Democrats are generally more liberal. They believe in a larger federal government, and often implement tax plans to try to help the less privileged. They tend to believe the government must look for the greater good above the individual person in terms of welfare and do what is necessary to make the populace more "equal". They assert that the values our country holds must evolve over time, and, therefore, tend to support such controversial choices as Pro Choice and gay marriage.

Republicans are generally more conservative. They believe that the answers do not lay with the government generally, but rather with the people. They want less government interference and tend to believe more strongly in property rights and less strongly in well-fare rights, holding economic equity above equality. Many republicans are religious and tend to hold to the morals characterizing the Founding Fathers, which results in general disapproval of abortions and, for some, gay marriage.

Additional input and opinions from contributors:

• To sum it up, Democrats lean toward equality under a large federal government. Republicans lean towards people looking after themselves and their neighbors under small federal government and strong state governments.
• These are the two dominant parties in our political system. Generally, Republicans are more interested in regulating personal matters and in deregulation of business and economic matters. Democrats are generally more interested in deregulating personal matters and increasing regulation of economic/business matters. Democrats also believe in bigger government and more spending to expand government, while, unlike democrats, Republicans believe in less spending and a smaller government. Democrats believe in lowering the taxes on the poor, and increasing taxes on the rich, while Republicans want to lower taxes on everyone, not just poor people.

  Democrats are liberals while Republicans are conservatives.

• There is very little fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans in practice. In general (theoretically) today, Republicans support less social freedom and more economic freedom, while Democrats support less economic freedom and more social freedom. Democrats are known as the "big government" party and Republicans as the "limited government" party, but in reality both parties support big government. Government has consistently grown under the power of both parties. Their foreign policies are very similar (interventionist), but each party seems to only support these policies when their administrations are administering them. The root of the Republican Party is limited government, but they generally do not execute this well. Also, what many Republicans defend as "capitalism" and "free markets" is really government-aided corporatism, which is not economic freedom at all. There has however been a backlash in the Republican Party to return to limited government roots, including both economic and social freedoms and a non-interventionist foreign policy.

  As for the terms "liberal" and "conservative", their meanings and connotations have become very confusing. "Conservative" and "Republican", and "Liberal" and "Democrat" have somewhat become interchangeable in today's society. However, "conservative" really means that one believes that things should stay the same, while "liberal" means that one believes things should change. Historically, societies had not been very free, so historical Liberals generally supported increased freedoms. The Founding Fathers of the United States were Liberals during their time, since they supported freedoms that did not exist in their society--they wanted things to change. However, today they would (probably) be considered Conservatives, since they supported limited government. Classifying people's political views today by these words is very confusing. Since today a "Conservative" is generally a Republican, and a "Liberal" is generally a Democrat, how does one classify someone who belongs to a third party? For example, Libertarians support economic freedoms as Republicans do, indicating they are Conservatives. On the other hand, they also support social freedoms as Democrats do, indicating they are Liberals. However, since historical Liberals (not to be confused with today's Democrats) were freedom-lovers, supporting all types of freedoms make Libertarians the ultimate Liberals, right? But then again, Libertarians are the ultimate proponents of the Republican roots of limited government. Libertarians want to limit government (in all areas) far more than Republicans, making Libertarians the ultimate Conservatives. Since one person can simultaneously be classified as super liberal and super conservative (which are opposites), these words do not have very good definitions in today's society and have very different meanings to different people.

• This is a pretty vague question but I will do my best to answer it. I am a republican so if I sound biased, sorry. Anyway, democrats believe in taxing and spending and republicans believe in saving and waiting or borrowing and spending. Abortion is one of the biggest arguments between the parties. Democrats are pro-choice which means that they want people to have the choice to abort. Republicans are pro-life which means they want to outlaw abortion. Next, is gay marriage. Democrats think that anyone has the right to get married while most republicans believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

• There are lots of websites that distinguish the difference, just, they are usually biased to the brink. Best to watch the news or look up a dictionary definition.

  Republicans believe people are best taking care of themselves or helping others through private charity. Democrats believe the government is best at taking care of people.

• Republicans think that everyone can care for themselves on their own they are more independent Democrat is more groups and everyone together, everyone takes care of each other. Obviously McCain is republican and Obama is democrat. They are both explainable beliefs.

• Democrats: pro-choice, more gun control, more government power - Republicans: pro-life, less gun control, less government power

• Leaving out any kind of value judgments, the difference in the parties is ideological... Democrats believe in rights. Democrats believe that you have certain rights as citizens, taking it as far as the right to health care. Republicans believe in privilege. Republicans believe that you can have only that which you can afford or earn. That's it in a nutshell but you need to decide which you think is the better ideology. Do you think you should be given things as a citizen or should you have to work for what you get?

• All of you had valid points. I find myself in between though. I see both sides. When I go to the ballots I find myself wanting to vote for both dem. and rep., but their is another thing that I have noticed. People today do not vote for who they want in office. They vote for who they do not want in office.

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The traditional mascot of the party is the elephant.

A political cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly on November 7, 1874, is considered the first important use of the symbol, and popularized the symbol.

As symbol of the Republican party, the elephant represented Nast's political sentiments toward his own party, and also some of his despair that some of the qualities associated with that party seemed to be waning.

Nast wasn't the first to use this symbol of the Republican Party. His first drawing of the elephant symbol occurred in 1874, but some of Lincoln's campaign materials had a picture of an elephant too, and another cartoon depicting the party as an elephant was popularly viewed in 1872.

Nast's initial drawing of this symbol of the Republican Party occurred in a cartoon titled "The Third Panic," and it depicts the elephant as bounding into a pit across broken boards with the words inflation, reform, and repudiation written on them. Nast's drawing represents his view of the party's decline, especially in light of a financial panic at the time. According to Nast, the Republicans were falling victim to scare tactics of the Democrats and abandoning their party's platform.

Prior to Nast's use of the elephant, the eagle had been a common symbol of the Republican party, but in part due to Nast' prowess as a cartoonist, the elephant replaced the eagle in short order, and the Republican party officially adopted the large animal as its symbol. Though Nast's depiction was not that flattering and emphasized his own worries about a changing party, the elephant was still a large animal, and thought to have both dignity and strength. These qualities were considered admirable.

From the Official Republican National Committee website:

"The symbol of the Republican Party is the elephant. During the mid term elections way back in 1874, Democrats tried to scare voters into thinking President Grant would seek to run for an unprecedented third term. Thomas Nast, a cartoonist for Harper's Weekly, depicted a Democratic jackass trying to scare a Republican elephant - and both symbols stuck."

A democracy is rule by the majority. What many people fail to realize about a democracy is the minority always loses. You have no rights in a democracy. You merely have privileges which are granted to you by the will of the majority. In a democracy, 51% of the people may vote to take away the property of 49%. The founding fathers loathed the idea of democracy, often referring to it as tyranny of the majority.

A republic is rule by law. The founding fathers understood the importance of establishing a republican form of government. The purpose of a republican form of government is to protect the rights and property of each individual citizen, or the minority. In a republic, one person and the law will overrule 300,000,000 votes. If it's not your property, you may not vote on it. This is why a republic is so vociferously essential in a free society. We are still able to vote. However, there is a balance of power between the people and state. We have representatives and senators, as well as an electoral college who all take the feel of the people and vote accordingly. If the United States were a democracy, we would go to the polls and directly vote on every issue by majority rule. Clearly this isn't the case.

The pledge of allegiance states, "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the republicfor which it stands, one Nation under God,indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Article 4, section 4, clause 1 of the United States Constitution states, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."

Alexander Hamilton said at the Constitutional convention in 1787, "We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments."

James Madison wrote in Federalist paper #10, "Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

Alexander Hamilton said in a speech urging ratification of the Constitution on June 21, 1788, "It has been observed that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity."

Samuel Adams wrote in a letter to John Taylor on April 15th, 1814, "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

Because the state of Mississippi does not offer registered voter statistics by party, we must judge either from primary elections (to see how many voters their are from both parties) or from general elections. Through primary elections we conclude that Mississippi is a state dominated by the Democratic Party. In the 2007 Mississippi Governor election, the Democratic Primary had a total of about 450,000 voters compared to about 197,000 voters of the Republican Primary. Also, in the 2008 Presidential Election, the Mississippi Democratic Party Primary had a total of about 429,000 voters compared to about 145,000 voters of the Republican party. Whereas in general elections we conclude that Mississippi is a state dominated by the Republican party. In the 2008 Presidential election the Republican candidate (John McCain) received about 725,000 votes while the Democratic candidate (Barack Obama) received about 555,000 votes. The total voter turnout for the election was about 1,290,000 voters. This is significantly larger than the voter turnout for state primaries such as the primaries for the 2007 Governor election where there was a total of about 650,000 voters, which is almost half the amount of voters that voted in the presidential election. This would support the theory that the state of Mississippi has a larger voter turnout in general elections because voters do not have to vote in affiliation with a party; evidently showing how it is more likely that there are more unaffiliated or independent voters in the state of Mississippi than there are Democratic and Republican voters.

Source: http://www.sos.ms.gov/links/ed_pubs/pubs/BlueBookLow/09-Elections/pageflip.html