Political Parties and Elections and Campaigns

1. Political Parties and Elections and Campaigns Unit II Political Participation Chapters 9 &10

2. Political Parties The U.S. party system has begun to decline in importance. Federalism: national, state, and local level party activity, not necessarily coordinated. Many people today consider themselves independent. Divided government due to split tickets.

3. The Rise and Decline of the Political Party Four periods of our political party system: The founding to the 1820s. Surviving! President Jackson to the Civil War. The issue of political participation and slavery Civil War to the 1930s. Era of reform After the New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s to the present. The role of the government in the economy and our personal lives.

4. Party Realignments Critical or Realignment periods occur when people tend to shift their political party allegiance. Five Realignment periods: Jeffersonian Republicans (Federalists died) Jacksonian Democrats (Slavery) Republicans during the Reconstruction period. (Slavery) The Republicans after 1896 (economics) The Democrats in 1932 (economics) Regulation v. deregulation

5. Party Decline Are parties Decaying? More people are voting with a split ticket than a straight ticket. Ticket splitting creates a DIVIDED GOVERNMENT! Office-bloc ticket v. Party-column ticket.

7. The National Party Structure Today. A separate and independent party structure exists at the national, state, and local level: National Convention � ultimate power of the party! They meet every four years to nominate a president. National Committee- between those four years, the committee manages the party made up of delegates from each state. Congressional Campaign Committee � they act like �managers� of candidates that want to run for office. National Chairman � full-time paid employee that runs the party and is chosen by the committee.

8. National Conventions Selects and time and place for the convention. RNC DNC Decides the number of delegates for each state, and the qualifications. Recently, delegates are given more emphasis based on the geography and population of each state.

10. The Hunt Commission In 1981, the Hunt Commission changed the rules to allow for people who have not pledged their support to one candidate or another: Super delegates: party leaders and elected officials who become delegates to the national convention without having to run in primaries or caucuses.

11. State and Local Conventions Each party has their own state party. Leaders at the local levels are either picked by the �political machine� (highly organized institution that aims only to win) or elected into their position by party committees. Abuses led to the Hatch Act People join parties for many reasons: Ideological parties Solidarity groups Sponsored parties Personal following

12. The HATCH ACT!!!! www.osc.gov/documents/hatchact/post_ha1.htm Parties started abusing their power by offering rewards to supporters by giving them government jobs for their loyalty! The Hatch Act (1939) prevented party affiliated workers from holding civil service jobs. They still do it anyway.

13. Types of Political Parties Ideological groups Environmental or pro-life Solidary Groups Companionship/sense of importance Sponsored parties Unions (Detroit � Auto workers Union Personal following JFK

14. The Two-Party System Only fifteen nations have a two-party system today. The Reason we do: Electoral College Plurality � winner takes all Media Coverage Financing Narrowed scope of ideas

15. Elections � Plurality System In the United States, we have a winner take all method. = Plurality System. This results in parties finding allegiances with ideological groups early on. Bad news for Minor/third parties! Why?

16. Electoral College System The Electoral College system is also winner take all. Example In 1992, Bill Clinton won Missouri with only 45% of the votes. His rivals George Bush and Ross Perot received less votes and lost. Because of this, voters don�t want to �throw away their votes� by voting for the third party person. They will vote with the major party candidate that has the closest ideas to their own.

20. Minor Parties Four types of minor parties have persisted through-out American history: Ideological parties Green party One-issue parties Free � Soil party �Know-Nothings� Prohibition Economic-protest parties Greenback party Populist party Factional parties �Bull Moose� Progressives Ross Perot�s Reform party

21. Minor Parties Why haven�t they had success? Electoral college process. People don�t want to throw away their vote They tend to get absorbed by the other two parties Media Coverage Financing

23. 2004 Election

24. Nominating a President Get mentioned Media Write a bill

25. Are Delegates Representative of the People? Because of the rules of choosing delegates (see page 210), many times the votes do not always match the people�s preference. Delegates are not bound to vote according to the population�s majority vote. Because delegates have to be a certain percentage male to female, race the outcome results in some delegates being more conservative than most republicans or more liberal than most Democrats.

26. Running For President I need Money! PAC � political action committees set up to collect no more than 5,000 for my campaign, but I can sucker out 2,000 per person. Lawyers, advisors, writers, public speech consultants, an accountant, public relations person, and a doctor for the unbelievable stress. To know when I�m going to run, what my �Theme� will be, the tone of my campaign, and what poor shmuck I�m going to target as the bad guy. If I�m running against an incumbent president, I�m most likely going to lose, so I will need a therapist as well.

27. Running for Congress I need A miracle if I�m running against an incumbent, which is more than likely the case, since there are no term limits (reelection limits) on the house or senate. (90% vote for the incumbent FYI) Get my name on the ballot through bribery and the complete compromise of my principals. FUNDRAISE!!! Win the primaries by promising to do stuff that I have no intention of doing.

28. RESTRICTIONS The constitution allows states to decide the size and shape of the district, and the population of the state decides how many members of the house will represent the state. Two problems: Malapportionment: drawing the boundaries of legislative districts so that they are unequal in population. Gerrymandering: drawing the boundaries of legislative districts in bizarre or unusual shapes to favor one party. The Supreme Court said states have to draw boundaries so that one person equals one votes, that the house can only have 435 seats total. Every ten years a census is done to determine which states will gain reps and which state will lose reps.