Elections and Campaigns

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Elections and Campaigns

• CHAPTER 10

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Presidential Versus Congressional Campaigns

• Presidential and congressional races differ in
  four important ways.
• The First, Presidential races are more
  competitive than those for the house of
  representatives. In the thirty five elections
  form 1932 to 2000 the republicans won control of
  the house only six times. In the eighteen
  presidential elections during the same period the
  republicans won the white house on eight
  occasions
• Second, a much smaller proportion of people vote
  in congressional races during off years ( that is
  , when there is no presidential contest) than
  vote for president.

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• Third, members of congress can do things
• for their constituents that a president
  cannot. They take credit-sometimes deserved.
  Sometimes not-for every grant,
• contract, bridge, canal, and highway. The
• federal government provides the district or
• the state.
• Fourth, a candidates for congress can deny that
  he or she is responsible for the mess in
  Washington even when the candidate is an
  incumbent. Incumbents tend to run as individual,
  even to the point of denouncing the very congress
  of witch they are a part.

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• Fourth, a candidates for congress can deny that
  he or she is responsible for the mess in
  Washington even when the candidate is an
  incumbent. Incumbents tend to run as individual,
  even to the point of denouncing the very congress
  of witch they are a part.

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Running for president

• The task facing anyone who wishes to be president
  is to get mentioned as some one who is of
  presidential caliber no one is quite sure why
  some people are mentioned and others are not.
• Money one reason why running takes so much time
  is that it takes so long to rise the necessary
  money and build up an organization of personal
  followers.
• Organization raising and accounting for this
  money requires a staff of fund-raisers, lawyers,
  and accountants.
• Strategy and themes every candidates picks a
  strategy for the campaign. In choosing one, much
  depends on whether you are the incumbents

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Getting Elected to Congress

• A president cannot serve more than two terms so
  at least once every eight years you have a chance
  of running against a no incumbent members of
  co0ngress can serve for an unlimited number of
  terms and so chances are you will run against an
  incumbent.
• Winning the primary however the district lines
  are drawn, getting elected to congress first
  requires getting ones name on the ballot.
• Staying in office have 2 ways first, produce
  legislator who are closely tied to local
  concerns. Second, ensures that party leaders will
  have influence over them

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Television, Debates, and Direct Mail

• Main way of campaigning is broadcasting
• -Spots
• -Visuals
• Television effect on voting very small to non
  Exiting
• -Voters have other resources
• Visual v. spots
• -Spots are more affective
• -Spots have more information leave on impression
  on viewers
• -Visual are harder to make effective
• Televised campaign debates
• -No data on how they may affect an election
• -Can give rise to unknown candidates
• Interest
• -Lists
• -Target certain groups of people
• -Less chance of offending some one
• Running a campaigns has become has separated from
  governing

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Money

• Money is the mothers milk of politics
• Candidates with most money dont always win
• House senate spend over half a billion dollars
  in 2002 on adds

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The Sources of Campaign Money

• Presidential candidate
• -Private donors
• -Federal government
• Congressional candidates get their money from
  private sources
• -govt also gives parties up to 74.4 million
  dollars
• -most money comes from small donations

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Campaign Finance Rules

• Individuals cant contribute more than 1,000
• Political Action Committee (PAC) at least 50
  members, no more than 5,000 to least 5
  candidates
• Independent expenditures spending by an
  organization (PAC, Union, etc.) that is done to
  help a party or candidate but is done
  independently of them
• Soft money funds obtained by parties that are
  spent on party activities, such as get out and
  vote drives, but not for a specific candidate.

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Finding A Winning Coalition

• There are to ways to find out the nature of
  partys voting coalition
• 1 to ask what of groups in the population
  support the Democratic party or Republican
  candidate for president
• - This answers how loyal the groups (unions,
  farmers, etc) are
• 2 to ask what proportion of a the partys total
  vote came form each group (African Americans,
  Asians, Hispanics, etc)
• -this informs us how important each group is to
  a candidate or party

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• DemocraticAfricans are the most loyal voters
  except in
• -1952 2/3 voted Democratically
• -1964 4/5 voted Democratically
• Hispanic turn out low, most not citizens so
  political power is not equivalent to their s
• Republicans often describe as a party of business
  professional people, loyally is strong except
  in 1964 to support Lyndon Johnson
• Farmers are sensitive to farm prices thus quick
  to change parties
• Every year a winning coalition must be made to
  win votes

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The Effects of Elections on Poling

• The election of 1964 democrats such a large
  majority in congress presidency brought forth
  new policies
• -Medicare Medicaid
• -Federal aid to education local enforcement
• -Two dozen environmental consumer protection
  laws
• -Voting Rights Act of 1965
• -revision of immigration laws
• -A new cabinet-level Dept of Housing Urban
  Development

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A Second Campaign Finance Law

• The campaign finance reforms of 1970 made it
  harder for new candidates to raise money (
  especially for those who are not wealthy
• Eg.- -individual contributions 250 or less
• -Interest groups and corporations
  5,000 or less
• -Self contributions unlimited
• A congressional movement to reform the 1970's
  created the Biparistian finance reform act of
  2002. This act
• -banned sort money ( from corporations and
  unions)
• -the amount of individual contributions was
  raised from 1,000 to2,000
• -imposed sharp restrictions on independent
  expenditures by corporations, labor unions,
• etc..

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New sources of money

• Programs such as Media Fund and American Voters
  are generated by those who can no longer
  contribute with soft money and still want to
  support a candidate
• Eg.- a wealthy man donated 23 million to an
  organization who wanted to defeat George
• Bush

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Money and Winning

• In presidential campaigns, money does not matter
  as much because candidates receive the same
  amount of money from the federal government
• 3 significant aspects that affect presidential
  candidates on the election outcomes
• -Political affiliation,
• 80 of presidential votes go to candidates from
  eighter of the 2 main parties
• (Democrats or Republicans)
• -the state of the economy
• In good economic times party holding the White
  House does well, and in bad, it
• it does badly
• -the character of the candidate
• Does the candidate think as the voters think
  about social issues ( abortion, gun
• control, etc.?)

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What decides the election

• Voters tend to vote their party identification ,
  even if they dont know the candidates position
  on a certain issue.

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Primary Versus General Campaigns

• Primary elections- designed to choose each
  partys nominee.
• General elections- picks the winner who would
  hold office.
• Some states like Iowa hold caucuses instead of
  primary elections.
• What may help you win a primary election or a
  caucus can be different from what will help you
  win a general election.
• Democrats who participate in the Iowa caucus tend
  to be more liberal than Democrats generally.

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Two Kinds of Campaign Issues

• Position issues- an issue about which the public
  is divided and rival candidates or political
  parties adopt different policy positions.
• Valence issue- an issue about which the public is
  united and rival candidates or political parties
  adopt similar positions in hopes that each will
  be thought to best represent those widely shared
  beliefs.

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Issues, Especially the Economy

• Even though voters may not know a lot about the
  issues, it doesnt necessarily mean that issues
  play no role in elections or that voters respond
  irrationally to them.
• Voters are more informed about issues that really
  matter to them, issues like whether unemployment
  is up or down, prices at the supermarket are
  stable or rising, or crime is a problem in their
  neighborhoods. In contrary to issues such as
  monetary policy, business regulation, and the
  trade deficit.
• On certain issues like abortion, school prayer,
  and race relations they are likely to have some
  strong principles that they want to see
  politicians obey.
• Politics can function without well informed
  citizens
• Two ways in which issues can affect elections

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Two ways in which issues can affect elections

• Prospective voting - voting for a candidate
  because you favor his or her ideas for handling
  issues.
• It requires a lot of information about issues and
  candidates.
• They are a minority of all voters.
• Retrospective voting Voting for a candidate
  because you like his or her past actions in
  office.
• Does not require you to have a lot of
  information, the only thing that should be clear
  is whether things have, in your view, gotten
  better or worse.
• Elections are decided by retrospective voters.
• An example of retrospective voting was in the
  elections of 1980 in which voters decided to vote
  against jimmy carter because in their view things
  had gotten worse under his command. People then
  decided to vote for the other candidate the
  alternative candidate, Ronald Reagan. In simple
  terms people werent necessarily voting for
  Reagan they were just NOT voting for Carterdoes
  that make sense

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The Campaign

• Campaigns can make a difference in 3 ways
• They reawaken the partisan loyalties of voters.
• Campaigns give voters a chance to watch how the
  candidates handle pressure, and they give
  candidates a chance to apply that pressure.
• Campaigns allow voters an opportunity to judge
  the character and core values of the candidates.
• Once the campaign has begun both candidates
  immediately start searching each others personal
  history, records and statements in order to
  portray the worst possible image in newspaper or
  TV ads.
• Many voters dont like these negative ads but
  they work by stimulating voter turnout.
• Voters receive guidance as to how a candidate
  will behave once elected by listening to the
  themes and tone of his statements in contrast to
  the details of what he actually says.
• Today activists and single-issue groups influence
  the selection of candidates, sometimes out of a
  belief that it is better to loose with the right
  candidate than to win with the wrong one.