1 / 18

The Case for Strong Parties

The Case for Strong Parties. Washington’s Farewell Address. The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

kalliyan
Download Presentation

The Case for Strong Parties

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Case for Strong Parties

  2. Washington’s Farewell Address • The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. • It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

  3. What’s good about parties?

  4. What’s a strong party?

  5. APSA Report, 1950

  6. Positive functions of parties(from APSA) • Help people hold the government accountable • Forge compromises among interests

  7. Ideal party • Effective and responsible • Cohesive • Programmatic • Effective opposition party

  8. Didn’t have the ideal model in 1950 • Senate/House/National/State/Local parties all have different leaders and strategies • National Convention and Committee not policymaking bodies • Ambiguous membership • No coherent ideology or platform • Little unity of those in office • Why? • Voluntary association • Federalism • Parties particularly ideologically divided in 1950

  9. Presidential Elections 1876-88

  10. Presidential Elections 1892-1904

  11. Presidential Elections 1908-1920

  12. Presidential Elections 1924-1936

  13. Presidential Elections 1940-1952

  14. 7 Southern Republicans, 1960 • Mountain Republicans: • Howard Baker, Eastern Tennessee • B. Carroll Reece, Eastern Tennessee • Richard Poff, Southwestern Virginia • Charles Jonas, Blue Ridge North Carolina • Centers of Northern Migration: • William Cramer, St. Petersburg, FL • Bruce Alger, suburban Dallas • Joel Broyhill, suburban DC, Virginia

  15. Percent of all votes on which a majority of Democrats vote against a majority of Republicans

  16. House party unity (percentage of members voting with a majority of their party on party unity votes)

  17. Prescriptions • A smaller governing body • Regional conferences and internal democracy • Stronger national party infrastructure • Platform more binding • More party unity and responsibility in Congress • Closed primaries, no cross filing

  18. What’s different today? • Do we have closer to the responsible party model? In what ways? • In what ways do we not?

More Related