CHAPTER 8 ELECTIONS AND CAMPAIGNS

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CHAPTER 8 ELECTIONS AND CAMPAIGNS
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In Europe, the party names the candidate. In the
U.S. candidate must win a primary
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Theme A How Campaigns Are Conducted.
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Two phases getting nominated and getting elected

• Getting nominated
• Getting a name on the ballot
• An individual effort (versus organizational
  effort in Europe)
• Parties play a minor role (compared with Europe)
• Parties used to play a major role

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Major differences

• Presidential races are more competitive.
• House races have lately been one-sided for
  Democrats.
• Presidential winner rarely gets more than 55
  percent of vote
• Most House incumbents are reelected (more than 90
  percent)

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Major differences

• Fewer people vote in congressional elections
• Unless election coincides with presidential
  election
• Gives greater importance to partisan voters
  (party regulars)

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Major differences

• Congressional incumbents can service their
  constituents.
• Can take credit for governmental grants,
  programs, and so forth
• President can't power is not local

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Major differences

• Congressional candidates can duck responsibility.
  
• "I didn't do it the people in Washington did!"
• President is stuck with blame
• But local candidates can suffer when their
  leader's economic policies fail

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Major differences

• Benefit of presidential coattails has declined
• Congressional elections have become largely
  independent
• Reduces meaning (and importance) of party

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Running for president

• Getting mentioned
• Using reporters, trips, speeches, and name
  recognition
• Sponsoring legislation, governing large state

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Running for president

• Setting aside time to run
• Reagan six years
• May have to resign from office first

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Running for president

• Organization
• Need a large (paid) staff
• Need volunteers
• Need advisers on issues position papers

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1. Paid Professionals Member of the incumbents
staff or outside hired gun specialists.
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2. Unpaid senior advisers, usually acquaintances
of the candidate.
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3. Citizen volunteers who are given routine and
boring jobs.
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4. Issue consultants who define issues and write
position papers,
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Running for president

• Strategy and themes
• Incumbent versus challenger defend or attack?
• Setting the tone (positive or negative)
• Developing a theme trust, confidence, and so on
• Judging the timing
• Choosing a target voter who's the audience?

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5. Media personnel, organizers computerized
direct-mail campaigns, and pollsters.
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The Role of Technology in Elections - Television
(Visuals and Spots), Computers (Public Opinion
Polls, Focus Groups)
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Television, debates, and direct mail

• Paid advertising (spots)
• Has little (or a very subtle) effect on outcome
  spots tend to cancel each other out
• Most voters rely on many sources of information.
• News broadcasts (visuals)
• Cost little
• May have greater credibility with voters
• Rely on having TV camera crew around
• May be less informative than spots

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Television, debates, and direct mail

• Debates
• Usually an advantage only to the challenger
• Reagan in 1980 reassured voters
• Primary debates the "dating game" in 1988
• Risk of slips of the tongue on visuals and
  debates
• Ford and Poland, Carter and lust, Reagan and
  trees
• Forces candidates to rely on stock speeches
• Sell yourself, not your ideas
• The computer
• Makes direct mail campaigns possible
• Allows candidates to address specific voters
• Creates importance of mailing lists

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Two kinds of campaign issues

• Position issues rival candidates have opposing
  views
• Valence issues-matters on which everyone agrees

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Primary versus general campaigns

• Kinds of elections and primaries general versus
  primary elections
• Differences between primary and general campaigns
  
• What works in a general election may not work in
  a primary
• Different voters, workers, and media attention
• Must mobilize activists with money and motivation
  to win nomination
• Must play to the politics of activists

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Primary versus general campaigns

• Iowa caucuses
• Held in February of general election year
• Candidates must do well
• Winners tend to be "ideologically correct"
• Most liberal Democrat, most conservative
  Republican
• The caucus system "musical chairs and fraternity
  pledge week"

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Primary versus general campaigns

• The balancing act
• Being conservative (or liberal) enough to get
  nominated
• Move to center to get elected
• True nationwide in states where activists are
  more polarized than average voter
• The "clothespin vote" neither candidate is
  appealing
• Even primary voters can be more extreme
  ideologically than the average voterExample
  McGovern in 1972

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Theme B Money in Electoral Campaigns
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Money - How important is it?

• "Money is the mother's milk of politics."
• Are candidates being "sold" like soap? Answer is
  not so obvious

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Running for president

• Money
• Individuals can give 2,000
• political action committees (PACs) 5,000 per
  candidate or 15,000 to national party
• Candidates must raise 5,000 in twenty states to
  qualify for matching grants to pay for primary

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Sources 1. Candidates themselves 2. Other Well
to do people 3. Organizations and Interest Groups
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4. Small individual donors 5. The Federal
Government Up to 5 million in Primaries - Full
funding in presidential general election.
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Figure 8.1 The Cost of Winning
Source Federal Election Commission Report, April
28, 1999.
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Theme CElections and Party Alignments --
Probably today we are in an era of dealignment.
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Figure 8.5 Trends in Split-Ticket Voting for
President and Congress, 1920-1996
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How We Vote

• Prospective voting
• Know the issues and vote for the best candidate
• Most common among activists and special interest
  groups
• Few voters use prospective voting because it
  requires information.

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How We Vote

• Retrospective voting
• Judge the incumbent's performance and vote
  accordingly
• Have things gotten better or worse, especially
  economically?
• Examples presidential campaigns of 1980, 1984,
  1988, and 1992
• Usually helps incumbent unless economy has gotten
  worse
• Most elections decided by retrospective votes

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Theme D Campaign-Finance Reforms Have they
been effective?
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2,000 Maximum for Individual Donors 5,000
Maximum for PACs
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Campaign-finance reforms cannot be credited with
a wholesale cleaning up of American politics,
because relatively few things were for sale
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1. The political parties have been weakened. 2.
Candidates who are wealthy or who can appeal to
many small donors have an advantage.
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3. Incumbents have an advantage. 4. Late
starters have a disadvantage.
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5. Celebrities in politics have increased
because they can stage benefits to raise money
for candidates.
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6. The issue of soft money has not been
addressed. No real restrictions. Except no
corporation or union can give money directly from
its treasury to a national political party.
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Independent Expenditures

• Corporations, unions, and associations may not
  use their own money to fund electioneering
  communications that refer to clearly identified
  candidates sixty days before the general
  elections, or thirty days before a primary
  elections. PACs may up to their funding limits.

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7. Political Action Committees (PACs) have
increased in both numbers and influence.
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Figure 8.2 Growth of PACs
Source Federal Election Commission.
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Campaign Finance Reform 2002 Effective November
6 2002 See Brooking Institute at
http//www.brookings.org/gs/cf/cf_hp.htm
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Self-Test