What is the role of political parties in the United States?
https://www.ushistory.org/gov/5a.asp and
https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/16447/One%20Big%20Party_0%202.pdf

Directory of Political Parties in the United States and their Descriptions. http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm

Political Parties

National Democrats - http://www.democrats.org/
New York State Democrats - http://www.nydems.org/
Oswego County Democrats - http://ocdc.tripod.com/

National Republicans - www.gop.com
New York State Republicans - www.nygop.org
Oswego County Republicans - http://www.oswegocountygop.com/

Why are the Republicans also called the GOP (Grand Old Party)?

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1481/why-is-the-republican-party-called-the-gop

New York State Conservative Party - http://www.cpnys.org/

Oswego County Conservative Party - http://oswegoconservative.wixsite.com/oswconservativeparty

New York State Independence Party - http://ipny.org/platform.html

What does the political left or right of Center on the spectrum mean?

The political spectrum is a term for a range of political ideas from different parties. It is used for the majority parties. The ideas to the left are called "Liberal" and also, Democratic ideas. the ideas to the right are called "Conservative" and also, Republican ideas.

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=50267 and

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-right-world/

How did the Elephant and Donkey Become Symbols of the Republican and Democratic Parties?

http://www.ilonanickels.com/CC_partyanimals.html
http://www.artfulvagabond.com/the-original-republican-elephant-and-democrat-donkey-day-310/ .

Where does the Red for Republicans and Blue for Democrats originate from?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/08/red-vs-blue-a-brief-history-of-how-we-use-political-colors/?utm_term=.5b661d316f1c
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/When-Republicans-Were-Blue-and-Democrats-Were-Red-176776491.html