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NEA-PAC, or the National Education Association PAC, is one of the largest and wealthiest political-action committees in labor. Founded in 1972 as part of the NEA Citizenship Committee, NEA-PAC works towards raising funds for candidates of any political party who will support public education. Run largely by teachers, the PAC raises money by asking members for contributions, operating phone banks, and acting as voter registrars. NEA-PAC became part of a super PAC in 2011, and continues to be one of the most successful PACs in politics.

Sawchuk, Stephen. (2011, Sept 1). NEA Sets Up Super PAC. [Web Log Comment]. Retrieved from: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2011/09/nea_sets_up_super_pac.html.

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Pictured on this button from 1900 are U.S President William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. McKinley had originally been elected in 1896 with Garret Hobart as vice president. Yet Hobart died in 1899, and the Republican national convention nominated the Governor of New York, Theodore Roosevelt, as McKinley's running mate in 1900. Roosevelt had previously served as McKinley's assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy. As in the 1896 election, McKinley faced William Jennings Bryan. McKinley's campaign promoted the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War and economic prosperity in the country. Democrats painted McKinley as beholden to big business. McKinley won by a margin of 51.6% to 45.5% and even took Bryan's home state of Nebraska.

On September 6, 1901, while in a receiving line at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. McKinley died of his wounds on September 14. Vice President Roosevelt took the oath of office in Buffalo and remained as U.S. President until 1909.

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“Live like a Republican, vote Democratic, '' is a famous quote attributed to the 33rd President of the United States, Harry Truman. Republicans are often associated with business and by extension wealth and are able to live opulent lifestyles. Not everyone is born with a trust fund or has access to generational wealth and business. Thus, to have the lifestyle of a Republican, Truman implored citizens to vote Democrat. Democrats are associated with improving education, and other welfare initiatives to help the poor. Thus if one wants to move wealth classes, they should vote for the Democrats.

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Paul Powell was elected as Illinois Secretary of State in 1964, where he served until his death in 1970. At the time of his passing, Powell was generally remembered as a popular member of the Democratic Party, though newspapers reported that he had been investigated for possible corruption in the past. However, an examination of his hotel room revealed over $750,000 dollars in cash hidden in shoeboxes, with an additional $50,000 being found in his office in the following days. His estate was worth over $4 million, with a quarter of that invested in horseracing stock. An investigation determined that the majority of his wealth had been earned in illegal cash bribes made for low-competition state contracts. His posthumous reputation was destroyed and his story became a symbol of political corruption in Illinois in the 1960s.

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Robert Mulcahy was the Democratic candidate for alderman of Chicago’s 45^th ward in 1975. He was the chief operations analyst for the city Bureau of Streets and served for three years as president of the Edgebrook Community Association. The Chicago Tribune officially endorsed Mulcahy as their pick for 45^th ward alderman. He lost the election, but ran again in 1979. He only received 20% of the vote and lost to Democrat Richard Clewis.

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The political candidate pictured on this button is Benjamin Adamowski of Chicago. He served in the Illinois State Legislature from 1931 – 1941 and later served as State’s Attorney of Cook County. In 1963, he unsuccessfully ran as the Republican candidate for Mayor of Chicago against the incumbent Richard J. Daley. This button is most likely from his mayoral campaign. 

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This button was for the 1940 U.S. presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie, the Republican challenger to incumbent president Franklin D. Roosevelt. A businessman from New York, Willkie characterized Roosevelt's New Deal programs as wasteful and ineffective in ending the Great Depression and promoted better economic times if he were elected. Yet Willkie was hurt by being a symbol of big business, which many felt helped cause the economic crisis in the first place. Roosevelt won with 54.7% of the vote to Willkie's 44.8%, 449 electoral votes to 82.

Willkie had changed his party registration to Republican in 1939. He did not run in the 1940 primaries, but was seen as an alternative to isolationist Thomas Dewey. After the 1940 election, Willkie served as President Roosevelt's informal envoy to Great Britain and supported the Lend-Lease program, which supplied fool, oil, and war materiel such as planes, ships, and weapons to Allied nations during World War II. Willkie died in 1944.

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In 1980, John Anderson campaigned for the presidency as an Independent. Anderson, a Republican from Illinois, had served in the House of Representatives for 10 consecutive terms throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and decided to run for the presidency in 1980. Originally campaigning for the Republican party’s nomination against Ronald Reagan, Anderson ultimately was not backed by the Republicans and decided to run independently. Anderson’s campaign platform included a reduction in Social Security taxes and supported stricter gun control, and he earned the respect of voters by sticking to his principles, though he ultimately lost the election to Reagan. Afterwards, Anderson became heavily involved in FairVote, an organization dedicated to political reform, and continues to be involved in politics today.

John B. Anderson. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2015 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Anderson.