• official agency for selection of party's president and VP candidates
• party can illustrate differences in policy
• can settle questions of leadership ability and policy

1. presidential primaries

• voters still don't participate 

2. caucus- conventions

• poses major problems for party leaders
• intraparty conlict
• not representative of voters sentiment

1. increase presentation of certain demographic groups (women and minorities)

2. eliminate undemocratic procedures

3. stimulate particpation of rank-and-file Democratic voters in presidential nominating process

• Goal was to diminish power of party professionals and increase power of party members and local party activists through primaries and cacauses and pledge delegates
• Who benefits/hurts?

--> party leadership/organization loses because they lose control

-->helps new liberals of D party as it becomes more diverse. 

• prominent party and elected officials
• introduced to provide expert review of candidates 
• diminish influence of amateur activists and interest groups
• actually chose candidates who they thought would win rather than who was qualified 

• less active in restructuring selection than Democrats
• ban automatic delegates (Superdelegates)
• winner-take-all
• no need to divide delegations based on gender/ethnicity/race
• states can make up their schedule for primary/caucus (democrats have strict rules about this)

States continue to shift their primary/caucus to earlier part of the season to have more influence over candidates 

• invisible primary
• increased importance of money
• hard for dark-horse candidates to build momentum
• quick knock-out (especially for Repubs)
• national campaign from very beginning
• frontrunners have self-perpetuating advantage
• IOWA and NH are now more important
• 75% of delegates are decided right away

• focus on front-runners
• particularly influential in beginning of process
• campaign schedules/speeches revolve around media
• undercut position of party elites (much more effective to influence electorates)

1. they are real = public is polarized and political leaders reflect these disputes

2. they are exaggerated and public is not especially polarized and most voters hold moderate issue positions 

***use Berone 

1. self-identified ideology

2. social welfare issues

3. social issues

..then defense spending 

1. Get core supporters to vote

2. activate latent support

3. change opposition

4. mobilize new voters

5. priming

6. micro-targeting 

• debates
• ADs
• party convention
• Gaffs
• location of campaign visits
• endorsements 

1. principle themes for the campaign

2. issues to be emphasized

3. candidate's personal qualities emphasized

4. relationship of candidate, party, and factions within it all must get along

5. specific groups and areas to target

6. timing of campaign activties 

Types of Campaign Issues

1. Position Issues: parties take difference stances

---do not shape campaigns 

2. Valence Issues: issue that is uniformlly liked/disliked by electorate

---most of these come up in the campaign 

---ex: economic prosperity and corruption

---voters care about the ends not the means

• issues that either party can gain an advantage in depending on their performance or performance of opponents (ex: economy) 

1. costs are so high- candidates with limited resources are severely disadvanted (millionaire's club)

2. donors contributing a lot can buy influence 

• first attempt at public financing of campaigns
• designed to curtail influence and abuse in campaign politics by restricting money 
• provided for public financing for presidential campaigns (match funding)
• required disclosure and reporting of money
• restricted expenditure limits

1. banned national parties from raising and spending soft money

--parties were limited to hard money (from PACs and individuals)

2. hard money contributions were raised

3. attempted to prevent corps, labor unions, etc from running soft-money financed issue advocacy ads 

4. set contribution limits 3-6 times higher for candidates facing opponents who exceed a threshold amount of self-financing 

• National parties (most important)
• public financing 
• self-finance 

1. Individuals

2. PACs

3. self-financing

4. parties 

-electoral and ideologically based

-predominant purpose is self-promotion

-help reelect partisan or ideological allies by giving them funds

-most people want to have a powerful position and climb the ranks in the House 

-become more important with rise of seniority system

1. has not limited cost of campaigns

2. has not curtailed influence of organized interests

3. did not completely increase involvement of ordinary citizens in financing campaigns

4. direct influence of wealthy contributors has not declined enough 

1. personal campaign comittees donated to congressional campaign commities have no regulation limits and have increased
2. change of soft money to hard money has only shifted party allocations and didn't impact money raised
3. incumbents have more pressure to pay "dues" to party 
4. parties fundraising abilities were not hurt by BCRA and RNC and DNC even prospered

1. replacement of older members with ones of a completely different and more ideologically extreme character.

2. realignment of the political system

---> south is republican and African Americans make democrats more liberal

3. Conditional party thesis: parties have become more internally homogenous and interparty heterogenity increased

4. change in seniorty system

5. Leadership PACs

6. Redistricting 

Are parties ideological?

1. body of people united based on principles/shared ideas

2. more common in Europe because of multiple parties

Are Parties Electoral?

Group organizationed seeking to elect government officials under government label

--win first, ideological stuff comes later

--we have 2 parties because of our Electoral System of Single-Member district (win with plurality). 

1. Party as an Organization:

----formal party leaders that are not in the governnment

----people volunteering time

----hardcore party activists 

2. Party as a government:

---those who have office under a party label

---most visible of the party

3. Party as electorate:

---usually identifed as Republican or Democrat

---almost always more moderate than the party in the government 

Parties as a dependent variable due to outside factors such as...

1. Legal Political System

• decentralization of power --> weakens party
• parties are fragmented across country
• ---differ in strength and ideological bent 

2. Election System

• frequency of elections --> undermines party build of program
• direct primary --> stronger parties and more ideological/programatic
• first past the post --> makes parties more electoral than ideological

4. Hetergeneous Nation --> weakened due to coalitions and forced to be moderate

New Deal:

- Southern Whites, African Americans, Working Class, Catholics, Union Workers, Lower Income 

Today:

-Women, Minorities, Upper Educated, Higher income professionals, Union households, Lower income, Jews 

New Deal: 

- WASP, Business folks, farmers, rural, upper income, upper educated

Today:

-Upper income in the south, WASP, Business, farmers, rural, Catholics and real regular church-goers, 

Electoral Map in 1976 

1976:

1. Southern States more Democratic

2. West Coast more Republican

3. New England more Republican 

one key reasons for changes: racial cleavages (civil rights movement) 

House

1. Incumbency most important

2. No matter the district, it is considered swing if winner wins by less than 10% of the vote

Senate

1. 2-3x more competitive than house

2. higher profile races and states are more heteregeneous than house disticts

3. senate electoral map resembles presidential map 

- assumptions about behavior and make decisions based on most benefits and least costs (utility maximization).

-used to predict how people will behave in the future

Voters: choose party located most close to them in an ideological space (in 2 party system it would be in the middle)

Parties: care about winning the electoral and will do what it takes to win 

In order to win an election, must win 50 + 1 (50% of the median + one voter). 

Assumption is that most people lie in the middle ideologically 

most voters don't care about politics

little splinter groups that all call themselves one party (Democrats) but none of whom has a coherent set of ideas of how the country should operate

• only thing uniting them was to agree on racial segregation

Problems:

1. hard to choose who to vote for

2. no party responsibility

3. get elections about personalities rather than principles 

Result: voter turnout rate was really low 

- parties today have little control over who is nominated (arguable)

- Before 1960s Party Boss System - if you weren't endorsed by party org you could not get nominated and also very labor intensive

-Now based on candidate-centered system and money  

Winner Take All (Republican's choice)

--quick knock-out

--less intra-party division

--momentum is easier to build

--"Cleaner"

--local control

Advantages to Proportional Representation in Primaries

1. gives runners up an incentive to stay in the race

2. allows more media coverage for less known candidates

3. allows candidates to adopt strategy to take advantage of caucus states 

but...

-race goes on and on

-harder for fronterunner to get majority of delegates

--more intraparty conflict

Yes

-For Voters:

--> Educate populace

--> Get them to participate

-If candidate messes up, most likely loses election

No

-Ray Fairs Model: uses conditions, performance, contextual events to almost always predict campaigns (ex: economy as a factor) and results showed they could almost always predict winners based on this info and no campaign. 

-both sides get experts that cancel each other out

1. Eliminate the influence of large contributors

2. enhance role of small donors 

3. reduce emphasis on campaign financing

4. provide for more credible/competitive elections

5. to provide all candidates who want to run to mount a creidble challenge 

6. reduce emphasis on campaign fundraising and focus on policymaking instead 

- incumbents

-competitive races where candidate is not having an easy time winning reelection

-open seats 

1. Corporate --> money from stock holders, management, employees

2. Labor Union --> money from members

3. Trade Association: all businesses of any sort where more than one organization exists and they all have common interests. 

4. Non-connected: ideological concerned organizations usually tied to a single issue

---leadership PACs fall under this

1. Future Investment 

2. Psychological: want to feel like part of the process

3. Racial, Ethnic, Gender Concerns

4. Personal Benefit: get access to people 

1. Access to officeholders: want an audience of people who make policy

-->Corporate and Trade Association PACs

2. Electoral/Ideological: to try and defeat people who feel they are at odds with their beliefs

--> non-connected and labor 

Buckley v. Valeo- struck down a lot of what was included in the finance reform of 1974

Made of hard dollars (money raised within the confines of the FEC) and with these regulated dollars, PACs can spend unlimited money on a candidate as long as there is no coordinate with the candidate. 

Post 1974 parties could do little in terms of spending and could only make coordinated expenditures.

This case in 1996 cleared the way for parties to use soft money (coming from corps and labor unions) for issue advocacy advertising

---> no words like "elect" "vote for/against" could be used.  BUT parties acted like electoral pacts and used it for electioneering not party building activities as the Supreme Court intended. 

1. Internet

2. Constituents are becoming wealthier 

3. Contributors continue to invest because they believe Democrats had better position to win in 2006/2008

-candidates limited to 42.5 million

-state by state limits

-can't spend 50,000 of own money

-10% rule: nominee who receives less than 10% in two consecutive primaries unless wins 20% in a later one

-candidates who were local figures could explode onto national scene (ie. Jimmy Carter)

-increase competition in presidential campaigns

-seem to discourage people from taking money from PACs cause worth less than ind. contributor

-doesnt provide much help for candidates who can easily receive more funds

-didn't increase individual contributions as intended

-state's spending limits took into account inflation, so spending limits increase but contribution limits remain fixed (things get more expensive)

-easy to circumvent state spending limits

-make coordinated expenditures (limited)

-make independent expenditures (but cannot coordinate)

-transfer funds from national parties to state party organizations

-having a lot of money discourages competition, keeps strong competitors away

-advantage to incumbents, challengers can only win if heavily funded

-people with most money don't always win, still have to be a good candidate

- Relative to last 20 years yes (1930s-70s) parties were very weak

- Our American political system is polarized by parties

- Incumbents are invulnerable because of party redistricting

Every 10 years, distracts are redrawn to reflect changes in the population

-goal is to draw districts to maximize partisans in your district and minimize number of people from the out party

this has created "safe" districts for parties 

based on demographics and how districts voted in the past

HOUSE

1. Bill goes to subcommittee 

2. Bill goes to standing committee

3. Bill goes to rules committee 

--> rules: determines amendments, structures floor debate.  (now completely arm of house majority)

4. Floor

Senate:

1. Bill goes to subcommittee (unanimous consent)

2. Bill goes to standing committee

3. Floor

BOTH: Goes to conference committee and then back to respective floors. If both approve the exact same document goes to President.  

Most powerful party leader in congress

Formal Powers:

- order of business

-puts questions to vote

-refers bills to committees

-rule son points of order

-appoints members to select conference committees

Informal powers:

-leader of the party 

-center shaper legislative strategy

-if members want to move ahead must appeal to them

-negotiator not commander

Majority Leader

- Second to the speaker and top in the senate

- spokesperson for peoples interests 

-schedules bills for consideration (most important because you are the agenda setter)

-influence committee assignments

-work closely with president

3rd in House and 2nd in Senate

- job is to defeat majority party legislative by holding own party together and getting support of majority party

-serve as liasons between party leaders and members

-mobilize member support

-figure out why members won't vote on a bill and see how they can change that

-learn how members vote on legislation

-make sure members they want to be there during a bill will be there. 

1. Restrictive Rules: If the leadership wants to protect the bill, will say no to amendments/debates. There will be only one version of legislation and members of the party will not vote against the bill.

2. Omnibus Legislation: Members will take unpopular things, mix them with popular things and make everyone vote yes or no. A moderate member who might not like all the legislation will only vote yes with their party. 

1. Congressmen are independent, have to mobilize their own resources

2. Parties are more locally oriented, not the big picture nationally

3. Members don't have to sustain a cabinet so they don't have to engage members to induce member cohesion 

- Party unity voting low

- Representatives cared more about winning than good policy

- Party leaders held fewer powers

- Seniority system

1. Did away with Seniority system --> party leaders more important

2. Took power away from chairman and toward subcommittees, which were selected by majority party

**caused party loyality votes to increase

Aldrich and Rhode

- Goals are to make good policy, have power in the government, and win elections (not just win)

- Reps have 4 types of constitutencies

--> Geographic, Reelection, Primary, Personal (can cause members to vote differently because of constitutencies)

- If members are concerned about reelection more likely to vote with constitutences that party loyality

-

- Party activists voting more, moderates less --> more ideological candidates are winning = homogeneity

- Intraparty homogeneity increase

- party leaders have strong influence to promote party unity (makes them more important and increases positive media coverage) --> members vote with them rather than with districts.