AP Government Review
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We use these to express our preferences
regarding the development of public policy
Aka: INFORMAL INSTITUTIONS OF
GOVERNMENT
These institutions include:
 Political parties
 Elections
 The media
 Special interest groups
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A group of people joined together by
common philosophies
Main goal is nominating people who will get
elected to offices at national, state, and local
levels
There are local and national party
organizations
They raise money to achieve their goals
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They:
 Nominate candidates for office
 Promote these candidates for election
 Give candidates money to run for office
 Develop a party platform
 Coordinate and implement their policies
 Maintain a “watchdog” function; aka “the loyal
opposition,” if they do not succeed in getting their
candidates elected
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Political action on the local level
Organize on the local level with
 Fundraising efforts
 Holding town meetings for candidates
 Building local coalitions to help candidates get
elected
 Targeting voter registration
 Establishing voter contact through direct amilng
and other media
 Getting out the vote
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The movement of voters from one political party to
another resulting in a major shift in succeeding elections
Characterized by the start of a new party era as a result of
what is called a “critical election”
Party eras can be broken down into three periods, each
preceded by a critical election
After 1968 the era of Divided Government took over –
Republicans in the White House and Democrats in
Congress
1980 – Democrats who voted for Reagan were called
“Reagan Democrats”
1994 – realignment again when Republicans took control
of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Lasted until 2006
Defined as voters moving away from the tow major
political parties and declaring themselves as
independent or aligning with a third political party
 Takes place when the electorate becomes dissatisfied
with the actions of the Democrats and Republicans
 This dissatisfaction is measured by a decline in the
Democratic and Republican party identification and
the success of third-party candidates running for
office
 Third-party presidential candidates, George Wallace,
Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader attracted voters from the
Democratic and Republican parties and they had a
major impact on the 1968, 1992, and 2000 elections
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Third parties have played a major role in influencing
elections
 They are described as ideological, single-issueoriented, and personality driven They often influence
the party platforms of the Democrats and Republicans
 Examples:
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 Populist was successful in getting its reform policies of
initiative, referendum, and receall adopted in many states
 Independent Party 1968 with George Wallace took away
electoral votes from Democrats
 Reform Party w/Ross Perot in 1992 got about 20% of the
vote
 Green Party with Ralph Nader 2000 played the spoiler role
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Party eras occur after a “critical election”
First party era was 1828 when Andrew
Jackson running as a populist established
Democratic dominance
Second party era was 1860 when Lincoln was
elected as a Republican.
 Reinforced in 1896 with McKinley defeating Bryan
after forging an electoral coalition that included
big business, skilled workers, progressives, and
farmers
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The third party era was in 1932 when FDR defeated
Hoover. FDR won with a coalition of labor, minorities, and
those people who were most impacted by the Depression.
 This era lasted until 1968 when Nixon was elected, signaling the
start of Republican dominance of the White House and
Democratice dominance of Congress
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The fourth party era, 1968 – Present is described at the era
of “divided government”. One party controlled the White
House, the other Congress.
 Nixon, Reagan, and GHW Bush had to deal with Democratic
Congresses
 Clinton had to deal with the Republicans beginning in 1994
 GW Bush had the support of a Republican Congress until 2006
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Political Party Platforms outline:
 Philosophy
 Practice
 Goals of the party
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Platform is adopted at the national convention
Party differences over platform have led to
splintered parties.
 Example:
▪ Strom Thurmond led a walkout from the 1948 Democratic
convention in protest of the Deocrats pro-civil rights platform
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The Democrat and Republican Platforms had different planks on
what are called “hot button issues”. These included abortion, gay
rights, and the war in Iraq
 Abortion –
▪ Democrats believe in a woman’s right to choose but feel that abortion should
be safe, legal, and rare
▪ Republicans support a constitutional amendment that would ban all abortions
except in the case of rape or incest
 Gay Rights –
▪ Democrats were against a federal constitutional mendment that would define
marriage as the union of a man and woman
▪ Republicans favored the amendment
 War in Iraq –
▪ Democrats were critical of the way President Bush was executing the war
▪ Republicans made the case that the war in Iraq was part of the global war on
terrorism
This was a blueprint for legislative action and congressional
reform that House Republicans under the leadership of Newt
Gingrich successfully campaigned for in the 1994 midterm
elections
 The new Republican majority passed legislation that included a
line item beto, a crim bill that funded police, welfare reform tax
cuts, a rise in the earnings limit for Social Security recipients,
regulatory reform policies, legal reform to stop frivolous lawsuits,
and a vote in favor of term limits for members of Congress
 House voted to reform itself, cutting down the number of
committees and their staffs and placing term limits on committee
chairs
 Key proposals like tax cuts, welfare reform, and regulatory reform
were signed into law, but the rest that passed were vetoed by
Clinton
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This is defined by the federal election law as money spent
by a political action committee or special-interest group
that takes a position on an issue or candidate
independently from the candidate’s campaign
 The group must identify itself if it runs a political
advertisement and must register with the Federal Election
Commission
 No limit on how much money can be spent on an
independent expenditure, but the law requires the goup to
identify the sources of the funds.
 A “527” independent expenditure is made by a group that
files with the IRS and gets the status of an independent
group that can spend money taking a particular position
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The deliberate redrawing of legislative districts that
favors one political party and heavily influences the
outcome of the election
 The purpose is to draw a district regardless of natural
geographic boundaries so that the voters of one
political party outnumber the voters of the other
political party, which likely will result in the electoral
victory of the majority political party registration
 Courts can rule gerrymandered districts illegal using
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the equal protection
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
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These are used to measure the attitude and views of the
American people on issues ranging from presidential job
approval, congressional job approval, the “right directionwrong direction” of the nation, and the presidential “horse
race,” as well as views on specific policy issues
 News organizations and polling organizations often team
up to conduct these polls
 The legitimacy of the polls is determined by a scientific
random sampling of those people polled, the nature of the
questions asked, creating a poll that has results that
reflect a relatively low statistical margin of error, and is
reported so that peole can easily understand the results.
 Daily presidential tracking polls and exit polls taken often
reflect voter trends.
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A dark horse political candidate is a person running for
office who is not considered the likely choice and
starts out in the back of the pack
 The media’s coverage of political campaigns as “horse
race journalism” often designates candidates with
fewer resources and who are relatively unknown as
dark horse candidates
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 Jimmy Carter was considered a dark horse candidate until
he won the Iowa Caucus in 1976
 Bill Clinton also started out as a dark horse candidate
because he was so far behind in the polls when he declared
his candidacy in the 1992 presidential election
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A president’s job approval rating is determined through
public opinion polling. The rating is a “snapshot” in time
and can vary from month to month based on events such
as
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war
the economy,
the president’s health
Scandal
Truman and GHW Bush had approval ratings close to 90%
 Truman after WWII
 Bush after the Gulf War
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Truman and Nixon had the lowest ratings – below 30%
 Truman in the middle of the Korean War
 Nixon with the Watergate Scandal
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A poll of randomly selected voters that is taken
outside the voting area after the voter leaves it
The pollster asks who the person voted for,
demographic info, and where they stand on the
issues
Exit polls are used by the media as early
indicators of who is winning the election
There’s a high margin for error
 2000 Election when early exit polls showed that Gore
had won Florida
 2004 exit polls had Kerry winning
Mass media is one of the linkage institutions that
connects people to their elected representatives
 Refers to the manner in which print and broadcast
media communicate to their audiences
 Encompasses print media and broadcast media. Mass
media are one of the socialization agents that
influence political values
 New media refers to cable TV and Internet
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 Both have 24/7 ability to communicate with their audience
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This is the primary means by which a presidential
candidate gets exposure through televised debates,
the use of political ads and the daily coverage of the
candidates running for office.
A “photo op” refers to a photo opportunity that a
politician stages for maximum publicity
 The media’s coverage of a political campaign or a
staged event results in many photo ops.
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 GW Bush landed on an Air Force carrier to announce the
end of “major combat operations in Iraq” with a “Mission
Accomplished” sign hanging in the background
A “sound bite” refers to a quote made by a politician
during a campaign, as part of a political
advertisement or as part of a speech
 The media chooses a sound bite to represent the main
theme of the statement
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 Reagan went to Berlin and said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down
this wall”
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The manner in which the media’s coverage is perceived as
favoring a particular point of view
The media strive to cover stories with objectivity, using
what they call the canons of good journalism
The “Fairness Doctrine”, scrapped in 1987 provided that
the media air opposing opinions of the same issue and
give all presidential candidates an equal opportunity to
appear on media outlets
The increase in investigative reporting and adversarial
reporting gave rise to complaints that the media was
biased
Common complaints that are made are that there is a
“liberal bias” or “conservative bias” in the media. There
have been studies that support both claims
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Refers to the way the media covers political
campaigns.
 They are more interested in covering who’s ahead
instead of the in-depth issues
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Focuses on poll results and who is the frontrunner
Critics contend that the media are primarily
concerned with a 30- or 60- second sound bite or
the photo op that helps make or break a
candidate running for political office
Uses sports metaphors to describe the state of
the campaign
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Denotes how the media cover a story in a way that creates
news as well as covering news in multiple news cycles.
With the onset of 24/7 cable news outlets and the Internet
providing the ability to update a story as it happens, the
frequency of the media jumping on and staying with a
story increases
 Examples:
▪ Watergate
▪ Gary Hart’s womanizing
▪ Iran-Contra Affair
▪ Clinton and Lewinsky
▪ Disputed 2000 election
 Media Frenzy has also been called “a media circus”. Critics of
the media point to this type of coverage as proof that the media
is more concerned with superficial coverage than substantive
coverage of political events
Media Outlets include newspapers, magazines, the
radio, television networks, cable news networks, and
the Internet
 Tlelvision and cable news networks attract the largest
audiences for news coverage followed by the Internet,
newsmagazines, and newspapers
 The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is
responsible for the regulation of media content and
media ownership
 The concentration of private ownership of multiple
media outlets by such corporations as The News
Corporation and Time-Warner and the lack of
diversity in the media are two areas that the FCC has
investigated
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The FCC has the responsibility of regulation the media,
and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates the
merger of media outlets
 The regulation of content by the FCC comes into conflict
with the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech and
free press and the fact that the airways havealways been
considered “public”
 The FCC and the courts have dealt with issues related to
the media broadcasting obscene material and the ability
of the media to cover stories that deal with national
security issues
 Regulation of the media often comes into conflict with the
major roles that the media play – reporting the news,
interpreting the news, writing opinions about the news
with the purpose of influencing the people or the
government, and acting as an agent of political
socialization
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This is one of the four linkage institutions that connects citizens
with the formal institutions of government
Federalist #10 made reference to “factions” as an inevitable
characteristic of a federal system of government
A special-interest group is defined as a linkage group that is a
public or private organization, affiliation, or committee that has
as its goal the dissemination of its membership’s viewpoint
One major difference between a special-interest group and a
political party is that special-interest groups do not nominate
peole to run for political office. The function of a special-interest
group is to influence office holders, and special-interest groups
are responsible only to a very narrow constitutency
Special-interest groups often act as an umbrella for lobbyists and
political action committees, and special-interest groups can be
categorized as economic, ideological, environmental, religious
racial, or gender-oriented
Lobbyists are the primary vehicle for fostering a specialinterest group’s goals to policymakers. The term came about
from people who waited in the lobbies of legislative bodies
to speak to the representatives
 Lobbyists are paid by specfial-interest groups to promote
their goals and offer legislators information about policies
that the special-interest group supports. Lobbyists use
different techniques such as direct lobbying, grassroots
lobbying, public relations campaigns, media-oriented
lobbying, and coalition building to get their point of view
across
 Lobbyists must register with the government and there are
laws governing their behavior
 Many former government officials become lobbyists after
leaving the government
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These are formed by special-interest groups and
presidential candidates as a means of raising funds to
support a cause or a candidate
 Special-interest group PACs raise money from their
constituents and make contributions to political campaigns
on behalf of the special-interest group
 PACs are regulated unter the McCain-Feingold law limiting
their contributions to $5000 to a candidate for political
office
 There has been a large growth of PACs giving more money
to incumbents than to challengers. The top contributors to
political candidates are the Association of Trial Lawyers of
American PAC, The international Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers Committee on Political Education, The National
Automobile Dealer’s Association, and the Realtors PAC.
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This term refers to the attempt by lobbyists to directly
influence legislation through communication with any
member of a legislative body or with any government
official that has any involvement with the formulation of
legislation
 An example of direct lobbying would be any money used
to send lobbyists to Washington to influence legislators on
a specific piece of legislation such as an energy bill
 Special-interest groups can use their members to aid in
the effort of direct lobbying by alerting them to the
lobbying actions and asking the membership to call the
representative to vote a certain way on the bill
 Direct lobbying includes but is not limited to testifying
before a committee of Congress and initiating lawsuits
related to legislation
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This is a form of indirect lobbying that refers to any
attempt to influence legislation by affecting the opinions
of the general public
Money used by a special-interest group for paid political
ads urging citizens to contact their representatives would
be a form of grassroots lobbying
When a special-interest group sends out a mailing to the
general public, rather than only their own membership,
urging them to take action on a certain issue, that would
be considered a form of grassroots lobbying
Grassroots lobbying also involves interest groups’ general
membership rather than a paid lobbyist who is based in
Washington, DC
An example of a special-interest group that has used
grassroots lobbying to its advantage is the National Rifle
Association
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AARP – American Association for Retired
People
AMA – American Medical Association
NAACP – National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
NAM – National Association of
Manufacturers
NRA – National Rifle Association
VFW – Veterans of Foreign Wars
NOW – National Organization of Women
Greenpeace
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This is the alliance of special-interest groups
with the purpose of achieving the same goal.
They usually form based on similar ideology.
Coalitions use both direct lobbying and
grassroots lobbying
Often combine resources to attack issues on
many different fronts, increasing the
effectiveness of each organization’s efforts
Coalitions may have to compromise to stay
together
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A lobbying reform bill was signed into law by
President G.W. Bush. The new rules are:
 Lobbyists can not provide direct gifts or travel to
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legislators
Increased fines for violation of lobbying laws
Disclosure of campaign donations
Disclosure to FEC any contributions that exceed $15,000
in a six-month period
Former senators cannot lobby for two years after they
leave the Senate.
A legislator’s spouse or immediate family member from
lobbying their relative’s staff
Banning all gifts and trip offers to legislators and their
staffs