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Magleby & Light
Government by the People
Chapter 8
Campaigns and Elections
Listing Questions for Test #5
1. Describe the 2 – step flow of political
communication;
2. What are 4 jobs of the Federal
Communications Commission (F.C.C.);
3. Describe the 3 phases of the development of
radio in this country;
4. Describe the 3 phases of the development of
newspapers in this country;
5. What are 4 jobs of the Interstate Commerce
Commission (I.C.C.).
Elections: The Rules of the Game
Elections are held at
fixed intervals that
cannot be changed by
the party in power
Terms are fixed and, for
some offices, staggered
Term Limits
Twenty-second Amendment
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more
than twice, and no person who has held the office of
President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a
term to which some other person was elected President shall
be elected to the office of the President more than once. But
this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of
President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and
shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of
President, or acting as President, during the term within which
this Article becomes operative from holding the office of
President or acting as President during the remainder of such
term.
Effects of a Winner-Takes-All,
Single-Member District System
In a winner-takes-all system, the candidate with
the most votes wins the election (not proportional);
In a single-member district, the voters choose one
representative only (not proportional)
•Wasted-vote
•Reinforcement
•Difficult
syndrome
of moderate and centrist candidates
for minor parties to get elected
Proportional Representation
An election system in which each party running
receives the proportion of legislative seats
corresponding to its proportion of the vote
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Benefits:
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More accurately reveals the division of voter
preferences
Gives those who do not vote with the plurality some
influence as a result of their vote
Problems:

May make it harder to have a clear winner
The Electoral College
The Electoral College

Why it exists:
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The framers did not trust the choice of president to a direct vote
of the people
How it works:
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Each state legislature is free to determine how to select its
electors
Each party nominates a slate of electors, usually longtime party
workers
In 48 states, candidates who win a plurality of the popular vote
secure all of that state’s electoral votes
In NB and ME, electoral votes are allocated to the winner of
each congressional district plus two electoral votes for the
winner of the state as a whole
A state’s electoral vote is equal that state’s representation in
both the House and the Senate
The Electoral College

If no candidate gets a majority of the
electoral votes, the House chooses among
the top three candidates
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
Occurred in 1800 and 1824
Makes it possible for a presidential
candidate to win the popular vote but lose
the electoral vote

Occurred in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000
Electoral Vote by Each
State

The Electoral Vote of each State is equal to that
state’s representation in both the House and the
Senate
# of Senators + # of Representatives
The most frequently proposed reform for
Presidential general elections has been to
change those to direct popular election
Running for Congress
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Partisan gerrymandering – redrawing district
lines to help a political party;
Safe seats – an elected office that is predictably
won by one party;
Coattail effect – the boost a candidate receives
because of the popularity of presidential
candidates from their party;
Open Seat – an election with no incumbent
running
Seats Lost by the President’s Party
in Midterm Elections
Incumbents have a strong
advantage when seeking
reelection
Name
recognition – being
better known than your
challengers
Campaign
contributions
Resources
of office
Franking
Privilege –
sending mail free to
constituents, using their
signature as a stamp
Services
on committees
The House of Representatives

Mounting a primary campaign
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Raising money – 1st Step!
Building a personal organization
Campaigning for the general election
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Candidate appeal – often a focus on the
personal attributes of a candidate
National tide
Name recognition
U.S. House Incumbents Reelected
1960-2008
Only 2 House incumbents were denied
renomination in the 1990’s – often gaining
reelection because of name recognition
The advantage of this incumbency effect has
led many to coin the phrase “permanent
Congress”
Membership in Congress
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Congress = The House of Representatives + The
Senate.
The Senate membership is 100 (2 per state) –
elected to 6 year terms with 1/3 being elected
every 2 years
The House membership is 435 and this number
is set by the Reapportionment Act which keeps
this number constant. The number of seats is
“reapportioned” after the Census every 10 years
– their terms are 2 years and all are elected
every 2 years.
The Senate
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Costs more than House races, but cost
varies by state
More likely than House seats to be
seriously contested
Running For President
Stage 1: The Nomination
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Campaigning begins well before any
declaration of candidacy, as candidates try
to:
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Line up supporters to win caucuses or
primaries in key states
Raise money for their nomination effort
Running For President
Stage 1: The Nomination
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Primaries (when states move up the dates for their
primaries, it is called “frontloading”)
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Beauty contest
Actual voting
Systems
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Proportional representation
Winner takes all
Delegate selection without a commitment to a candidate
Delegate selection and separate presidential poll
Caucuses – meetings of local party members to choose
party officials of candidates for public office
Conventions
Campaign Strategies
Selecting a theme
Negative Campaigning
Using focus groups and polling
News management
Paid advertising
Seeking free airtime
Running For President
Stage 2: The National Party Convention
National Party Convention
A national meeting of delegates
elected in primaries, caucuses, or
state conventions who assemble
once every four years to
nominate candidates for president
and vice president, ratify the
party platform, elect officers, and
adopt rules
The statement on party perspectives on
public policy will be stated in the platform
The Vice Presidential Nominee
Presidential candidates usually submit their choice
for vice president in the run-up to the party’s
national convention
Running For President
Stage 3: The General Election
- Debates – to be
included in the debates,
candidates must have
received an average of
15% or higher in 5
major polls identified by
the Commission on
Presidential Debates
- TV and Radio
Advertising
In the 2000 Presidential Election:
 Al Gore won the popular vote while George
Bush won a majority of the electoral college;
 Al Gore narrowly beat George Bush in New
Mexico, but lost in the Electoral College after
George Bush narrowly won in a controversial
election in the state of Florida;
 This shows that election outcome usually do
have policy consequences as there were many
difference in political ideologies between these
candidates.
Method of Selection is the electoral
college
The people cast their ballots on – the
1st Tuesday after the 1st Monday in
November
The electors in the electoral college
cast their ballots on – the 1st Monday
after the 2nd Wednesday in December
Money in U.S. Elections
Watergate
The 1972 Watergate scandal led to the
discovery that large amounts of money from
corporations and individuals were
“laundered” in secret bank accounts outside
the country and used by Nixon’s campaign
for political and campaign uses
Efforts at Reform
Three strategies used to prevent abuse in
political contributions
1.
Imposing limitations on giving, receiving, and
spending political money
2.
3.
Disclosure laws
Governmental subsidies
The Federal Election Campaign Act

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Serious campaign finance reform began in the 1970s
with the Federal Election Campaign Act (1971)
Buckley v. Valeo (1976) challenged the constitutionality
of campaign finance limits

Now, politicians must get small amounts of money from
many sources, with an exception for “soft” money
(In 1974, the Federal Election Campaign Act was amended
to administer election reform laws through the Federal
Election Commission)
Soft Money
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Until 1998, more important in presidential
contests than in congressional contests
Between 1998 and 2002, soft money
contributions more than doubled
Soft money enabled large donors to be
major players in campaign finance
Banned by BCRA
Issue Advocacy Advertising
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Promoting/attacking candidates without explicitly
saying “vote for” or “vote against”
Surged in 1996
In recent elections, issue advocacy groups have
sometimes spent more than the candidates did
themselves
Often more negative than the ads run by
candidates
Only partially addressed by BCRA
Section 527 and 501(c)
Organizations
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527s: May advertise for or against
candidates
501(c): Include nonprofits whose purpose
is not political
America Coming Together
Media Fund
Swift Boat Veterans
Independent Expenditures
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Buckley v. Valeo (1976):
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Individuals/groups have “First Amendment”
right to spend as much money as they wish
Restrictions:
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Must be truly independent of the candidate
May not use corporate or union money
Possible Reforms
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National presidential primary
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Regional primaries
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Expand use of caucuses
Reforming the Electoral College
Should we use a direct popular
election instead of the electoral
college?
Pros
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Give every voter the
same weight in
presidential balloting
Winners would have
greater legitimacy
Cons
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Plan would undermine
federalism
Unrestrained majority rule
Populous states would lose
influence
Magleby & Light
Government by the People
Chapter 9
The Media and American
Politics
Role of the Internet in the 2008
Presidential Election
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The Internet was extremely beneficial to Barack
Obama’s campaign
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By March 2008, Obama had about 1 million “friends”
on MySpace and Facebook
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“Friends” received invitations to campaign events, links to
speeches, and requests for campaign contributions
Music videos supportive of Obama on YouTube
Obama also advertised on Web sites
Iron Triangle – informal association of a federal
agency, a congressional committee, and an
interest group
The Influence of the Media on Politics:
Television
Most people in the U.S. watch some
kind of TV news every day
Recent growth of around-the-clock
cable news and information shows
Voters now rely more on TV
commercials for information about
candidates and issues, and less on
news coverage
The Internet
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More than 153 million unique
domains have been registered
worldwide
For 37 percent of Americans,
the Internet is their primary
source of news
The Internet provides an
inexpensive way to
communicate with volunteers,
contributors, and voters,
allowing people to respond
rapidly to political events
The Internet is now changing
how politics is funded through
its ability to quickly raise funds
The Changing Role of the American News
Media

First newspaper: Boston NewsLetter, April 1704
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Avoided controversial issues
During Revolutionary War,
newspapers abandoned
impartiality and worked to build
resistance to British policies
1833, advent of the penny press
and in these early 1800’s, a move
to be more responsive to the
public’s increasing literacy and
participation
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1848, creation of the
Associated Press
Yellow journalism – the use of
exaggeration and
sensationalism to increase
media attention
Centralization of ownership of
newspapers in early twentieth
century has continued to this
day
“Objective Journalism”
“Independent journalism! That is the watchword of
the future in the profession. An end to
concealments because it would hurt the party; an
end of one-sided expositions… an end of assaults
that are not believed fully just but must be made
because the exigency of party warfare demands
them.”
-New York Tribune
editor Whitelaw Reid
The Impact of Broadcasting
Franklin D. Roosevelt
was the first president
to recognize the
effectiveness of radio to
reach the public –
known for his “fireside
chats”
The Impact of Broadcasting
TV added a dramatic
visual dimension
In 2004, an investigative team at CBS News
uncovered and aired this and other photos of
prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. Although the
military had been privately investigating the
situation for several months, the actions of the
CBS reporters brought the tragedy into the national
spotlight.
Investigatory Journalism
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Seymour Hersh and the Pentagon Papers
Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein and
Watergate - a scandal broken by the
Washington Post
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Nina Totenberg and Clarence Thomas
Dana Priest on the existence of secret CIA
prisons
Media Consolidation
Emergence of large
conglomerates
owning multiple
media outlets
Rupert Murdoch, founder of the FOX network, owns 35 TV stations in the
U.S., DirecTV, 20th Century Fox, HarperCollins Publishers, MySpace.com,
and TV Guide, which has the largest magazine circulation in the U.S.
Regulation of the Media
The national government oversees
TV and radio licensing, financing,
and even content
Mediated Politics
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The pervasiveness of the media confers
enormous influence on the individuals who
determine what we read, hear, and see
because they can reach so many people
so quickly
The news media have also assumed the
role of speaking for the people
The Media and Public Opinion

The ability of TV to present images and
communicate events has influenced U.S.
public opinion
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Civil Rights movement
Vietnam War
Watergate hearings
September 11
Hurricane Katrina
Factors That Limit Media Influence on
Public Opinion
Political Socialization
Recall and Comprehension
Audience Fragmentation
Selectivity
Needs
Public Opinion
Issue Framing
Agenda Setting
The power to set the context,
to frame the issue, to
interpret the facts, and
potentially to provide
legitimacy for people, issues,
or groups are powerful and
controversial functions of
the media
Deciding what will be
decided, defining the
problems and issues to be
addressed by decision
makers – calling attention to
certain issues
The Media and Elections:
Choice of Candidates
Presidential candidates welcome
invitations to appear with
Oprah, Leno, or Letterman,
and try to reformulate their
messages in a light, comedic
style that fits the program
Consistent with the media’s focus
on personality is its
highlighting of mistakes and
gaffes by candidates
Campaign Events
Officials want to control
information about
themselves and their
policies, including the
way such information is
framed and presented
by the media
Technology
With the Web, citizens
now have the
opportunity to interact
with each other on a
wide range of political
topics. The Internet
allows people to
communicate and
organize rapidly in
response to political
events
Image Making and Media Consultants
Role of media consultants: Campaign
professionals who provide candidates with
advice and services on media relations,
advertising strategy, and opinion polling
- Give advice on what colors to wear,
how to behave and act on TV
A portrait of Abraham
Lincoln as “Abe the
Rail Splitter”
- Use focus groups (asking small
groups about issues and candidates) and
public opinion polls to determine what the
candidate says and does
- Media consultants have taken over
the role party politicians formerly played
The Media and Voter Choice
Personality over substance
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The horse race – common tendency to focus more on
who is ahead than on the issues
Negative advertising
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Information about issues
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Making a decision
Election night reporting
Ronald Reagan has often been called the
“Great Communicator” for his ability to use
the media to his advantage.
The news media, however, still seems to be the
most influential at the “local” level.
Almost 70% of the public thinks that the press
is a watchdog on the actions taken by the
government.
When referring to the media as the fourth
branch of government, it must be stated that
the Judiciary seems the least dependent on the
press.
The Media
The media plays a major role in the
shaping of public opinion and can assist
and complicate the government in dealing
with events
Events such as the Gulf War in 1991 and
American involvement in Somalia in 1993
are good examples
Mass media refers to the technologies
employed in communications to distribute
information to large and widely dispersed
audiences
Mass media includes both print media and
broadcast media, using electronic means of
communication
Group media, currently including the use
of the fax and the Internet, are technologies
primarily used within groups of common
interest
The media, especially the print media, is
often called the “fourth branch of
government
Newspapers
1. During the Revolution and early 1800’s,
newspapers were often organs of political
parties
2. By the 1830’s, newspapers were largely
independent
3. By the 1890’s, they included
entertainment fare, such as comics,
advice, sports, etc.
Today, the 3 largest national newspapers
are:
1. The Wall Street Journal
2. USA Today
3. The New York Times
Magazines
Tending to have a much smaller
circulation, they are often forums for
opinion-therefore, more like group
media than mass media
2-Step Flow of Communications
1. Attentive policy elites-group leaders who
follow news in specific areas
2. Policy elites then influence mass opinion
by circulating their views in the media
Radio
1. Radio began in the 1920’s and
made celebrities out of news
personalities
2. The novelty of radio was live
coverage and in the 1930’s, it became
much more objective for politics!
3. Today, radio is more important
as a forum for talk than as a source of
live coverage of events.
Television brought the ability to present
images and communicate events which has
greatly influenced American public opinion,
especially in the field of politics (this has been
true for over 40 years. In 2004, more than 2/3
of U.S. citizens said their main source of
campaign news came from television.
While only 15% of U.S. citizens use
newspapers as their main source for campaign
news, most agree that newspapers do a better
job of covering politics and devotes more
attention to the campaign issues.
The mass media are privately owned in
the United States:
 Private ownership makes the
media more dependent on
advertising profits;
 Newsworthiness often means the
appeal to the audiences, which
means high impact,
sensationalism, etc.
Government regulation of the broadcast
media began in 1934
The 1934 Communications Act created the
Federal Communications Commission
(F.C.C.) and formed the basis for
government regulation for the next 60 years
The media was regulated in 3 areas:
1.Technical regulations arose because of
the limited number of frequencies
available for broadcasting;
2. The FCC also regulated the
ownership of electronic media;
3. The FCC also regulates the content of
broadcasters, who use the public
airwaves, not newspapers.
The equal opportunities rule provides
that a station must make available an
equal amount of time under the same
conditions to all political candidates
The reasonable access rule requires
stations to make their facilities available
to conflicting views from all responsible
elements in the community
Changes have undermined the basis for the
1934 Act:
1. Technological change has made
television commonplace. New technologies,
such as computers, satellite transmissions,
etc. have caused businesses to begin to
pressure Congress to remove restrictions so
these businesses could exploit these new
technologies
2. Many business leaders argued that more
competition would ensure a “marketplace
of ideas” and regulation was an
unnecessary abridgement of broadcasters’
First Amendment rights-the Reagan
Administration agreed with this view and
began to remove both ownership and
content regulations.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 further
removed many regulations
*The intent of this act was to allow all
communications media to compete in
offering varied services to customers.
The media has been criticized for “making”
the news by deciding what to report as news
Those in the media are often referred to as
“gatekeepers”, as they decide what to
present and how to handle various events
Television is especially restricted by the time
it can give to events. This is changing due to
networks that are totally devoted to news,
but the major networks are still under this
limitation today
In the covering of an election, the term for
the coverage by the media is “horse-race
journalism”
The media focuses on who’s ahead more
than on the specific issues
Regulatory Commissions
Interstate Commerce Commission (I.C.C.)
1887 – was the 1st regulatory commission
and was established to regulate railroads
1. *Set Routes;
2. Set Rates;
3. Set Wages;
4. Set Safety Standards.
Federal Communications Commission
(F.C.C.) – an independent regulatory
commission for the nation’s public
airways (broadcasting)
1. License stations;
2. Set frequencies;
3. Censor material;
4. Fire employees who refuse to follow the
guidelines set by the F.C.C.
If no candidate gets a majority of the electoral
votes, the House chooses among the top three
candidates
Term limits require a constitutional
amendment, such as the 22nd Amendment
In a winner-takes-all system, the candidate
with the most votes wins the election (not
proportional)
In a single-member district, the voters choose
one representative only (not proportional)
The framers did not trust the choice of
president to a direct vote of the people
If no candidate gets a majority of the electoral
votes, the House chooses among the top three
candidates
Each state legislature is free to determine how
to select its electors
Candidate appeal – often a focus on the
personal attributes of a candidate
The national party conventions is a
meeting of delegates elected in
primaries, caucuses, or state conventions
assemble every four years to nominate
and adopt the party platform
Ronald Reagan had the greatest success
in going from the radio to the use of the
new media of television to further his
goals
(In 1974, the Federal Election Campaign Act
was amended to administer election reform
laws through the Federal Election
Commission)
Lack of press attention to the policies that
may be implemented may explain, at least in
part, why the public does not understand the
business of politics