Download Chapter Thirteen Outline - Clayton State University

Chapter Thirteen Outline
I.
Third Parties as the Spoiler: Now & Then
In 2009 and 2010, President Barack Obama and the Democrats muscled through an economic
stimulus bill and landmark legislation addressing health care and financial reforms. The
Republic minority held firm in its opposition to unprecedented spending, embracing their status
as the party of “No.” As deficits ballooned, the Republicans viewed the 2010 elections as an
opportunity to reverse their recent electoral misfortunes. At the same time, the Tea Party
movement had aided the cause of the more extreme conservative GOP contestants in primary
contests. The vast majority of Tea Party movement supporters were Republicans. Tea Party
candidates celebrated their election victories with warnings that the Republican Party could not
take their support for granted. Republican congressional leaders in the new Congress had to
consider the impact that Tea Party Republicans would have on the future of the Republican
Party.
After winning the White House and securing majorities in both houses of Congress in the 1888
elections, Republicans looked to the upcoming elections of 1890 and 1892 with considerable
trepidation. Republican President Benjamin Harrison and his administration had significantly
expanded the federal government’s powers. Democrats now became the party of “No!” The
subsequent arrival of the “People’s Party,” known as the “Populists,” soon complicated matters
for Democrats eager to oust Harrison from office. After running some candidates of their own,
the Populists eventually supported William Jennings Bryan. Democrats benefitted in the short
term but eventually were forced to rethink the benefits of allying themselves too closely with a
radical political movement.
Though the Democratic and Republican parties have long dominated the American political
landscape, third parties have not been uncommon. They rarely win the vote for a major office
and have never won the presidency, but they have made their presence known. The responsible
party government model, created by the American Political Science Association (APSA)
more than fifty years ago, identifies parties as organizations that offer clear programs and policy
positions to voters. Whether real-life parties have accomplished that goal has been the subject of
much debate.
Political parties are the organizations that seek to win elections and influence government
policies. Though not mentioned in the Constitution—and frowned upon as tools for the overly
ambitious by the Founders—they have been the dominant framework in U.S. government for
more than 200 years. Minor parties may not expect to win an election but instead focus on
proposing an ideological approach to government. Overall, parties are guided by political
philosophies, values, and ideologies, acting as bridges between citizens and government leaders.
II.
History of Political Parties in the United States
Though the Founders were wary of political parties, once the new government began operating
in 1781 many architects of the Constitution became strong advocates of certain parties. This
points to the necessity of parties—the competition between them has historically kept any one
element from becoming too powerful for too long.
A. The First Parties in America
1. The first party affiliation was seen in colonial days when supporters of the
English crown aligned with the British Tory (or Loyalist) Party, and
supporters of a new independent American nation were drawn to the British
Whig Party.
2. After the Revolutionary War, the debate over the ratification of the
Constitution led to the creation of two new parties—the Federalists (who
supported a stronger federal government) and the Anti-Federalists (who
supported state sovereignty).
3. President Washington despised parties, but many of his Federalist
supporters—including Alexander Hamilton—did not. By 1792, Thomas
Jefferson along with James Madison (who ten years earlier had vehemently
opposed “factions” in Federalist #10) helped organize the DemocraticRepublican Party, which challenged the Federalists and accused Washington
of taking on more power than the Constitution had intended. Washington ran
unopposed for president, but the Democratic-Republicans backed George
Clinton against Federalist John Adams for the vice presidency. Adams won.
4. Every presidential and congressional race since 1796 has involved parties in
some form. The two parties were then—and still are—marked by regional
differences (Federalists drew from the North, Democratic-Republicans were
favored in the South). But in 1796, the Federalist-backed Adams won the
presidency with seventy-one electoral votes and Democratic-Republican
Jefferson won the vice-presidency with sixty-eight votes. Without the strength
of political parties, candidates with opposing views were forced to lead the
country together.
5. With the backing of the Democratic-Republicans, Jefferson was elected in
1800, but only after the House intervened due to an Electoral College tie
between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The system needed to be modified to
acknowledge political parties. The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804,
allowed the Electoral College to cast separate votes for president and vice
president, which avoided the awkward ties within a party and the partisan
struggles within an office. The Federalist Party never won another presidential
election, and the Democratic-Republicans dominated through the 1820s.
B. A Second Party System Emerges
1. Upset by the 1824 election, Andrew Jackson formed the new Democratic
Party, which remains today. He got more popular votes than John Quincy
Adams due to support of western states that chose presidential electors
directly instead of through the state’s “congressional caucus.” But Adams
(joined by Henry Clay) won more electoral votes. When Adams appointed
Clay as Secretary of State, he was accused of trading his votes for the office.
Supporters of Adams called themselves National Republicans.
2. In 1828, the flamboyant Jackson and his Democratic Party ran a populist
campaign supporting an expanded role for voters, defeating the puritanical
Adams. This race permanently changed campaigns and parties by focusing on
an election influenced by the masses.
3. The two parties became larger and more organized while starting the tradition
of national party conventions to (1) choose candidates, (2) create a party
platform, and (3) coordinate activities across the states.
4. The new Whig Party evolved, and by the 1840s the Democrats and Whigs
became the primary parties. Due to differences in opinion among Whigs over
the slavery issue, the Whig Party declined by the 1850s and the new
Republican Party took hold as the opponent to the Democrats.
C. The Modern Party System in America: Democrats versus Republicans
1. The first race between the modern Democrat and Republican parties took
place in 1856. With only one exception (when Theodore Roosevelt came in
second with the Bull Moose Party in 1912), every presidential election since
then has had these two parties as the main contenders.
2. In 1860, with parties split over the slavery issue, Republican Abraham
Lincoln won the White House, Republicans took over both houses of
Congress, and the Civil War loomed. Historians consider this, like the 1828
race, to be a critical (or realigning) election—one that led to sharp and
lasting changes due to shifting patterns of party loyalty—because voters
realigned along the issue of slavery based primarily on a North versus South
division.
3. When all former Confederate states were readmitted to the union in 1870, the
Democratic Party again grew in national politics, based on a solid stronghold
in the South and some major cities in the North. But the Republicans
dominated for the rest of the century.
4. The third realigning election, in 1896, solidified the sweeping Republican
power in northern and western states and continued Democrat dominance in
southern states. William McKinley won, bringing new strength to the
Republican Party that lasted in every election through 1932 with the one
exception of 1912 (when Democrat Woodrow Wilson won, mostly due to
votes taken by the Bull Moose Party that would otherwise have gone to the
Republicans).
5. From 1870 to 1932, the two major parties developed their organizations and
voting coalitions, created caucuses and elected leaders, and strengthened what
would become the permanent Democrat/Republican system, the backbone of
American politics.
6. The fourth realigning election occurred in 1932, when Democrat Franklin
Delano Roosevelt challenged Herbert Hoover, who had done little to relieve
the economic disaster after the stock market crash. FDR proposed sweeping
changes with his “New Deal,” resulting in a larger and more activist role for
government. The working class rallied behind him, and FDR carried forty-two
states, earning 60 percent of the vote.
7. The massive shift in alliances had a lasting impact on voters and led to the
domination of the Democrats in the White House and Congress for the next
thirty-six years, all due to the powerful New Deal coalition of 1932.
8. Since 1968, both the New Deal coalition and the Democrats’ solid grip on the South have
declined. Between 1968 and 2010, the Democrats controlled the White House for just fourteen
years. This period since the 1960s is defined by dealignment—a decline in voter attachment to
parties and in clarity of party coalitions. (In 2004, however, George W. Bush won the White
House and the Republicans took control of both houses of Congress.) In 2006, the Democratic
sweep of both houses of Congress supported the theory of dealignment as voters expressed
disagreement with the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq War. Still, the subsequent 2008
election, in which the Democratic Party won the presidency and substantially increased its
majorities in both the House and Senate, suggested the possibility that a new alignment toward
the Democratic Party may be in the offing. The 2010 election results provided new evidence of
voters’ lack of attachment to either of the two major political parties. After successive election
cycles in which the Democratic Party took significant strides toward reestablishing itself as a
lasting majority, many independents and Republicans returned to the Republican fold in 2010.
III. The Functions of Parties
Political parties serve a number of functions at the national, state, and local level:
A. Contesting Elections
1. The more elections and seats in government that a party wins, the greater are
its chances for influencing policy. To win these seats, party organizations
operate at the local, state, and national levels to raise funds, organize events,
and attract volunteers and voters.
2. Since many elections involve an incumbent candidate, parties offer alternative
candidates and proposals more in line with public opinion, forcing elected
officials to respond and providing a mechanism for voters to remove them
from office. Parties organize the process of elections by providing two clear
candidates.
B. Recruiting and Nominating Candidates
1. Parties screen and recruit candidates that will best represent them, providing a
“weeding out” process that leads to higher-quality candidates.
2. Recruiting usually starts at the local level, where time and effort are rewarded
with board positions or places on local ballots. Successful candidates then
move up through the ranks of the party, hoping to be endorsed and nominated
for higher positions.
C. Providing a Framework for Voters to Make Vote Choices
Based on party affiliation, voters may better understand a candidate’s political,
ideological, and policy perspectives. Voters associate parties with at least broad
approaches to governing, and sometimes specific issues—Democrats are often
considered more liberal, and Republicans more conservative.
Party labels give voters a broad mechanism for choosing among candidates. Party
identification is the long-term psychological connection or attachment that voters
have with a particular party that influences attitudes as well as voting behavior, often
throughout a lifetime.
Research of party identification shows that:
1. Most Americans identify with one of the two main parties, and there are more
party identifiers than independents.
2. The numbers are nearly equal between the two parties.
3. People are resistant to change regarding their party identification.
4. Party identification directly affects voting behavior.
Party identification greatly influences the plotting of campaign strategies and the
contesting of elections. For any given election, a normal vote can be expected—a
certain percentage of voters will cast ballots for Democrats, and a certain percentage
for Republicans. The chances that a strategy will result in a victory depend on the
normal vote distribution.
Beyond the more informal attitudes involved with party identification, a more formal
affiliation with a party is associated with voter registration. Registration in many
states, and at times the participation in a primary election, includes registering as a
member of a political party.
D. Providing Organization for the Operations of Government
Parties provide leadership organization in the House and Senate. The top positions—
Speaker of the House and Majority Leader—are chosen by the majority party
caucus. In the executive branch, loyalty to the president’s party leads to positions in
related departments and agencies, so the resulting policy agenda and decisions are
based on party ideals.
When one party occupies the White House and has a majority in both the House and
Senate, it has strong control over which laws will pass. Since a majority of both
houses is required to pass a law, a divided government—in which parties have split
control over Congress and the presidency—makes it more difficult for either party to
pass a law. For the first 150 years, one party controlled both branches of the
government, but the last half-century has been dominated by divided government.
Though this does provide for checks and balances, when voters send one party to the
White House and the other to control Congress, the result is often “gridlock.”
IV.
Why a Two-Party System?
Party systems in a democracy can be classified in two ways—as two-party systems (such as in
the U.S., despite a wide range of ideological views, economic interests, religious orientations,
ethnic groups, and geographic disparities), and multi-party systems (seen in other nations,
usually organized along the lines of ideologies, economic interests, or positions on a set of
issues).
A. Reasons for the Two-Party System in the United States
Several key factors contribute to the American two-party system:
1. The Electoral College: A candidate must obtain a majority, not a plurality,
of electoral votes in order to win the presidency. So voters tend to align with
one of the two main parties in order not to “waste” their votes on a third party
that has no chance of achieving a majority.
2. The winner-take-all process in Congress: In U.S. congressional elections,
only the candidate with the most votes in a single district wins the seat. In
other democracies, proportional representation is used, in which the
percentage of the vote that a party receives dictates the number of seats it
occupies in the legislature.
3. The ideological nature of public opinion: Most Americans are ideologically
centrist, or moderate, so neither party can afford to be too strongly ideological
and risk losing voters.
4. The laws and regulations that govern campaigns: These tend to favor the
two main parties at the expense of a third party, particularly regarding
campaign funding.
B. Minor and Third Parties
Third parties have offered candidates throughout American political history. But
third-party candidates rarely win a significant percent of the popular vote, they
have never won a presidential election, and they rarely earn seats for other
government positions. Those who have attracted some voters—such as the Bull
Moose Party of the early 1900s or Ross Perot’s campaign of the 1990s—did so for
only a short time.
Third parties face major obstacles. Many sense that a third-party vote is wasted, most
voters cast ballots within the two-party system, and media coverage can be scarce.
But third parties serve the democracy by influencing an election outcome or taking
enough votes from one party to tip the scales toward the other.
Four types of third parties have been identified:
1. Economic protest parties: They tend to emerge in times of nationwide
financial crisis. (Examples: Populist Party of 1892, Ross Perot’s campaign of
the 1990s)
2. Ideological parties: They promote broad ideas about the purpose and role of
government. (Examples: Libertarian Party, Socialist Party)
3. Issue parties: They organize based on a single concept or belief. (Example:
Liberty Party)
4. Factional parties: They form by pulling together pieces that have split off
from one or both major parties. (Examples: Progressive Party of 1912, John
Anderson’s National Unity Party in 1980)
V.
The Party Organizations
A. Political parties exist as organizations outside of the government. They raise money,
speak on issues, recruit candidates to run on their platforms, and have millions of
volunteers.
B. The idea of a national party organization was first supported by Andrew Jackson in
the 1828 election, when he proposed that a party convention be held months before
the election. A national committee, consisting of state and local representatives,
creates strategies for the presidential campaign as well as congressional elections and
is run by a national committee chair chosen after the presidential election. At the
national level, the organization, committee, and chair focus on supporting the
presidential candidate by raising money and campaigning for office.
C. In modern times, state and local party organizations are more influential in
nominating candidates and giving voters “cues” about their vote selections, and
candidates are more dependent on resources of the state and local parties. Local
organizations provide the "grassroots" backing for soliciting mass participation as
well as a "farm team" of potential candidates.
VI.
Are Parties In Decline?
A. Several factors may be eroding the two-party process: increased negativity,
dealignment with its tendency toward less attachment to parties, and a mass media
that allows candidates to bypass party affiliation and concentrate on their own image.
B. The links between officeholders and parties may also be slowly breaking. Patronage,
the system by which parties retain a strong base by rewarding loyal members with
jobs in government, has declined in the past century, partly due to the civil service
and other reforms that limit a party’s authority to grant favors.
C. Reforms in the 1960s and 1970s reduced the party organization’s authority over the
nomination process. The direct primary election, based on an open election among all
party members, has empowered rank-and-file party members rather than party leaders
to choose the party’s candidates, and has allowed those candidates not directly
nominated by the party to maintain the party label.
D. Some believe the party system is not in decline, but is in resurgence, citing the
tendency for parties to adapt to candidate-centered campaigns that deemphasize party
affiliations. Though they may be less visible, parties are well-funded structures that
have powerful influences on voting behavior. Party-line voting in the House and
Senate, for example, is highly disciplined.
VII. Making the Connection: Now & Then
The Founders never intended a two-party system to take hold in the republic they so carefully
designed and yet two-party systems have dominated U.S. politics for over two centuries.
Sometimes both major parties lose touch with passionate strains of public opinion. In such
instances, an upstart political movement may suddenly arrive on the scene. In the 1890s, it was
the Populists who made their voice heard. In 2010, the Tea Party movement lent its support to
numerous anti-government candidates and helped to shift party control of Congress in the
process. If history is a guide, those movements tend to be short-lived, exerting significant
influence in a series of election cycles before one or both of the major parties bring the
movement’s energetic set of followers into their own party’s fold.
VIII. Chapter Summary
History of Political Parties in the United States
A. The Constitution does not mention parties, and the Founders frowned on the idea of
“factions.” But in the debate over ratifying the Constitution, two parties were
formed— the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists—and since then the United States
has been a two-party system.
B. Since 1796, every presidential and Congressional election has involved party
competition, and the modern-day Democratic and Republican parties have dominated
since 1856. The 1860, 1896, and 1932 contests were “critical elections” because they
produced drastic and lasting changes in voter loyalty. The period since 1968 has been
marked by dealignment because voters have been less attached to parties.
The Functions of Parties
A. The two major parties have organizations that raise funds, recruit volunteers, and
work for candidates at the national, state, and local levels.
B. Party identification is the often life-long psychological connection with a particular
political party.
C. Majority party leadership organizes governing in Congress and influences a
president’s policy positions and appointments. Divided governments make it difficult
for either party to pass legislation.
Why a Two-Party System?
A. The two-party system flourishes due to the need for a majority of Electoral College
votes to win the presidency, and a winner-take-all system in Congress, both of which
discourage third parties.
B. With a few exceptions, third-party candidates do not receive a significant percent of
the popular vote because voters feel such a ballot would be wasted, and because legal
barriers make third-party funding difficult.
The Party Organizations
A. The two major political parties have organizations at the national level, at the state level
in all 50 states, and at the local level in most cities and towns across the nation. These
organizations are active in developing party platforms, recruiting candidates to run for
office, and providing financial support and other resources to aid the candidates
electorally.
Are Parties in Decline?
A. Some believe parties are in decline, possibly due to the lessening of patronage and the
prevalence of the direct primary election. Still, party identification remains a strong
influence in voter behavior today.