What if you could go back to the year 1800 and watch the presidential election? Well, in our U.S. History class, we got to do something like this. The Project: Two candidates (students) would attempt to win over another class while representing Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. The Parties: Hamilton was of the Federalist Party, and Jefferson was with the Democratic-Republicans. Campaign Ingredients: Posters, pamphlets, speeches, debates, and commercials. Each party would make their own posters, take their own notes, etc., and then present everything to another social sciences class and see which candidate they picked.

I was put with the Federalists, and helped manage the campaign Over the course of a few classes and one Sunday spent filming, our group turned out a pretty good set of colorful posters, and informative brochure, some witty cartoons, and a commercial (F.Y.I. – Alexander Hamilton,Was not actually a candidate in the real 1800 election, but he was considered the leader of the Federalist party.)Perhaps our technologies weren’t as advanced as the Obama / McCain ones, but all in all, we did very well in my opinion.

On the day of presentation, we -assembled in a classroom a few doors down the hall in front of a class of sophomore students. I felt a little nervous, since I was one of the debaters, but my friend Lilly Ramsey (also debating) and I had practiced beforehand. Erica Lance handed out her awesome cartoons to the voters, while Tori Zupansic, Cassidy Bradley, and Halley Duguay exhibited their hand-made posters. After the debate, which covered such issues as tariffs, the constitution, and basic citizen rights, speeches were made by Jordan Blais (Democratic-Republican) and Ben Dostie (Federalist). Ben did a great job with his speech; it outlined Alexander, Hamilton’s ideals and goals for America without getting boring and dry,.

The end of the period was drawing close, so our class filed back into Mr. Davis’s room, leaving our teacher organizing a secret ballot with the sophomores. Just before the bell rang, Mr. Davis walked back in and, announced the winner of the election: Alexander Hamilton! Yippee!