Parties and Groups

1
Parties and Groups

• Campaign Finance and Parties
• Political Science 420
• Mark Stephan

2
Last class, this one

• The History of Parties in the U.S.
• Campaigns Organization, Strategies, and
  Endorsements
• Campaign Spending
• Campaign Funding

3
Small Group Discussions

• Statement In the world of political campaigns,
  its fundamentally about MONEY if youve got
  more, you win. If youve got more, you influence
  who the candidates are and how their campaigns
  are run.
• True or False? Why?

4
Campaign Spending

• Does increased spending lead to increased
  likelihoods of winning?
• What do we know?
• Costs are going.?
• Which races tend to involve more ?
• Nervous incumbents lead to..?
• Campaign spending good or bad for democracy
  according to Coleman and Manna?

5
NewsFlash!!!!!!

• Think about the presidential field on the
  Democratic side..has money made the candidates
  successful or has money followed success?

6
Campaign Finance

• Who pays for campaigns predominately the
  private sector or public funding?
• Private funding comes from??
• Money given to politicians for their campaigns
  buys what?

7
Campaign Finance Reform

• Why the desire for reform? Keefe mentions three
  reasons
• Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and
  amendmentshave they worked?
• Buckley v Valeo (1976), soft money, Presidential
  focus, parties use of issue advocacy ads

8
Reform and Parties

• Is campaign finance reform a partisan issue?
• Emilys List and bundling
• McCain-Feingold reforms
• Coleman and Manna on campaign finance reforms

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What has FECA wrought?

• More individuals give money, smaller sums,
  wealthy are less influential (?)
• Weakened parties
• Greater interest group involvement
• Corruption is down (??)
• Working the system
• Unintended consequences

10
Preview of Next Class

• Voters and parties