OK I’ll start. I’m a Democrat, and see the Democratic party as promoting what’s good for every American, like the poor, the elderly, minorities, women, etc. I see the Republicans as a bunch of rich white men trying to do what is best for rich white men.
(I’m a member of the College Democrats, and I have to produce some literature that we can hand out to interested people, so I thought I’d see how other people look at the Democratic party first.)
Republicans
Then (pre-Reagan): The loyal opposition. The party of corporate interests over social interests, of “traditional family values.”
Now (post-Reagan: The Christian Fundamentalist party. Wants to turn the United States into a theocracy. The party of corporate interests and self-interest to the exclusion of everything else. Inherently filled with hypocrisy and contradiction as a result.
Democrats:
Then (pre-Reagan): A loose coalition of “free thinkers” out against “the establishment.” About as well-organized as a herd of cats. Nominally he party of the working class, but the message often gets lost in intraparty in-fighting.
Now (post-Reagan): More of the same, but even more disorganized, thanks to the inclusion of some folks who were repulsed by the changes in the Republican party (see above). Still too prone to in-fighting and petty squabbles to serve as an effective counterbalance to the GOP.
All IMO, of course.
Democrats: A bunch of rich white men* trying to gain and maintain power by pandering to special interests: unions, minorities, “working families”, and more recently businesses.
Republicans: A bunch of rich white men trying to gain and maintain power by pandering to special interests: religious conservatives, traditionalists, business, and more recently the elderly.
*If you think otherwise, just look at the latest 2 presidential front-runners, Kerry and Edwards
Republicans- Party of people trying to solve problems and help everybody. Sometimes bumbling, inarticulate, and afraid of its own shadow.
Democrats- Party of people stuck in 1968. Sees the nation divided into two groups- child like victims who need to be perpetually taken care of and the elite who make all the decisions and take care of the other people.
Republicans - a people who vilify Democrats based on how they believe Democrats act and think.
Democrats - a people who vilify Republicans based on how they believe Republicans act and think.
Republicans: A group comprising various goals and opinions, ranging from end-stage libertarianism to deep Protestant ideology, but mostly in the middle of the extremes. Most platforms characterized by an opposition to abortion, homosexual marriage, taxes, welfare, with strong support for an active and vigorous military, engagement abroad, and international friendship based on practical associations (read: he who helps us is our friend). Dislikes criminals and unions in general, though grudgingly acknowledging the latter have some uses now and then, if they stop voting Democrat. Feels irritated by public mockery and has grown calloused to being called evil baby-killers by Democrats and other liberals, none of whom actually try to solve the problems. Believes that America is at the heart a genuinely good place, and better than any other country. Usually ignores Democrats rather than respond.
Largely hated Clinton because the man disgraced his office and was still popular and kept winning. Most would never admit it in public but was secretly glad Clinton did several things in foreign policy and hated him for other foreign policy goals. Secretly thanks Clinton for helping out with welfare reform.
Democrats: Extremely diverse group that right now may be in the process of splintering again. Largely incldues a cobbled-together (every party does, but there’s more than most) platform that increasingly hurts the low-class people they supposedly protect. The more liberal wing of the party is excessively hypocritical, and prone to condemning others [Republicans] for lying while concealing their own forked tongues. Contains a number of racists racial agitators or so-called feminists who sell out their constituencies for political gain at the drop of the hat. They like to call Republicans for being the “white party”, although a certain Secretary of State had a better chance of becoming Preident than Al Sharpton any day of the week. Democrats whine. A lot. Usually about Republicans winning.
Some people in this party are truly sick, twisted people, like Chomsky or Rall, who will surely be given one-way tickets on the Satan Express when they finally, mercifully-for-America, die.
Democrats openly hate George Bush for everything in the world, including things they should like him for, and hold a number of contrary opinions about him. They continually try to fling things at him, but like Clinton he stands beyond it all. They’ve even been reduced to making stuff up to try and nail him with, but it keeps failing.
Libertarians: Wankers who don’t have a practical solution for anything beyond: “Government is BAD!” Sort of Republican allies.
Greens: :rolleyes: Idiots, the lot of them. Thank god their not running the place.
All politicians: Poor bastards who have to get up in front of cameras and say to Iowa corn farmers that ethanol is the next big thing, because the idiots will vote for the other guy if you don’t even they everyone involved knows you’re lying to them. Mostly decent people, but at least are seriously misguided and all of them have to make some compromises.
Democrats: Party of truth, justice, and the American Way. Epitome of all that is good and pure. Defenders of the poor and committed to the advancement of all regardless of race, creed, color, or orientation. Friend of the working man and woman and enemy of heartless corporate greed. Friend of the environment and fiscally responsible.
Republicans: Party that has been hijacked by evil Neocons. Good and decent men like Orrin Hatch and Bob Dole have been replaced by the radical right. Traditional Republicans were fiscally responsible, Neocons feel that raiding the Treasury is their God-given right. A fading party that may have elected its last president.
Democrats: Winged fiends from the 9th circle of hell that feast upon the souls of the productive.
Republicans: Shining avatars of goodness. Will one day take down the ‘Welcome to the Pearly Gates’ sign in heaven, and replace it with a ‘Welcome to the Ronald Reagan Memorial Gates’ sign.
I can see that this thread is going to be font of educational wisdom about the two parties. 
As to the OP, you are basically proposing that Dem = Good and Pub = Evil. If you accept that premise, then you have to assume that 1/2 of the American electorate is evil, or willing to be duped by evil. If that doesn’t make sense, then you might want to go back and check your premise.
Brutus- you, sir, are one funny dude! That was hilarious!
**Democrats ** - people who can’t keep their minds off my wallet
Republicans - people who can’t keep their minds off my zipper
Things always looked so much clearer in college. When I was in college I belonged to the College Republicans (the counter organization to the OPs College Democrats). I knew it all and it was all so clear…Republicans were the party that was all things good…Democrats were the clueless nanny party that wanted make America a pale shadow of itself by turning us into another European socialist state and destroy our business and competetiveness.
Then I grew up and saw that neither party was all goodness and light…and neither party was the font of all things bad. Both parties fulfilled a necessary function of balance to the other one. A capitalist system NEEDS to have a human side, it needs to have socialist elements incorporated into it to make it more humane and to protect those that fall through…to provide a basic security net if you will. By the same token, business needs to be given somewhat of a free hand, and people have to be allowed the oppertunities to succeed to push forth our economy, provide jobs and wealth to the country and make America what it is. Both parties act as a balance in these things, pushing for this or that as we hash out whats ‘best’. Sometimes it moves a bit one way, sometimes it moves a bit the other…but because the other party is there it tends to take a more middle road normally without going to extremes. Even now, with Bush in command (and I have no idea how HE is catagorized…I certainly don’t think of him as a ‘Republican’) things haven’t moved nearly to the extremes that some of the more rabid on the other side think they have. And the reason for that is the Democrats are there to balance him. When it was Clinton at the helm, it was the Republicans there to balance HIM and prevent excess.
I’m basically an Independant these days…I HAVE no party. Personally I often hope that someday the third parties will become more influential in US politics to act as a further balance. However, though I bust freely on both the Democrats and the Republicans and think that their faults abound, I think our system is generally a good one and that the two parties balance each other nicely keeping us fairly close to the middle of the road reguardless of what jack ass is in the oval office. My old saying was “If the Republic could survive with Clinton at the helm for 8 years, it can survive anything”. My new saying is “If we are able to survive with Bush at the helm, nothing can stop us!”
Now, if only we can continue to survive under Kerry…
-XT
Republicans: “I’ve got mine.”
Democrats: “We want yours.”
Republicans - The reason to register Libertarian.
Democrats - The reason to register Green.
That would explain the popularity of Fox News, wouldn’t it? 
Remember, “You can fool some of the people all of the time…”
That’s very good!
Not that simple, John. In the U.S., the leading political parties are not European-style cadre parties with membership dues and membership cards. “Membership” in them is harder to define here than there. But some things are clear: The “Republican Party” is not composed of all citizens who are registered Republican, or vote Republican, or would identify themselves as Republicans if asked. It is effectively composed of a much smaller group: those who hold offices in the party organization (down to the level of the county executive committee); those who have some kind of formal association with the party (e.g., members of College Republicans and Young Republican clubs); those who hold public office under the Republican label (where permitted – some local offices are "nonpartisan); those who turn out to support Republican candidates as campaign volunteers during election seasons; and, most importantly, those who regularly support the party and/or its candidates with money. Same with the Democrats. All these persons are part of what political scientists call the “political nation,” a small subset of the nation as a whole. Even in a democracy, it is always the “political nation” that really develops policy alternatives; the mass of voters merely accept or reject them.
So, half the nation (the half that votes Republican) is not evil, but merely, as you put it, duped by evil, which is not quite as bad (but much more pathetic). Great pity, but, as H.L. Mencken put it, democracy is the one truly amusing form of government humanity has devised.
Which doesn’t mean the Democratic Party is any great shakes either.
The problem is, our single-member-district system for electing legislatures forces all politically interested persons under the “big tent” of one coalition-party or the other, if they want to make any difference at all; and because of that, the voters can’t really be sure what they’re voting for when they vote by party label. A party that includes both Joe Lieberman and Dennis Kucinich does not make any sense. A party that includes both George Bush and John McCain does not make any sense. We need a multiparty system.
It will be much better for our political culture if the two big parties break up into several medium-sized parties – smaller, more tightly organized (with dues, membership cards, etc.), more homogeneous and consistent ideologically.
If we adopted the voting reforms of proportional representation (for elections to multimember policymaking bodies such as Congress or your town council), and instant-runoff voting (for elections to fill a single office such as president or mayor) (for definitions see the website of the Center for Voting & Democracy at www.fairvote.org), then (in the course of a few election cycles) the Republican Party would break up along its natural fault lines: The kind of freedom-first Republicans who supported Goldwater in 1960 would go off to swell the ranks of the Libertarian Party. The Christian social conservatives would go to the Consitution Party. The nativist-isolationist conservatives would join Pat Buchanan’s America First Party. The white supremacist and militia conservatives . . . no, let’s not even think about that, shall we? The remaining Republican Party would be more purely (and more obviously) the party of business interests and neocon foreign policy. The Democrats would split into a centrist neoliberal party, with the approximate politics of the Democratic Leadership Council; and a left-of-center party, made of the kind of Dems who have been supporting Dean this year, or Sharpton, Braun or Kucinich. Some Democrats would migrate to the Green Party. Maybe the various socialist parties of the left would put aside their ideological difference and merge into one big party, which would still be a small party, but definitely there. (PR would give small-but-similar parties an incentive to merge because most PR systems formally or practically require a party to achieve a certain threshold, say 5% of the vote, before it wins any representation at all.)
So there would only be seven or eight medium-sized parties, covering the whole range of political opinions among the American people, and it wouldn’t be impossible for them form coalitions on any given issue. Coalitions are formed now – that’s how the two big parties exist in the first place – but under a multiparty system, inter-party coalitions would be temporary, ad hoc and issue-specific, and, more importantly, the coalition-building would take place in Congress where everybody could watch it. E.g., the Libertarians and the Greens would vote together on legalizing marijuana and slashing the defense budget, and on practically nothing else.
With a multiparty system, voter turnout would be much higher because (almost) all voters would be able to find somebody on every ballot who represented their own politics more or less clearly and consistently.
It would also raise our collective civic IQ. An individual who habitually looks at all conceivable sides of a given question is much wiser than one who habitually reduces all questions to only two alternatives; and it is the same with a body politic. E.g., the Libertarians might never get their whole way on anything; but if there are one or two Libs sitting in every Congressional committee, then we can count on them to come up with reasons nobody else would ever have thought of as to why government should not take this or that course of action. (They always incline towards inaction by government.) And sometimes, not always but sometimes, those reasons will be very good ones indeed and will carry the debate. Greens, even as a small-minority party would be there to point out the environmental aspects of any issue. Socialists will be there to show how this issue affects the interests of the poor and the working class. And so on.
As for the white-supremacists – I don’t think it’s likely an openly racist party could make it into Congres or any state legislature even under a PR system. But if one did, it could if nothing else provide a safety valve for the expression of those attitudes which, tragically, do survive among millions of our people. If Timothy McVeigh had been able to look to Congress and see David Duke, or somebody like him, spouting his message of racial hatred on the floor at taxpayer expense, then maybe, just maybe, he would not have felt so frustrated that he had to make a political statement through mass murder.
[nitpick/hijack] Many people consider the Condorcet method more fair than instant runoff. Under IRV, there are some circumstances where ranking your preferred candidate higher can make him less likely to win. [/n/h]
Rebublicans- Their central motive is to rig the tax code so that the super-wealthy (who live off of inheritance and investments) pay zero taxes, effectively placing the bulk of the nation’s tax burden on the working middle class. To accomplish this they throw a few temporary scraps of tax relief to the middle class, in the same package with, say, the elimination of the estate tax. They further distract the public from their central goal by yelling things like “Gay marriage!” and “Liberal!” and “Welfare queen!” The secondary goal of Republicans is to remove all regulation of business, so that corporations can disregard any collateral damage caused by their quest for profits.
Democrats- Seek a society in which the harsher side-effects of capitalism are moderated by such things as a social safety net, environmental regulation, food safety standards, etc. They seek a society that is not so stratified by wealth and class that it is at risk of collapse. They seek a more egalitarian society where each citizen (regardless of race, or station of birth) has a realistic chance to rise to the level of his or her talents, and is provided the means and opportunity to do so.
I have to agree with the sentiments of John Mace, NotMrKnowItAll, and MrTuffPaws.
Adding one of my own:
The Californian Republican Party- A group of people trying to out-right-wing one another.
The Californian Democratic Party- A group of people trying to out-left-wing one another.