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Political Parties
Political Parties
A political party is a broad coalition of individuals who organize
to win elections in order to enact a commonly supported set
of public policies.
• Political parties fill an essential need by shaping the choices
that voters face in elections, which serve as the key
mechanism by which voters hold their government
accountable.
Party Platforms
The ideological stances and policy preferences of political parties
can be found in their Party Platforms.
• Document that lays out a party’s core beliefs and policy
proposals for each presidential election.
- Party platforms define the positions of the presidential and
vice presidential candidates and serve as a general guide to
the policy positions of all the candidates running under the
party label.
Party Organization
Party in the Electorate
• Citizen voters who identify with and support a political party
come election time. Also known as Party Identification.
– Why do people develop party identification?
• Policy preferences
• Family
• Social status
– Individuals can more formally associate with parties by
declaring party preference when registering to vote or by
joining a party at the town, county, state, and federal level.
Party Organization continued
Party in Government
• Members of government who share the same party affiliation
and work together to accomplish the party’s electoral and
policy goals.
– Party members are organized into caucuses that vote
consistently for issues on the party platform.
– The president is also increasingly expected to engage in
political support for party candidates, from campaign
appearances to party fundraisers.
Party Organization continued
Party Organization continued
Party as an Organization
• The modern political party structure is multilevel organization
with units at the federal, state, and local levels.
– National Committee is the top level of national political parties,
coordinates national presidential campaigns.
– State Central Committee is the top level of state political parties,
that helps recruit and raise money for statewide candidates and
drafts state party policies.
– Local Party Organization is the first level of political parties, that
recruits candidates for lower-level elected office, registers
voters and ensures they get to the polls on election day.
The Party Nominating Process
• Primary Elections are elections in which voters select the
candidates who will run on the party label in the general election
– Open Primaries are where voters do not have to affiliate with a
party before voting.
– Semi-Closed Primaries are where party affiliated voters cast
votes and nonaffiliated voters can choose which party’s primary
to vote in.
– Closed Primaries are where voters must affiliate with a party
before casting a vote.
– Blanket Primaries are where voters are allowed to cast votes for
any party’s candidates as long as they only cast one ballot per
elected office.
The Presidential Nomination
In a presidential primary, voters cast a vote for a particular
candidate, but what they are really doing is choosing
delegates who will support that nominee at the party’s
national nominating convention.
• A delegate is an individual selected by party voters in a
primary or caucus election who is committed to supporting a
particular presidential nominee at the party’s national
nominating convention.
The Presidential Nomination
continued
In a presidential party caucus, which serves the same
nominating purpose, the process is less formal and more
personal in that party members meet together in town halls,
schools, and even private homes to choose a nominee.
• A presidential party caucus is a meeting of party members
in town halls, schools, and even private homes to choose a
presidential party nominee.
The Evolution of the Presidential
Nominating Process
Democratic Reform
Each state is awarded a number of delegates to the convention
by the national party organization based largely on the number
of Electoral College votes the state has but also on the size of
party support in that state.
• The Democratic Party and Republican Party allocate their
delegates within the primaries and caucuses differently.
• In the 1960s members of underrepresented groups
objected to the use of the unit rule, or winner-take-all
system.
• The Democrats formed the McGovern-Fraser
Commission, which recommended proportional
representation.
Democratic Reform continued
Democrats also required that a certain percentage of each
state’s delegates would be women, African Americans, and
other underrepresented groups, based on their proportion in
each state’s population.
• States that don’t comply might not have their delegates
seated at the National Convention.
Democrats also created superdelegates.
• Democratic Party delegates who have a vote at the national
nominating convention on the basis of party status or
position in government and are free to support the
presidential nominee of their choice.
Republican Nomination
Republicans use the unit rule to award their delegates, with only
some states award delegates by vote totals in congressional
district rather than by the entire state.
• Little proportional representation
• No guaranteed representation for women and minorities
• No superdelegates
• Process is quicker and a clear winner emerges before the
National Convention.
The Timing of Primaries
The timing of primaries has become an integral part of the presidential
nomination strategy.
• Candidates who win in the early primaries can solicit more
campaign money and garner more endorsements from key
constituent groups than those who lose.
• Frontloading is the process of holding many simultaneous primaries
early on. This results in more money being spent in states with
early primaries and a disproportionate influence in generating
publicity and momentum for the winners.
– Iowa Caucuses
– New Hampshire Primaries
The History of Political Parties
in America
Federalists
• Initially, those who supported the Constitution during the
ratification period; later, the name of the political party
established by supporters of Alexander Hamilton.
Antifederalists
• Those who opposed the new proposed Constitution
during the ratification period.
Democratic-Republicans
• Political party formed by Thomas Jefferson to oppose the
strong central government policies of the Federalists.
Federalist and Antifederalist Policies
Jacksonian Reforms
The Democratic-Republican Party saw huge successes and faced
little opposition. However, there were internal divisions that
would split the party apart.
• By 1828, the nomination process had been taken over by
party members in state legislatures who voted on their
preferred nominee either in the legislature or at state party
conventions rather than in Congress.
• Jackson wanted states to open up the voting process to as
many people as possible by eliminating barriers to voting such
as property ownership requirements.
Jacksonian Reforms
Andrew Jackson (1767–
1845) originated the
modern political party
by encouraging grassroots participation by
voters and party
organizations in his
election campaigns and
by building the
Democratic Party while
he served as president
from 1829 to 1837.
The Democratic Party
Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren changed the name of
the party to Democrat to signal that they were building a
new kind of political party organization.
• The Jackson-led Democrats emerged as a large grassroots
majority political party, and President Jackson used all the
powers of the presidency to strengthen his political party
around the country.
Anti-Jacksonian Parties
The anti-Jackson wing of the old Democratic-Republicans had
taken the name of the National Republicans.
• Nominated Henry Clay of Kentucky in 1832
- He encouraged members of the National Republicans to join
forces with others who opposed Jackson and to form the
Whig Party.
• From 1832 to 1856, these two parties, the Democrats
and the Whigs, dominated American politics and
presidential elections.
The Republican Party
The abolitionist movement, although not a political party per se,
pressured the Democrats and Whigs to take a formal position
on slavery.
• Both the Northern and Southern Democrats and Whigs
became divided over the issue of slavery.
• Third parties arose, especially those focusing on slavery.
– Liberty Party
– Free Soilers
• Meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854, these groups were also
joined by some antislavery northern Democrats, and the
modern Republican Party was born.
Party Loyalty and Patronage
Just as Jackson worked to expand the electorate, he sought to
expand the size of the federal government in order to increase the
number of federally funded jobs his party could control.
• Patronage is a political system in which government programs
and benefits are awarded based on political loyalty to a party or
politician.
• As the government expanded, so did the party organization. At
each level—federal, state, and local—there were parallel party
committees.
– At each level, party bosses controlled the distribution of public
funds by rewarding supporters and withholding them from
opponents.
Party Machines
Machine politics described
party organizations
dominated by a “boss” who
controlled the distribution of
public jobs and commanded
groups of voters to support
his preferred candidates.
• Boss Tweed
Party Reform
Three developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries led by progressives eroded party organizations’ control
over government jobs and elections.
• Progressives were reformers who sought to end corruption in
government; also a third party in the early twentieth century.
– The creation of a merit-based system of government
employment.
– The introduction of ballot reforms.
– A change in the way nominees for elected office were
selected.
Party Reform continued
• The 1883 Pendleton Act created the civil service, which was a
system of employment in the federal bureaucracy under
which employees are chosen and promoted based on merit.
• Voting procedures were also reformed between 1888 and
1911 as states adopted the so-called Australian ballot system
in which state governments run elections and provide voters
the option of choosing candidates from multiple parties; also
called the secret ballot.
• Progressives launched grassroots campaigns for direct
primaries, run by the state, as a means of nominating party
candidates.
Moderates in a Two-Party System
The median voter theorem says that if voters select
candidates on the basis of ideology and everyone
participates equally, then in a two-party race, the party
closer to the middle will win.
• In this way moderates do have political influence in a two
party system.
Limits of a Two-Party System
• The American electoral system is a single-member plurality
system, in which one legislative seat (on a city council, in a
state assembly, in the House of Representatives) represents
citizens who live in a geographically defined district.
• The two-party system in turn encourages political debates
that ask Americans to take a “for” or “against” position on an
issue.
The Role of Third Parties
Third parties can mount challenges so significant that the major
parties are compelled to act, often by incorporating the third
party’s policy proposal into their platforms.
• Populist Party
• Progressive Party (aka Bull Moose Party)
• Green Party
• Reform Party
American Political Parties, 1789–2010
Obstacles to Third Parties
and Independents
The Democrats and Republicans have controlled state legislatures
and Congress for so long that they have successfully structured
electoral laws to favor a two-party.
• State laws typically require thousands of signatures to get that
independent or third party candidate on the ballot.
• Harder time getting financial backing.
• Less get-out-the-vote organization.
• Less media coverage.
• Even if elected, they must caucus with one of the two major
parties in order to gain influential committee assignments.
Party Alignment
Party alignment is when voters identify with a party in
repeated elections.
• From 1896 to 1932, the basic geographic pattern of
party alignment stayed the same
– During the election of 1932, voters were exposed
to a new political ideology, or set of consistent
political views, about the way that the federal
government could work.
The New Deal
In his acceptance
speech at the
Democratic National
Convention in 1932,
Franklin Delano
Roosevelt introduced
an innovative
campaign platform.
“I pledge you,” he said,
“I pledge myself, to a
new deal for the
American people.”
The New Deal
Franklin Roosevelt championed a vast array of new government
programs, commonly referred to as the New Deal.
• These programs were designed to help individuals who were
jobless, homeless, or otherwise in financial need.
• Roosevelt built a coalition of white southerners, working-class
ethnic northerners, liberal advocates for socialist policies, and
northern African Americans who had previously been
Republicans.
Parties after 1932
In the aftermath of 1932, the two parties transformed; in fact, it
was almost as if they had switched places.
• The Democrats changed from a party that believed in state’s
rights, low taxes, and little government intervention in
individuals’ lives to the party that created a large social safety
net that relied on the federal government to ensure personal
economic stability.
• The Republicans changed from a party that believed in a
strong central federal government and in intervention in the
economy when necessary to the party of a strictly limited
federal government and fiscal responsibility.
Realignment
Voters responded to these partisan and ideological changes by
changing their own party allegiances over time, essentially
producing a realignment of the electorate.
• Realignment refers to a long-term shift in voter allegiance
from one party to another.
Civil Rights
The Democratic and Republican parties remained divided mainly
along this economic dimension until the early 1960s, when
the Democratic Party established itself as the party of civil
rights for African Americans.
• Lyndon Johnson’s administration was responsible for:
– the Civil Rights Act of 1964
– the Voting Rights Act of 1965
– the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act
of 1965
– the Fair Housing Act of 1966
African Americans and the Democratic
Party
By putting the stamp of the Democratic Party on the pledge to
preserve civil rights, Johnson began the process of stripping
the party of the last vestiges of its reputation for racism and
segregation.
• In 2008, 95 percent of African Americans voted for the
Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, who was elected as the
nation’s first African American president.
The Great Society
The Johnson administration also expanded federal
programs that granted aid to individuals and state and local
governments in the areas of health care, education,
housing, job training, and welfare to families with children.
The Reagan Revolution
In 1980, Ronald Reagan (1981–89), former Republican governor
of California, defeated the incumbent President Jimmy Carter
(1977–81), a Democrat by focusing on:
• Opposition to Roe v. Wade
• Opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment
• Limiting the size of the federal government
• Allowing religious prayer in public schools
• Strong anti-Communist stance
Reagan Democrats
The combination of these issues brought Reagan the support
of many working-class, ethnic, northern voters, and southern
white voters. These voters were subsequently referred to as
Reagan Democrats.
• Led to split-ticket voting.
– Practice of voting for candidates from different parties for
different elected offices in a single election.
The Modern Partisan Landscape
As Reagan had, Clinton changed his party’s direction with a
campaign platform that advocated dropping opposition to
the death penalty, being open to a more free-trade stance,
and promising a middle-class tax cut.
• Clinton lost popularity by supporting:
– abortion rights
– gays in the military
– the creation of a major federal health care program for
the uninsured.
The Contract With America
In the 1994 midterm congressional elections, Republicans took
control of both the House and the Senate for the first time
since 1954.
• Led by Newt Gingrich, the Republicans put forth a party
platform called the Contract with America.
– Ten promises including:
» A balanced federal budget
» Less federal regulation
The Modern Partisan Landscape
The 2008 Election
The results of the 2008 elections may be a sign that the party
landscape is once again shifting.
• Clearly the election of an African American president is a
significant turning point in race relations.
• Barack Obama received 43 percent of the white vote in
2008, 2 percentage points higher than white candidate
John Kerry received in 2004.
• Obama won five states that had been considered solid
Republican states in previous presidential elections.
POLITICAL PARTIES AND PUBLIC
POLICY
The Environment
• In the 2008 presidential election, the platforms of both
parties addressed environmental protection and energy
conservation.
– One of President Obama’s first environmental initiatives
was to ask Congress to pass a bill to reduce carbon
emissions.
• Known as the “cap and trade bill,” it establishes a system
whereby the government establishes a maximum amount of
carbon emissions for the entire country, with a goal of
reducing these emissions 17 percent by 2020
POLITICAL PARTIES AND PUBLIC
POLICY CONTINUED
The Environment continued
• In the 2008 presidential election, the platforms of both
parties addressed environmental protection and energy
conservation.
– One of President Obama’s first environmental
initiatives was to ask Congress to pass a bill to reduce
carbon emissions.
• Known as the “cap and trade bill,” it establishes a system
whereby the government establishes a maximum amount of
carbon emissions for the entire country, with a goal of
reducing these emissions 17 percent by 2020
POLITICAL PARTIES AND PUBLIC
POLICY CONTINUED
The Environment continued
• The vote on the climate change bill in the House of
Representatives was not a straight party-line vote;
members of both parties crossed the political aisle to vote
against their party’s official position.
Focus Questions
• How do political parties shape the choices voters face in local,
state, and federal elections?
• In what ways do political parties allow voters to hold their
elected officials accountable for the policies they produce?
• How do political parties respond to changes in public opinion
on key issues?
• Do political parties enable all citizens to participate equally in
self-government, or do they help give more power to some
people, and less to others? Explain.
• Are political parties a gate, or a gateway, to democracy?