You can check out the archived video here.

Dr. Jagemann making James Carville laugh...

You can read an article from VT Digger about the event here.

Here’s coverage found on Norwich Today.

I’m not sure exactly HOW difficult it is for one to get an entry accepted into the “Urban Dictionary” (I know that a team of randomly assigned editors vets each submission) but here is our PO313: Political Parties and Interest Group class contribution to the pop cultural milieu.

The VT Digger article about Judy Bevans, the Chair of the Vermont Democratic Party, reminds us that there are people behind the political parties (see: http://vtdigger.org/2010/06/04/the-people-behind-the-parties-judy-bevans-chair-of-the-vermont-democratic-party/). Sometimes this aphorism gets lost in the small font of the assigned readings for class. We tend to speak about the parties as if they are abstract entities when, after all, parties move and engage the political process because dedicated people throw their hats into the political area and, maybe just to overstate the case just a bit, get their “hands dirty” in the Sartre-esque manner. But getting one’s hands dirty is not to be viewed as pejorative. Instead, political engagement is born out of a calling or an obligation to be an active and informed citizen. However, we were reminded that there are indeed people behind the parties when Judy Bevans regaled the class with stories about her rise through the ranks of the Democratic Party in Vermont. Bevans wants us to be engaged in politics, regardless of our political stripes, Democrats, Republican, Progressive, or Independent. This theme of obligation to serve hit home among the students, civilian and CORPS alike. We hope that Judy visits us again!

A student YouTube-A-Palooza-ing

Question/Puzzle: How can a prof. make one class the week before Spring Break (the Sister of Semester Breaks (because, quite frankly, the Summer Break is the Mother of all Breaks!) fun, entertaining and engaging enough to counteract the effects of students mentally checking out well before the official break begins?

Answer: I have no idea…

But I decided to try something new in my Political Parties and Interest Groups class the week before break.

It was billed as “YOUTUBE-A-PALOOZA…”

We had just finished the material for the first half of the class covering Political Parties. We had a great 8 week flow of engaging class discussions on topics ranging from the competing theories for why the U.S. has a two-party system to campaign finance and mid-term elections to the rewards and punishments legislative leaders have in their quivers to manage their respective rank and file members in the “Legislative Leviathan.”

For YouTube-A-Palooza students had to showcase a video clip of about 5 minutes to reflect one or more of the themes we bandied about all semester. Most of the clips were parodies, some of them funny because they were too true to form and others bordering on the Edward Albee-like absurdity that is sometimes politics (so in the latter case politics is less art than it is a post modern spectacle)…

Check out some of the vids:

Hung Parliament! (comparative electoral systems)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-may-10-2010/clustershag-to-10-downing—hung-parliament

Rapping about Parties (appealing to younger voters)

Mike Gravel stares into your soul:

“Chuck Norris Approved!” – a classic!

Bureaucracy as a wall – from Yes, Prime Minister

Tea Party Uber-Patriotism

Al Gore’s Parallel Universe (beware the glaciers!)

The Simpsons Do Electronic Voting

Ralph Wiggum for President: We asked for it and we got him!

Learn to Speak Tea Party Parody – cuts both ways though!

Classic Jib-Jab “Time for Some Campaignin’”

SNL Halloween Party focusing on Democrats vying for the 2008 nomination