Describe the characteristics and functions of American political parties. Explain the relationship between the national political parties and the state political parties. Review the Texas Democratic Party platform and the Texas Republican Party platform and explain the differences. Compare each state party platform to its national party platform counterpart and explain the differences between the national and state party platforms. Why do you believe differences would exist between the national and state party platforms? he project consists of producing a 500-750 work essay on one of the provided topics (see below), as well as a works cited page for sources containing information used in the essay. The assignment is to be formatted according to the Modern Language Association (MLA) style. Students should research this style in order to properly format the assignment; papers not formatted properly will not receive a passing grade. Use Courier or New Courier 12 point as the paper’s font, double space the text, and create one inch margins on all four sides of the page. In addition, the assignment should be formatted according to MLA style for papers with no title page.