| Home |
 |
Chapter 7 |
|
Political parties organize to win elections while interest groups seek to influence public policy and are only marginally interested in elections.
American Parties: A Historical Perspective
While the Constitution did not mention political parties, they quickly developed as citizens sought to gain power over who would govern. American parties have developed in historical stages.
1. The Emergence of Parties: Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Two parties emerged during Washington's presidency, although he himself disliked parties. The Federalists, who had supported the Constitution, coalesced around John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, while the Anti-Federalists who had originally opposed the Constitution, were led by Thomas Jefferson. The Anti-Federalists soon took the name Democratic-Republicans. The Federalist candidate in 1796, John Adams, won narrowly in an election which established the precedent that electors in the Electoral College would announce and commit themselves to one party or the other, enabling voters to pick between the parties. In the elections of 1800 the Federalists were defeated, establishing the precedent of peaceful transition of power from one power to the other based on an election outcome. The Democratic-Republicans' success under Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe overpowered the Federalists, who ceased to exist by 1820. Their success reflected their solid base in agrarian interests, in contrast to the Federalist base in the numerically smaller interests of merchants, manufacturers, and shippers.
2. Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs. The Democratic-Republicans soon fell to bickering among themselves. In the 1824 election Andrew Jackson won a plurality of the vote but failed to garner a majority in the Electoral College. The decision was thrown to the House of Representatives who backed John Quincy Adams instead. Jackson rallied his supporters to form the new Democratic Party when he ran again successfully in 1828. Jackson helped to democratize and nationalize the party system. Under his leadership property qualifications for voting were lowered and the electorate greatly expanded. Also in many states electors would now be chosen by the people instead of state legislatures. The opposition to Jackson formed the Whig party to oppose the powerful president whom they referred to as "King Andrew." In 1840 the Whig candidate William Henry Harrison won the presidency.
3. Post Civil War Republican Dominance. In 1854 the Republican Party was formed to oppose the spread of slavery into the new western territories. The issue of slavery divided the nation and in 1860 four parties ran presidential candidates; no party achieved a majority of the popular vote but the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, won the Electoral College. After the war, the Republican Party won most of the elections until 1932 with two exceptions. Democratic Governor Grover Cleveland of New York won on a reform ticket in 1884 and 1892, and Princeton political scientist Woodrow Wilson won in 1912 after Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican Party by running on a third, progressive party ("The Bull Moose Party.". Wilson was reelected during World War I, but Republicans won back the White House in the 1920s. Throughout most of this epoch the Democrats were a minority party, rooted in Southern agrarian interests, opposing Republicans, rooted in dominant Northern industrial interests and their policies of high tariffs to protect manufacturers and tight money in the form of a gold standard to protect bankers.
4. The New Deal Democratic Party. The Great Depression destroyed Republican dominance and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal created a political realignment with a new Democratic majority. The Democrats created a new political coalition that included working classes, union members, whiten ethnic groups who had previously aligned with the Republican party, Catholics, Jews, African-Americans, the poor and Southern whites. The coalition continued under through the presidency of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, but the vast government growth under Johnson's Great Society program helped lead to the demise of the Democratic coalition.
5. A New Republican Majority. The stresses of the civil rights movement at home and the unpopular Vietnam War abroad began to fragment the Democratic coalition. The 1968 presidential campaign showed a Democratic party fighting amongst itself and opened the door for a Nixon victory. Internal changes within the party allowed more liberal activists to dominate by 1972, and the Republicans seized the moment to successfully portray the Democrats as soft on crime, committed to racial quotas and tolerant of disorder. The Watergate Scandal temporarily slowed Republican advances in the mid-1970s.
6. The Reagan Coalition. Ronald Reagan assembled a majority coalition that won presidential elections throughout the 1980s. This coalition, which was held together by the personality and optimism of Reagan, included economic conservatives, social conservatives, religious fundamentalists, southern whites, internationalists, and anticommunists. The Democrats became seen as the party of special interest groups, while public opinion generally became more conservative.
7. Clinton and the "New" Democrats. While losing presidential elections, the Democrats continued to control the House of Representatives and many governorships. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton helped form a more moderate Democratic coalition that focused upon increasing economic prosperity to achieve traditional Democratic political goals. Clinton used the sagging economy to win the 1992 election over the incumbent George Bush.
8. Republican Resurgence. In 1994 the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years and won more seats in the south than Democrats. This southern swing represented a realignment of southern voters.
9. Clinton Holds On. Republicans soon lost their momentum and President Clinton held firm on Republican budget cuts. A government shutdown because of political gridlock was blamed on Republicans while Clinton successfully portrayed himself as a moderate. With a resurgent economy, Clinton easily won re-election, but Democrats did not make gains in the Congress.
10. 2000- A Nation Divided. The 2000 election revealed a closely divided nation. Al Gore won a close popular vote but after an extended battle over the vote count in Florida, George W. Bush narrowly won the Electoral College. Congress was narrowly split as well between the two parties. In the 2002 elections Republicans gained seats in the House and Senate after vigorous campaigning by the president.
Political Parties and Democratic Government
Political parties in America are no longer the key component of organizing politics in America. Many Americans believe in the responsible party model, in which competitive parties adopt a platform of principles, recruit candidates and direct campaigns based on their platforms, and then hold elected officials responsible for implementing the platform of the winning party. This model does not describe American party politics, in which winning elections is usually more important than commitment to policies. In fact, the American electoral system creates an incentive for vote-maximizing parties to appeal to the center, making the parties often appear similar in policy terms.
The electorate views the parties as ideologically separate and frequently labels the Republicans as conservative and the Democrats as liberal. Mainly party activists ascribe to these ideological views, and party polarization has become more visible.
Traditional party functions have been reduced over the last few years. Most campaigns, for example, are run by professional managers hired personally by the candidates instead of the party. Plus, parties play only a limited role in recruiting candidates. Party nominations are decided in primary elections in which voters choose the party's candidate for the general election. Through the mass media such as television, candidates can take their message directly to the people without the need of the party machinery. One reason parties in America play an ever decreasing role in organizing campaigns and candidates is their inability to force elected officials to adhere to the party platform. No official mechanism exists to punish members who defy party wishes. Parties no longer provide social welfare functions that once gave them power. Finally, the voting public seems to prefer a divided party government where one party controls the executive branch of the government while another party controls the legislative branch. Divided party government makes it difficult for a party to fully enact is platform.
Party Finances
During the election process, both candidates and parties raise millions of dollars in contributions. Typically, the Republicans have raised more money than the Democrats, although the difference is narrowing. Prior to 2002changes to campaign finance laws, soft money contributions made directly to the party allowed for large contributions to be made by individuals.
Parties as Organizers of Elections
Political parties are the main organizers of elections in America. Nonpartisan elections —elections without party candidates—are common only at the local level. At state and national levels, the party caucus was the earliest nominating mechanism. It was simply a meeting of party leaders meeting to decide the party's nominees several months before the general election. Starting in the Jacksonian era, nomination by caucus gave way to nomination by political conventions made up at the state level of members nominated by county conventions and nominated governors, U.S. senators, and other state officials. State party conventions are still held in many states but do not have the power they once held. Instead, party primaries are now the usual way in which Democratic and Republican nominees are selected. Closed primary states allow only registered Democrats to vote in Democratic primaries, and registered Republicans in Republican primaries. Open primary states, by contrast, let voters choose on election day the primary in which they wish to vote. Some states, mainly the south, also conduct runoff primaries when no candidate receives a majority in the first primary election.
Winners of the Republican and Democratic primaries face each other several months later in the general election, usually on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. While independent and third party candidates can also get their names on the ballot, the process varies by state and can be difficult, usually requiring the collection of signatures of registered voters on petitions.
Where's the Party?
The political parties are composed of the following components:
1) the party-in-the-electorate are those voters who identify themselves as Democrat or Republican and who tend to vote for the candidate of their party. Party loyalties among voters today are declining and many voters are ticket splitters who divide their votes between candidates of different parties.
2) the party-in-the-government is the officials who have won the general election and include the members of Congress, state legislators, local government officials and the elected members of the executive branch.
3) the party organization is composed of national and state party officials as well as convention delegates, activists and committee members. The party is divided into national, state and local levels.
The national party organization is the titular head of the party and holds a convention every four years to nominate a presidential candidate, choose officers, adopt rules and write the party platform. Between conventions the national committees, composed of delegates from the states and territories, govern party business. Most of the everyday work is performed by the national party chair who is actually chosen by the party's presidential candidate.
At the state level the state committees and the state chair manage the party. The composition and role of these positions varies by state. Most state parties maintain full time staffs which help register voters, raise funds, recruit candidates, and provide advice to the party's nominees. While they assist the party candidates if needed, today most state candidates maintain their own campaign organizations, thus making the state party apparatus less important. At the local county level the county chairs are chosen by local election and cannot be removed by the national party committees thus giving the county chairs a great deal of independent power.
In the U.S. Congress the parties organize the chambers. The majority party in the House chooses the powerful Speaker as well as the majority leader and whip. The majority party in the Senate elects the president pro tempore who presides over the Senate in the usual absence of the vice president. In both chambers the minority party also elects its leaders to act as the loyal opposition.
National Party Conventions
In principle, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions select their party's presidential nominees. In reality, in modern times the nominee is selected in advance of the convention based on results of the primary elections. The last brokered convention, in which convention delegates exercised independent power rather than rubber-stamping the primary leader on the first ballot, was the 1952 Democratic convention, which eventually chose Adlai Stevenson on the third ballot. The main suspense at national party conventions now centers on selection of the vice-presidential running mate, not the presidential nominee. The running mate is normally selected by the presidential nominee and is announced at the national convention.
For both Republicans and Democrats, the number of national convention delegates a state receives is based on the number of party voters in the state. In determining just which candidate's delegates are picked, Democratic rules now allot each candidate receiving over 15 percent of the vote his or her proportion based on the primary or caucus vote he or she received. Republican rules allow states to choose between proportional allotment of winner-take-all.
Convention delegates tend to be party activists who are more ideologically motivated than the average citizen. Democratic delegates are more liberal than Democratic voters, and Republican delegates are more conservative than Republican voters. To rectify the resulting ideological mix, the Democratic Party began to use superdelegates selected to inject a more balanced, less ideological view into convention deliberations. Party platforms are drawn by the delegates at both national conventions to set out the party’s goals and policy positions in a largely symbolic way. The final evening of the convention is the kickoff of the general election campaign and the nominee's acceptance speech introduces him and/or his views to the voting public.
Party Voters
The Democratic party has traditionally claimed more members than the Republican party but this lead has gradually shrunk. More and more voters now describe themselves as independents. The reluctance of voters to align themselves with a particular party is known as dealignment and has grown in recent American history. However, party identification is a strong influence on voter choices in elections since most voters cast ballots for the candidate of their party. Party realignments in which there is a long term shift in social group support for the political parties occurs very infrequently in American history and are not evident for many years. The only recent shift in party social group alignment has occurred among white southerners who have moved more toward the Republican party.
Third Parties in the U.S. System
Throughout American political history a variety of third or minor parties have played roles in the political process.
1) Ideological parties promote an ideology rather than try to win elections. Through the electoral process they can express their views to the public. The socialist parties are an example of an ideological party.
2) Protest parties develop around a specific concern that is not being addressed by one of the major parties. The Populists of the late 19th century are a prime example of this type of third party.
3) Single-Issue parties arise around a particular cause but are typically narrower in scope than a protest party. Today's Green Party with its focus on environmental issues is a single-issue party.
4) Splinter parties develop from dissatisfied groups within one of the major parties who feel their needs or issues are not being properly addressed.
While polls show that Americans favor a third party, voters have failed to support them at the voting booth. Only three third party candidates in the last century have garnered electoral college votes.
Why the Two-Party System Persists
No third party candidate has come close to winning the presidency in American history and few third party candidates have won seats in Congress. There are several reasons for the lack of third party success in America. First, American political culture is fairly consistent and strong, and parties, such as communists, that challenge this consensus on basic issues rarely gain much of a following. Also, with the strong belief in the separation of church and state, religious parties, such as those that exist in Europe, have almost no following in America. Plus, most Americans fall near the center of the political spectrum, thus limiting room for another party. The winner-take-all election system also perpetuates the two party system and makes it difficult for third parties to achieve much success. Many other nations use proportional representation which rewards even small parties that garner only 10-15 percent of the vote. Finally, there are many barriers placed on access to the ballot for third parties. Each state determines its own rules for gaining ballot access.
Chapter Objectives
After mastering the concepts in this chapter, you will be able to:
| Legal and Privacy Terms |  |