Chapter 5: “Parties and What They Do”

1. Chapter 5: “Parties and What They Do”

2. Essential Ideas • Political parties elect members to public office and keep the public informed about political issues. • For almost all of its history, The United States has had a two-party system. • The two major parties are the Democrats and the Republicans.

3. Basic Understandings • Students will understand what political parties do. • Students will understand that the United States has a two party system. • Students will understand that political parties have played a major role in American History.

4. Basic Understandings • Students will understand that minor parties have an effect on elections in many ways. • Students will understand what the typical structure of a political party is like. • Students will understand that often third party ideas become adopted by the major parties and do become part of the fabric of our nation.

5. Vocabulary • Vetting – a part of the approval function of parties. Parties will make sure candidates are without blemish so as not to embarrass the party. • Coalition – a large group with varied interests that works together to achieve common goals. • Consensus – agreement • Electorate – voters • Constituents – those who are represented

6. Vocabulary • Realignment - when the party who has been in power loses the election and the power switches over to the rival party. • GOP – Grand Old Party, refers to the Republicans • Dems – refers to the Democrats • Bipartisan – composed or representative of the two major parties • Ideology – a belief system

7. Political Party(Section 1) • A group of persons who seek to control government through the winning of elections and the holding of public office. • Also, a group of persons joined together on the basis of common principals, who seek to control government in order to affect certain public policies and programs.

8. Political Party • A link between people and the government, it makes the will of people known and holds government accountable for its actions and policies. • Political Parties can be organizations that form coalitions and bring conflicting groups together.

9. Major Parties Republican and Democrat

10. Political Parties Serve Five Functions: • 1. Nominating Candidates •  2. Informing and Activating Supporters • 3. Bonding or Approval Agent • 4. Governing • 5. Acting as a “Watchdog”

11. Political Parties Serve Five Functions: 1. Nominating Candidates Political parties select candidates and help them win elections.

12. Political Parties Serve Five Functions: 2. Informing and Activating Supporters • Political parties inform and inspire voters as they campaign for candidates, take stands on issues, and criticize the candidates and positions of their opponents. • They promote their positions and candidates through pamphlets, buttons, stickers; advertising through advertisements in newspapers and magazines and on radio, television, and the Internet; and in speeches, rallies, and conventions.

13. Political Parties Serve Five Functions: 3. Acting as a “Bonding /Approval Agent” The party gives it’s Seal of Approval to candidates • Political parties nominate qualified candidates of ability and character to ensure that they will perform well when in office. • This process is known as VETTING. • When their candidates are in office, political parties ensure that they perform well. • Failure to perform well will damage the party’s relationship with the voters.

14. Political Parties Serve Five Functions: 4. Governing Government in the United States is governing by party in several ways: • Congress and State legislatures are organized along party lines, and much business is done on the basis of partisanship-the strong support of their party and its policy stands. • Appointments to executive offices at the federal and State levels are also made with party considerations in mind. • The separation of powers, in which the executive and legislative branches work together, is carried out through political parties. • The procedures followed in the Electoral College were shaped by political parties in its early years.

15. Political Parties Serve Five Functions: • 5. Acting as a “Watchdog” • The party out of power criticizes the policies and officeholders in the majority power. • They serve as the “loyal opposition”-opposed to the party in power but loyal to the People and nation.

16. Two-Party System • Only Republican or Democrat Party candidates have a reasonable chance of winning public office.

17. Minor Party • a political party that lacks wide voter support.

18. Why is there a Two-Party System? • HISTORICAL BASIS • The Founders were leery about political parties: • James Madison Federalist No. 10: “By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” (1787)

19. Why is there a Two-Party System? • George Washington’s Farewell Address warns of “the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” (1796) • The Constitution contains no provisions for political parties. • Political parties ended up being moderate, advocating middle-of-the-road positions that united the country.

20. Why is there a Two-Party System? • THE FORCE OF TRADITION • Political parties emerged as the Constitution was first being put into effect, making them part of the “unwritten Constitution.” • Third parties have a hard time developing a following because America has always had a two-party system. • Americans accept this system as a given.

21. Why is there a Two-Party System? • THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM • The electoral system itself promotes a two-party system. • Nearly all elections are in the U.S. are in SINGLE-MEMBER DISTRICTS. Only one candidate is elected to each office on the ballot. • The winning candidate is one who receives a plurality, or the largest number of votes cast. A plurality need not be a majority, which is more than half of all votes cast.

22. Why is there a Two-Party System? • Political parties act in a bipartisan way to shape the rules that determine who can make it onto the ballot. Nearly all State legislators are either Republican or Democrat.

23. Why is there a Two-Party System? • AMERICAN IDEOLOGICAL CONSENSUS • Americans are largely an ideologically homogeneous people, yet we are also pluralistic society-one consisting of several distinct cultures and groups.

24. AMERICAN IDEOLOGICAL CONSENSUS

25. Why is there a Two-Party System? • There is still consensus-general agreement on fundamental matters: • Major parties are largely moderate, built on compromise, and occupy “the middle of the road.” • Both parties also focus on attracting a majority of the electorate. • Positions are largely alike.

26. Why is there a Two-Party System? • Differences: • Democratic Party-favors social welfare programs, government regulation of business practices, efforts to improve the status of minorities. • Republican Party-favors the free market, less extensive Federal Government.

27. MULTIPARTY SYSTEMS • Multiparty system-several major and many lesser parties exist, seriously compete for, and actually win public offices.

28. MULTIPARTY SYSTEMS • Mostly European democracies. • Political parties are based on a particular interest: economic class, religious belief, sectional attachment, or political ideology.

29. MULTIPARTY SYSTEMS • Strengths: It provides for a broader representation of the electorate and more responsive to the will of the people. • Weaknesses: It leads to political instability because one party cannot win the support of the majority of the voters. This leads to a Coalition government-a temporary alliance of several groups who come together to form a working majority and so to control a government.

30. ONE-PARTY SYSTEMS • One-party systems-only one party is allowed to exist, in nearly all dictatorships today.

31. ONE-PARTY SYSTEMS • This country has had several States and many local areas that can be described as one-party systems. Until the 1950’s, the Democrats ruled the South and the Republicans dominated New England and the upper Midwest. • One-third of American States can be said to be under one-party rule. In New York, for instance, Democrats outnumber Republicans 5 to 3.

32. PARTY MEMBERSHIP PATTERNS • Party membership is voluntary. • Each party is made up of a cross-section of the American electorate. • Two out of three Americans follow the party loyalty of their parents.

33. PARTY MEMBERSHIP PATTERNS • The Democratic Party tends to attract African Americans, Catholics and Jews, and union voters, and lower income groups. • The Republican Party attracts white males, Protestants, the business community, and higher income groups.

34. PARTY MEMBERSHIP PATTERNS • Age, place of residence, level of education, and work environment may also influence party identification; however, these will often be in conflict.

35. “The Two-Party System in American History” (Section 3)

36. THE NATION’S FIRST PARTIES • Traces back to the battle over the Constitution. • T. Jefferson VS. A. Hamilton

37. THE NATION’S FIRST PARTIES • Federalist Party-Alexander Hamilton • Stronger national government. • Strengthen the national economy. • Supporters: financiers, manufacturers, commercial interests. • Loose interpretation of the Constitution.

38. THE NATION’S FIRST PARTIES • Democratic-Republicans (After 1828-they’re the Democrats) • Limited role for the new national government. • Congress should dominate. • Supporters: small shopkeepers, laborers, farmers, planters. • Strict Interpretation of the Constitution.

39. In 1800-realignment-the Federalists lose the presidency and control of the Congress-the Democrats are in power until 1860.

40. realignment • This is when the party who has been in power loses the election and the power switches over to the rival party.

41. AMERICAN PARTIES: FOUR MAJOR ERAS • The Era of the Democrats (1800-1860) • The Era of the Republicans (1860-1932) • The Return of the Democrats (1932-1968) • The Start of a New Era (1968-Present)

42. “The Era of the Democrats” 1800-1860 • The Federalist Party disappears by 1816. • National Republican (Whig) Party-Emerges. • Issues: Second Bank of the United States, high tariffs, and slavery • Democrats-under Andrew Jackson-Supporters: small farmers, debtors, frontier pioneers, slaveholders-mostly South and West.

43. “Age of Jackson” • Voting rights for all white males. • Huge increases in the number of elected offices around the country. • Spread of the “spoils system”-practice of awarding public offices, contracts, and other government favors to those who supported the party in power.

44. Whig Party • Henry Clay and Daniel Webster • Loose coalition of eastern bankers, merchants, and industrialists. • Opposed to Jacksonian Democracy and strongly supported high tariffs. • Two Presidents of the United States William Henry Harrison (1840) and Zachary Taylor (1848). These 2 candidates won because they were famous Generals, not necessarily because of their political beliefs.

45. Republican Party • Whigs and antislavery Democrats. • 1856-John C. Fremont • 1860-Abraham Lincoln • Only 3rd party to go major in U.S. History.

46. “The Era of the Republicans” (1860-1932) • -Republican supporters: business and financial interests, farmers, laborers, and newly freed African Americans • -The Democrats hold onto the “Solid South.” Their only President was Grover Cleveland (1884, 1892).

47. “The Era of the Republicans” (1860-1932) • The election of 1896 was a critical year in the development of the two-party system. • Small business owners, farmers, and emerging labor unions protested against big business, financial monopolies, and the railroads.

48. “The Era of the Republicans” (1860-1932) • Republicans nominated William McKinley who supported the gold standard, and the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan who supported the free coinage of silver. • The Republicans gained widespread support from the electorate (those able to vote), and became the dominant party for the next three decades.

49. “The Era of the Republicans” (1860-1932) • In 1912, the former Republican Theodore Roosevelt’s [splinter-party ] Progressive “Bull Moose” Party handed Democrat Woodrow Wilson a narrow victory. He was reelected by a narrow margin again in 1916. •  For the rest of the 1920’s the GOP dominated national politics with three successive Presidents, Warren Harding (1920), Calvin Coolidge (1924), and Herbert Hoover (1928).

50. “The Return of the Democrats 1932-1968” • The Great Depression not only brought the Democrats back to power, it also fundamentally shifted the public’s attitude toward the proper role of government. • Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s supporters were southerners, small farmers, organized labor, and big-city political organizations. He also attracted the attention of African Americans and other minorities to the Democrats.