Political Parties
To-Do List
 Start with a 2013 FRQ question
 Notes on Chapter 8 – Political Parties
 Discussion of looming shutdown and defunding
Obamacare – videos and readings
 Practice FRQ for tomorrow’s quiz - #1 FRQ in the back
of the book
 Practice Multiple Choice questions
T8-4
Party Coalitions Today
Source: Authors’ analysis of Pew Research Center polls conducted in January and February 2008.
Quick Review:
TASKS of Parties as Linkage Institutions
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Pick candidates
Run campaigns
Give cues to voters (educate voters)
Articulate policies (party platform)
Coordinate policymaking (btwn branches – Obama
wants healthcare – he looks to Dems in Leg. Branch
to make it happen)
Decline in Political Parties in Elections
 Television has taken away some of the power of
political parties
 Candidates can easily get out their own message
 Can directly access voters
 No more party machines! No patronage.
 Today’s parties are more fragmented
 Party dealignment
 People gradually moving away from both parties
Responsible Party Model
 Present and follow clear goals/policies
 Minority party must say what they would do if
THEY were in power
 Accept responsibility for government’s
performance
Divided Government
 Def: when one party controls the White House and
the other party controls one or both houses of
Congress
 Advantages
 Check other’s agenda – can’t enact entire platform
 Parties have to compromise to get things done
 Not a lot of compromise happening in today’s
Congress…more to come
Review Slide from Thursday:
Party in Government
 Party with the control over the most gov’t
offices will have the most influence in
determining who gets what, where, when and
how.
 Carry out the policies created at National
Conventions (platforms)
Partisans Politics
 Definition: Devoted to or biased in support of a party,
group, or cause
 Our 113th Congress
 House: Controlled by Republicans (233 to 200 and 2
vacancies)
 Senate: Controlled by Democrats (52 to 46 and 2
Indepedents)
 http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/cong.aspx
Fewer Moderates
Moderates and Gridlock
 “Many political observers have lamented the increasing
partisanship and dysfunction of Congress. Polarization
and the vitriolic politics that it generates have been
especially pronounced in the House of Representatives,
where the common ground between the parties has
vanished as the contingent of independent-minded
centrists has disappeared at a remarkable rate in recent
decades – from 192 such Representatives in 1972, to 129
in 1992, to just 12 in 2012”
Moderates and Gridlock
 “The absence of such moderates willing to work across
the aisle is perhaps the most powerful example of how
unrepresentative our winner-take-all system of
elections has become, as an upcoming FairVote analysis
on the disparities between the ideological makeup of
the U.S. electorate and the U.S. House will explain”
Third Parties
 Pros:
 Expand the political agenda
 “safety valves” for popular discontent
 Cons:
 Almost never win office
 We have a winner-take-all system – NOT proportional to
the percentage of votes received
 Example (page 244 of textbook): party 1 gets 45%, party 2
gets 40% and party 3 gets 15% of votes – Party 1 wins all
(even without a majority)
Tea Party
 Platforms
 http://www.teaparty-platform.com/
Current Events
 Food stamps article
 Government defunding Obamacare
 Government shutdown/budget/debt ceiling