Democratic Party:

1. Began in late 1780s as a the "Anti-Federalists," a faction which
   opposed the strong central government provisions of the Constitution and
   which (successfully) lobbied for adoption of the Bill of Rights.
   
2. By the early 1790s, the Anti-Federalists organized behind Secretary
   of State Thomas Jefferson, calling themselves "Republicans." By the 1820s,
   the Republican party, now commonly called "Democratic-Republican," itself
   developed factions: a coalition led by one of these, led by Andrew Jackson,
   won the 1828 presidential election and became known as simply the Democratic
   Party after 1830.
   
3. Notable Democrats include Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James
   Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, William Jennings
   Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy,
   Robert Byrd and William J. Clinton.

The Mascot:

In 1828, his detractors labeled President Andrew Jackson a "jackass". The
unflattering characterization was co-opted by Jackson, who turned the
donkey's stubbornness, strength and unpolished manners strength into
political virtues. In 1870 Thomas Nast, the best-known political cartoonist
of his time, used the donkey to embody the Democratic Party in an
illustration for Harper's Weekly. Nast used the Democratic donkey motif in
subsequent cartoons and by 1880 it was widely recognized as the unofficial
mascot of the Democracy. BTW: During the New Deal of the 1930s, progressive
Republicans who supported some or all of President Franklin Roosevelt's
relief, recovery and reform measures were dubbed "sons of the wild jackass"
by conservative Republican senator George Moses.

Republican Party:

1. Today's Republican party traces its roots to a coalition of
   anti-slavery activists and territorial expansionists who first organized
   themselves into a political faction in Michigan in the early 1850s.
   
2. This group adopted the "Republican" name in order to associate
   themselves with the egalitarian heritage of Thomas Jefferson's
   "Democratic-Republican" political party, and to distance themselves from the
   Jacksonian Democracy.
   
3. The Republicans fielded national candidates in the election of 1856;
   in 1860 the Republican presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln won the White
   House.
   
4. Notable Republicans include soldier and politician John C. Fremont,
   orator Robert G. Ingersoll, presidents Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes,
   Theodore Roosevelt, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower,
   Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and senators Henry Cabot Lodge, George
   Norris and Barry Goldwater.
   
5. The Republican Party in its formative years stood for protectionist tariffs,
   an end to slavery on both moral and economic grounds, territorial expansion,
   industrial capitalism, the "hard money" gold standard, and prohibition of beverage alcohol.
   
6. The Republican nickname of "GOP," signifying "gallant old party,"
   first appeared in 1875, when the party was twenty-one years old. Over
   subsequent decades, "grand" replaced "gallant" but the "old" remained.

The mascot:

The elephant is, like the donkey, the creation of 19th-century cartoonist
Thomas Nast. In a November 1874 Harper's Weekly cartoon, Nast depicted a
Democratic donkey wearing a lion's skin frightening other "political
animals," including an elephant representing the Republican vote. Nast used
the elephant in later cartoons to stand in for the GOP; eventually the
Republican Party adopted the elephant as its official symbol or service mark.

1. The Libertarian Party was first organized in late 1971, after
   several months of debate among members of the Committee to Form a
   Libertarian Party. By 1972 the party was made up of over 80 members and
   fielded its first national candidates, who were on the ballot in two states.
   
2. At its inception The Libertarian Party viewed both the dominant
   Republican and Democratic parties as having diverged from what they viewed
   as the libertarian principles of the American founding fathers towards more
   authoritarian political positions. Today, the Libertarian Party is the
   third-largest political party in the United States; it claims 590 current
   office holders.
   
3. The Libertarian Party asserts that it " hold[s] that all individuals
   have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the
   right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not
   forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner
   they choose." To this end, Libertarians prescribe reducing the size of
   government (eliminating many of its current functions entirely), and cutting
   taxes.

1. The Green Party originated as an American parallel to the European
   Green movement of the 1980s, an activist movement committed to ecology,
   social justice, grassroots democracy and non-violence. In 1990, Alaskan
   voters validated that states' Green movement as a political party; in 1991
   the California Green Party gained ballot access and a loose nation-wide
   Green political organization was formed, emphasizing local and state-level
   activism.
   
2. In 1996, Green politicos formed the Association of State Green
   Parties, today known as the Green Party of the United States. As of January
   2004, 204 Greens hold political office throughout the United States, 67 in
   California alone.
   
3. The Green Party of the United States is generally guided by its Ten
   Key Values, formulated in 1984:
   
   • Community-based economics
   • Decentralization
   • Ecological Wisdom
   • Feminism and Gender Equity
   • Grassroots democracy
   • Respect for Diversity
   • Non-violence
   • Personal and global responsibility
   • Social Justice and Equal Opportunity
   • Future Focus (sometimes termed "seven-generation sustainability

For more information: http://www.gp.org/index.php