Does anyone know the origins of the elephant and donkey as the symbols for the political parties?
112100
Newspapers begun using them to represent the parties and then the parties themselves adopted them as their mascots.
468622
I think it's a great achievement for the Elephants, especially coming out of a very long and bloody civil war. Whether they get out of group play isn't really the overall point. That nation finally has something to be happy about and hopefully they can unify behind their team and maintain the fragile peace they have now.
927297
The article below tells quite a few symbols. It's pretty well-written. You have to go down a few paragraphs before it starts listing the symbolism in more detail.
788268
None of the above.  I think the most important thing the party provides is branding.  Belonging to one party or another denotes a certain belief structure that people identify with.....also, they (hopefully) vett candidates so that any party candidate that reaches the election is "electable."  Putting that into the above answers, the best fit would be "nominate candidates."
888185
It appears to me to signify the Democrats victory over the Republicans. The size of the two animals is in direct proportion to the size of power each party possessed before the election. \n\nIt also reminds of Virginia's State seal. It too is a picture of someone (Liberty) standing over a fallen foe (Tyranny), holding a flag. \n\nhttp://www.hometownusa.com/va/images/Virginia_Seal.png\n\nIn case you didn't know, the donkey represents the Democrats and the Elephant the Republicans. That dates back to the 19th century political cartoons of Thomas Nast.
499407
The Coat of Arms of Mexico has been an important symbol of Mexican politics and culture for centuries. The current coat of arms has changed little since the Aztecs first developed it almost seven hundred years ago. \n\nThe coat of arms depicts a Mexican golden eagle, perched upon a cactus, devouring a snake. To the Aztecs this would have strong religious connotations, but to the Europeans, it would come to symbolize the triumph of good over evil.\n\nYou can get all details and the picture at :--
836507
According to the Democrat party someone called Johnson a Jackass, and he adopted the donkey (actually a Jackass) as his symbol. It stuck.
601245
I think it is probably actually a mace or sceptre. These are used in lots of parliaments all around the world as a symbol of sovereign power. This dates back to the middle ages when Kings used them as a symbol of absolute power.
588796
It's Ion, Zion and Dandy\n\n\nEDITED: The real answer\n\nWhen King Richard I ("The Lionheart") came to the throne he adopted his personal arms as three golden lions on a red field. The origin of these arms is thought to be based on the earlier Norman arms. According to one tradition, the extra lion was added to two existing Norman lions to represent the combined Anglo-Norman realm. According to another tradition the two leopards were combined with the single leopard of Aquitaine on the acquisition of these continental territories by the English Crown. Other heraldic authorities have claimed that at an early stage in the development of heraldry the number of Norman lions was not fixed and that it is simply a matter of design as to why England has ended up with three heraldic lions and Normandy with two.
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An elephant''\n\nThis symbol of the party was born in the imagination of cartoonist Thomas Nast and first appeared in Harper's Weekly on November 7, 1874.\n\nAn 1860 issue of Railsplitter and an 1872 cartoon in Harper's Weekly connected elephants with Republicans, but it was Nast who provided the party with its symbol.\n\nOddly, two unconnected events led to the birth of the Republican Elephant. James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald raised the cry of "Caesarism" in connection with the possibility of a thirdterm try for President Ulysses S. Grant. The issue was taken up by the Democratic politicians in 1874, halfway through Grant's second term and just before the midterm elections, and helped disaffect Republican voters.\n\nWhile the illustrated journals were depicting Grant wearing a crown, the Herald involved itself in another circulation-builder in an entirely different, nonpolitical area. This was the Central Park Menagerie Scare of 1874, a delightful hoax perpetrated by the Herald. They ran a story, totally untrue, that the animals in the zoo had broken loose and were roaming the wilds of New York's Central Park in search of prey.\n\nCartoonist Thomas Nast took the two examples of the Herald enterprise and put them together in a cartoon for Harper's Weekly. He showed an ass (symbolizing the Herald) wearing a lion's skin (the scary prospect of Caesarism) frightening away the animals in the forest (Central Park). The caption quoted a familiar fable: "An ass having put on a lion's skin roamed about in the forest and amused himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met within his wanderings."\n\nOne of the foolish animals in the cartoon was an elephant, representing the Republican vote - not the party, the Republican vote - which was being frightened away from its normal ties by the phony scare of Caesarism. In a subsequent cartoon on November 21, 1874, after the election in which the Republicans did badly, Nast followed up the idea by showing the elephant in a trap, illustrating the way the Republican vote had been decoyed from its normal allegiance. Other cartoonists picked up the symbol, and the elephant soon ceased to be the vote and became the party itself: the jackass, now referred to as the donkey, made a natural transition from representing the Herald to representing the Democratic party that had frightened the elephant.\n\nby William Safire
829379
Interestingly enough, the person credited with getting the donkey widely accepted as the Democratic party's symbol probably had no knowledge of the prior associations. Thomas Nast, a famous political cartoonist, came to the United States with his parents in 1840 when he was six. He first used the donkey in an 1870 Harper's Weekly cartoon to represent the "Copperhead Press" kicking a dead lion, symbolizing Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had recently died. Nast intended the donkey to represent an anti-war faction with whom he disagreed , but the symbol caught the public's fancy and the cartoonist continued using it to indicate some Democratic editors and newspapers.
608295
Depends on how far down the rabbit hole you are willing to go?\n\nYes, on the surface the symbology is the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States as passed by Congress in 1782. The symbol of the all seeing eye, the illumination and symbol of many secret societies dating back to the Egyptians.\n\nThen there is what it meant to the Egyptians- a symbol of power- the eye of Amen-Ra (Amen, the God you unknowingly call several times in Christian ceremonies...)\n\nDo you really want to dig any deeper? Let's stop there for the moment.
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The origins of this symbol are unknown, but several theories have been proposed. According to one theory, in its original form, the jackass was born in the intense mudslinging that occurred during the presidential race of 1828 as a play on the name of Andrew Jackson, the Democratic candidate. Jackson had been called "Andrew Jackass," and the defiant Jackson adopted the nickname.\n\nOn January 19, 1870, a political cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly titled "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" revived the donkey as a symbol for the Democratic Party (the symbol had also been used in the 1830s). Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats, and the elephant to represent the Republicans.
149238
Hi;\nThe donkey is a member of the horse family and is also known as "Ass","burro" and "Asinus". The scientific name is: Equus Asinus. It is the Nubian subspecies of African wild ass. It was first originated in Nubia and was used for work and carry load. there are diffrent types of donkeys and also different names for them in different pat of the world. Their names mostly comes from the language and the work they do. for example the domestice donkey is known as the beast of burden.\n\nyou can read more about the donkey at this website: http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/donkey.html#hist\n\nHope this helps.
550661
動物  this symbol means animal.
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The attached link has a list of all political parties in American politics. (I am assuming that you are interested in US politics?)  It is a very informative site, with information about when the parties were formed, notable members, and their agenda.\n\n\nhttp://www.politics1.com/parties.htm
811838
Long Bow (from which the 'giving the bird' symbolism of sticking 2 fingers up at an enemy is derived - give me 10 points and I'll expand on that in the comments bit for you), balister (a form of large Roman crossbow), short sword, broadsword, halberd and pike.\nLancashire won, and remains the centre of civilisation and Gods own country, Yorkshire being famous for its pudding. UK residents are reminded of this in the mnemonic for the colours of the rainbow; Richard (Red) Of(Orange) York(Yellow) Gave(Green) Battle(Blue) In(Indigo) Vain(Violet).