Proposition for our Group Project

A couple of weeks ago, the four of us were put into this group and assigned the task of creating a form of alternative media. After discussing our options, we decided to create a political blog.
There are many forms of political blogs on the internet, so what were we going to do ours about? We wanted to be original with our approach, but with the presidential race starting to get into full swing, we knew that we should probably do something to incorporate that; however, the group as a whole was dissatisfied with the choices for our next Commander-in-Chief. This led us to our discovery of our idea: a blog which, while we might incorporate the major going-ons of John McCain and Barack Obama, would focus on presidential hopefuls from lesser-known parties.
Who would read such a blog? Well, considering that all four of us brought up that we were not big into either major candidate, and there are over 300 million people in this country, we figured that we couldn’t be the only ones who are like this. It will be open for anyone who is discontent with McCain and Obama; hopefully, it could even be used for bloggers to reveal candidates that even we do not find in our research. Race, class, gender, and other characteristics will not be an issue; as long as you are concerned with the future of the next president, this will be a blog for you.
Which alternative political parties will this blog discuss? As many as we can find, research, and discuss in our blog before the presidential election. While some parties that we talk about will be known and even liked (Green Party, anyone?), we will cover despised parties such as the Fascists and Nazis (yes, the Nazis aren’t gone and weren’t confined to Germany). When we discuss the parties, we plan on not being biased; we are sick of the media always favoring one candidate and then attacking the other. When the November 4th election does place McCain or Obama in the White House, we will obviously talk about that but we will also show which alternative candidates “won” the alternative party vote in each state (as available) and, for fun, reveal which alternative candidate would have “won” the presidency had s/he actually won the respective electoral votes.
Aside from this being a project worth 150 points for our semester grade, why are we doing this? Again, we are dissatisfied with the two major candidates; Obama does not present an experienced option, as he has just one term in the U.S. Senate under his belt, while McCain seems to be a second coming of President Bush, who looks to continue an unpopular war in the Middle East. If all goes well, then perhaps we will be able to introduce voters to candidates that, had it not been for this blog, they would have never heard of. While we know that it will be one of those two being sworn into office in 2009, we feel that if we did our best to present alternative options, then when the flaws in each candidate are exposed in office, our consciences will be clear.
When we first saw this assignment back on the syllabus back in August, we all felt some kind of worry of how this project would turn out. However, with a solid group having been put together and an “alternative” topic to go with an Alternative Media class, that worry is now confidence as we prepare to introduce voters to alternative presidential candidates.