New voter: how does one decide his/her political party?

Question

I am a 7th-grade teacher. My students asked me an excellent question. How does a person decide his/her political party or leanings? What is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? Are there any websites that can OBJECTIVELY help my students determine what party they should subscribe to? Or - more delicately - can YOU pose questions/raise issues that might help them determine what side of the political fence they are on? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Basically the Democrats are for the people(better wages, cheaper education, health care) and the Republicans are for themselves(low wages for their employees, no taxes, don't help anybody, private insurance, etc).Allot of people try to make it about abortion and g*y marriage, that isn't the it at all.

Answer 2

It depends on what ideas you have and whatever party matches it.

Answer 3

There are websites that can objectively determine which political parties people should belong to.  Go to the websites of the major political parties.  Look for a page of their views, stripping out the name of the party, and replacing it with "Party A", "Party B", etc...  

Have your students choose which party they agree with the most, then tell them which party is which.

Questions are easily posed to determine between two political parties, but are harder when conservative, liberal, and independent are added into the mix.