smooth

This is what I told my gardening friend when I finally convinced him to register:

"Look at your hands, if you have callouses then the Democratic party probably represents your interests."

I'm going to look for some informative websites for you because this could become an explosive topic.

EDIT:
The best info may be straight from the source:

The Democratic Party's platform:
http://www.democrats.org/about/2000platform.html

The Republican Party's "Who We Are" page:
http://www.rnc.org/gopinfo

I think Dick Gephart summed the philosophies quite nicely when he remarked that:

The Republicans believe in survival of the fittest while Democrats believe that people don't get where they are without help from others in society.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman