Chapter 7: Political Parties and Elections

Chapter Review

1. In modern history, political parties have been the chief points of contact between governments and groups and forces in society. By organizing political parties, social forces attempt to gain some control over government policies and personnel.

Parties and Elections Have Been Vital to American Politics and Government

1. Political parties as they are known today developed along with the expansion of suffrage, and actually took their shape from the electoral process.
2. Parties are important in the electoral process for recruiting and nominating candidates for office.
3. Political parties help to organize Congress. Congressional leadership and the committee system are both products of the two-party system.
4. The president serves as an informal party head by seeking support from congressional members of the party and by supporting their bids for re-election.

America Is One of the Few Nations with a Two-Party System

1. The Democratic Party originated when the Jeffersonian party splintered into four factions in 1824, and Andrew Jackson emerged as the leader of one of these four groups.
2. The Republican Party grew as antislavery groups formed a new party to oppose the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act.
3. The United States has experienced five realigning eras, which occur when the established political elite weakens sufficiently to permit the creation of new coalitions of forces capable of capturing and holding the reins of government.
4. American third parties have always represented social and economic protests ignored by the other parties, despite the fact that the United States is said to have a two-party system.
5. Individuals tend to form psychological ties with parties; these ties are called party identification. This identification often follows demographic, ideological, and regional lines.

Voters Decide Based on Party, Issues, and Candidate

1. Three factors influence voters' decisions at the polls: party, issues, and candidate.
2. Party loyalty predisposes voters in favor of their party's candidates and against those of the opposing party.
3. The impact of issues and policy preferences on electoral choice is diminished if competing candidates do not differ substantially or do not focus their campaigns on policy matters.
4. Candidates' attributes and personality characteristics always influence voters' decisions.
5. The salience of these three bases of electoral choice varies from contest to contest and from voter to voter.

Elections Are Important to Democracy, but the System Can Seem Complicated

1. Though the United States now has a system of universal suffrage, voter turnout continues to be low.
2. Americans do not vote directly for presidential candidates. Rather, they choose electors who are pledged to support a party's presidential candidate.

Money Is the Mother's Milk of Politics

1. Campaign funds in the United States are provided by small direct-mail contributions, large gifts, PACs, political parties, candidates' personal resources, and public funding. In 2000, some candidates also benefited from issues advocacy.
2. Campaign finance is regulated by the Federal Elections Campaign Act of 1971. The McCain-Feingold bill, a bipartisan attempt to restrict soft money contributions and issues advocacy, was passed by Congress in 2002.
3. The role played by private money in American politics affects the relative power of social groups. As a result, less affluent groups have considerably less power in the political system.

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