Parties, Elections, Campaigning

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Parties, Elections, Campaigning
US Politics and Society
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Parties

• nearly 150 years of 2-party rule
• Democratic Party
• founded in 1792 as Democratic-Republican
  congressional caucus by Jefferson
• officially the Democratic Party since 1844
• Republican Party
• founded in 1854
• Parties not mentioned in the Constitution,
  factions seen as negative

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Party Systems, 1789-1852
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Party Systems 1856-1928
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Party Systems, 1932-2000
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Why a Two-Party System?

• Plurality electoral system in single-mandate
  districts
• Victory in electoral college demands national
  appeal
• Ballot access
• official electoral ballots as of 1890s
• signature requirements
• 3rd parties forced to spend resources on
  registration
• Post-campaign federal funding for 3rd parties

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Four Types of Third Parties

• socio-economic
• Populist Party
• splinter groups
• Progressive (Bull Moose Party, TR Roosevelt)
• Reform Party (Ross Perot)
• political extremes
• Socialists, Communists, Libertarians
• single-issue parties
• prohibition, nativist, greens

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Party Principles

• Democrats
• Government as a catalyst to engage the best
  ideas and energies of the American people
• We must move forward together and we must not
  leave anyone behind.

• Republicans
• We believe that from freedom comes opportunity
  from opportunity comes growth and from growth
  comes progress and prosperity.
• We recommit ourselves to the values that
  strengthen our culture and sustain our nation
  family, faith, personal responsibility, and a
  belief in the dignity of every human life.

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Fiscal policy

• Democrats
• We must continue the fiscal discipline that has
  been the hallmark of the past eight years - that
  means paying down the debt and offering the right
  kind of tax cuts to save for college, invest in
  job skills and lifelong learning, pay for health
  insurance, afford child care .

• Republicans
• Budget surpluses are the result of over-taxation
  of the American peopleThe tax system. It not
  only burdens the American people it threatens to
  slow, and perhaps to reverse, the economic
  expansion.
• A super-majority vote in both houses of Congress
  to raise taxes .

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Social Security

• Democrats
• Using the savings from our current unprecedented
  prosperity to strengthen the Social Security
  Trust Fund in preparation for the retirement of
  the Baby Boom generation. Plus, the creation of
  Retirement Savings Plus - voluntary, tax-free,
  personally-controlled, privately-managed savings
  accounts with a government match

• Republicans
• Real reform does not require, and will not
  include, tax increases. Personal savings accounts
  must be the cornerstone of restructuring. Each of
  todays workers should be free to direct a
  portion of their payroll taxes to personal
  investments for their retirement future. Choice
  is the key.

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Free Trade

• Democrats
• True open trade is not just about profits, but
  about people not a race to the bottom, but a
  dash to the top about a rising tide lifting the
  boats of workers here and abroad.

• Republicans
• International trade is not the creation of the
  worlds rulers, but of the worlds peoples, who
  strive for a better future and break down any
  barriers governments may erect to it. The result
  is todays global economy of open markets in
  democratic nations.

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Government reform

• Democrats
• We have ended the era of big government its
  time to end the era of old government. We need to
  create a government that is on-line all the time
  with no need to wait in line, an open government
  that's always open.
• Democrats do not believe that privatization is a
  panacea. Some services are inherently public.

• Republicans
• A new era of creative federalism, making
  government citizen-centered, results-oriented,
  and, where possible, market-based.
• The federal governments role should be to set
  high standards and expectations in policies, then
  get out of the way and let the states implement
  and operate those policies as they best know how.
  

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Abortion

• Democrats
• The Democratic Party stands behind the right of
  every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v.
  Wade, and regardless of ability to pay. We
  believe it is a fundamental constitutional
  liberty that individual Americans - not
  government - can best take responsibility for
  making the most difficult and intensely personal
  decisions regarding reproduction.

• Republicans
• Our goal is to ensure that women with problem
  pregnancies have the kind of support, material
  and otherwise, they need for themselves and for
  their babies, not to be punitive towards those
  for whose difficult situation we have only
  compassion.  We oppose abortion, but our pro-life
  agenda does not include punitive action against
  women who have an abortion.  

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Civil Rights

• Democrats
• The Democratic Party has strongly opposed
  efforts to roll back affirmative action programs.
  He knows that the way to lift this nation up is
  not by pulling the weakest down, but by
  continuing to expand opportunities for everyone
  who wants to achieve.

• Republicans
• We believe rights inhere in individuals, not in
  groups.  We will attain our nations goal of
  equal opportunity without quotas or other forms
  of preferential treatment.

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Religion

• Democrats
• Government should respect First Amendment
  protections, and should never use taxpayer funds
  to proselytize or to support discrimination.

• Republicans
• Our country was founded in faith and upon the
  truth that self-government is rooted in religious
  conviction.  While the Constitution guards
  against the establishment of state-sponsored
  religion, it also honors the free exercise of
  religion.

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Voter behavior in 1992 election
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Electoral behavior

• voter-party registration
• Democrat, Republican, Independent
• primary access
• low participation rates
• 1996 49 1960 62
• ticket-splitting
• 1952 13 1988 31

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Campaign tendencies

• personality-centered elections
• electoral system, weak parties
• media scrutiny and sensationalism
• longer campaigns
• president 2 years
• greater dependence on , war chest
• presidential campaign often influenced by first
  primaries (IA, NH)

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Campaign financing

• Federal Election Campaign Act (1971, 1974)
• single indiv., 1,000 organizations 5,000
• incl. corporations, political action committees
  (PACs)
• matching federal campaign funding
• personal finances (Ross Perot)
• soft money given to parties for general adds

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Matching Federal Funding
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6100 campaign levels

• DR presidential committees
• DR Senate campaign committees
• DR House campaign committees
• 50 D 50 R state campaign committees