the Republicans are conservatives while the Democrats are the liberals. So I decided to do a bit of Internet sleuthing to find out more.

First I visited the official website of the Republican Party, GOP.com. Now, GOP has always been the moniker for the Republicans but I’ve never known what it stands for since it does not feature R in it. Until today.

According to the website, it started off as “Grand Old Party” dating back to the 1880s. Along the way others pretenders appeared: Gallant Old Party, GO-Party. Then in the 1970s, it was back to the original term: Grand Old Party. Grand it may be, but not necessarily old as the Democrat Party is older.

Some historical tidbits.

• The Republican Party was formed in the early 1850's by anti-slavery activists.


• Abraham Lincoln was elected the Party’s first President in 1860.


• The symbol for the Party is the Elephant.


• The Party color is red in the sense that red states are states that have voted predominantly for the Republican presidential candidate, a color scheme becoming in vogue following the 2000 presidential election.


• The magazine of the Republican National Committee is Rising Tide.


• Some of the Republican Presidents during our lifetime are The Bush father and son, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon.

Now over to the Democrat Party.

• Touted as the "party for the common man", the Democrat party was founded by Thomas Jefferson in the late 18th Century who went on to become the Party’s first President.


• The Party’s blog is called Kicking Ass.


• The party is represented by the animal Donkey (Funny thing is I read about this in the GOP website but did not find such reference at the Democrats website but I must admit it was just a cursory search).


• The Party color is blue in analogy to the color red for the Republican Party.


• Some of the more recent Democrat Presidents include Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and JF Kennedy.

Perhaps more telling is the domain name of the respective websites: dot com for the Republicans and dot org for the Democrats. In common usage, com stands for company, which means making money, the bottom line. On the other hand, org is associated with non-profit organizations that are people-oriented. By design or coincidence? You tell me.