Political Parties, Candidates, and Campaigns: Defining the Voter’s Choice

1. Political Parties, Candidates, and Campaigns: Defining the Voter’s Choice

2. Definition of Party • What are parties? • Political parties are groups that seek to elect candidates by supplying them with a label by which they are known to the public. • Party, political organization whose aim is to gain control of the government apparatus, usually through the election of its candidates to public office • Different from other interest groups • Parties aggregate opinion • What do parties do? • Parties facilitate the process of governing • Party in power • Staffs government • Controls public policy • Party out of power • Loyal opposition • Offer an alternatives

3. Three Levels of Party

4. Party in the Electorate. • Party in the electorate • Partisanship provides an identification • Socializes, educates, mobilizes • Guides and focuses a messy process • Prevents ‘cycling’ • Partisanship helps citizens make sense of politics • Economizing device, easy vote choices • Perceptual screen, lowers cognitive dissonance

5. Party Organization. • Party as an organization • Recruits candidates • Manages ambition • Serves as a cue giver • To donors for dollars • To public for votes • Provides resources • Wide variety • Money, endorsements, networks, lists, candidate schools

6. Party in Government. • Party in government • Party in government organizes and staffs ‘machinery’ of government • Leadership positions, committee chairs in Congress • Hundreds of posts in executive • Vacancies on federal bench • Party out of power = Loyal opposition • ‘Watch dog’ • Alternative, ready to take power

7. Party Systems • Single-party system • Peoples’ Republic of China • One-party dominant system • South Africa • Two-party system • United States • Multi-party system • Germany

8. Attitudes Towards Parties- Bad! • Many Americans dislike parties • Founders were profoundly uncomfortable with parties • “Let me warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.” • George Washington, Farewell Address1796 • This has echoed through history • “Parties are an evil inherent in free governments” • Tocqueville, 1831 • Picture parties as being corrupt, factional, smoke-filled rooms, not independent

9. Attitudes Towards Parties- Good! • Most political scientists like parties • “Political parties created democracy” • Schattschneider, 1975 • “Parties is organized opinion” • Disraeli • Parties provide a critical link between the public and the institutions of government • Educate, mobilize, crystallize, organize • Without parties, politics becomes chaos

10. Party Competition & Majority Rule: The History of U.S. Parties • The first parties in U.S. grew from early divisions over ratification of the Constitution • Federalists and Antifederalists • Split continued in Washington’s adminstration between Jefferson (State’s Rights) and Hamilton (Strong Nationalist) • Jefferson formed the Democratic Republican party, Hamilton formed the Federalist Party • Andrew Jackson and Grassroots Parties • Jackson sought to mobilize the powerless (i.e.poor farmers • Jacksonian Democrats organized from local and state level • Whig party formed, not around a issues, but as a guardian against the Democrats

11. Party Competition & Majority Rule: • Republicans vs. Democrats: Realignments & the Enduring Party System • The Civil War entrenched the two-party tradition in the U.S. The electorate shifts loyalty in party realignments • Three Critical Realignments: • 1860- Civil War, Republicans become the majority party and Democrats held “the Solid South” • 1896- Republicans gain in Midwest • 1932-Great Depression, FDR’s “New Deal” Democrats gain majority • 1980? Reagan and Conservative Republican Revolution • Party Identification

12. Four Elements of Realignments • The disruption of the existing political order because of the emergence of one or more unusually divisive issues • An election contest in which voters shift support in favor of one party • A major change in policy through the action of the stronger party • An enduring change in the party coalitions, which works to the lasting advantage of the dominant party

13. Party Competition and Realignment • Today’s Party Alignment and its Origins • Party conflict • Democratic/Republican difference in social and economic issues • Dealignment and Split ticket voting • Cross pressured voters

14. Party Identification

15. Electoral and Party Systems • Two-Party System • Multiparty System • Single-Member District System of Election • Single-Member Districts • Proportional Representation

16. Electoral and Party Systems • Policies & Coalitions in the Two-Party System • Seeking the Center • Party Coalitions • Minor Parties • Single-Issue Parties • Factional Parties • Ideological Parties

17. Party Organizations • The Weakening of Party Organizations • Nomination • Primary election (direct primary) • Types of Primaries: • Closed • Open • Blanket • Decline in patronage

18. Party Organizations • Structure & Role of Party Organizations • Local Party Organizations • State Party Organizations • National Party Organizations • The Parties and Money • Service Relationship • Hard and Soft Money • “527 groups”

19. The Candidate-Centered Campaign • Seeking Funds: The Money Chase • Creating Organization: Hired Guns • Devising Strategy: Packaging the Candidate • Air Wars • Ground Wars • Web Wars

20. Parties, Candidates, & Public’s Influence • Pros: • Candidate-centered campaigns get new people into politics. • Candidate-centered politics encourage officeholders to be responsive. • Cons: • May become personality contests—like theater. • Create lack of accountability to voters.