Political Parties

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Political Parties
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Section 1 Parties and What They Do

• Public offices
• The United States two major parties are the
  Republicans and the Democrats.
• Political parties are essentials to democratic
  government.
• Parties help link the people and their wishes to
  government action.
• Parties also help unify the people by finding
  compromise among contending views.

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• 3. Political parties perform five major
  functions.
• First, they nominate, or name, candidates to
  public office.
• Parties present candidates to the voters and then
  gather support for them.
• Second, parties inform the people and inspire
  them to participate in public affairs.
• Third, political parties help ensure that their
  candidates and officeholders are qualified and of
  character.

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• e. Parties have some governing responsibilities.
• f. Congress and State legislatures are organized
  along party lines.
• g. They conduct much of their business based on
  partisanship, or firm allegiance to a political
  party.
• h. Fifth, parties act as watchdogs over the
  conduct of government.
• i. The party out of power keeps an especially
  close eye on the policies and behavior of the
  party in power, or the party that controls the
  executive branch of each national or State
  government.

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Section 2 The Two-Party System

• 4. In the United States, there is a two-party
  system, which means that the two major political
  parties dominate politics.
• Minor parties, or those without wide support,
  also exist.
• 5. The First two American political parties arose
  during the ratification of the Constitution
  several factors have made the two-party system
  last.
• One basic factor is tradition the system remains
  because it has always been.

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• 6. Also, the electoral system favors a two-party
  system.
• Nearly all U.S. elections are single-member
  district elections, in which voters choose only
  one candidate for each office.
• The winner is whoever receives plurality, or the
  largest number of votes.
• Most voters tend not to vote for minor party
  candidates, who are unlikely to win.
• Also, much of U.S. election law created by
  Republicans and Democrats, or in a bipartisan way
  discourages minor parties.
• Consensus helps eliminate the need for many
  parties

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• 7. However, alternative political systems exist
  around the world.
• In a multiparty arrangement, several major and
  minor parties compete.
• To gain power, a number of parties often form a
  coalition, or union of people with diverse
  interests who share power.
• Nearly all dictatorships today have one-party
  systems, in which only one party is allowed

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Section 3 The Two-Party System in American
History

• Debate over the Constitutions ratification cause
  two sides the Federalists and the
  Anti-Federalists to form.
• a. These became the first political parties.
• In the election of 1800, Anti-Federalist Thomas
  Jefferson beat the incumbent, that is, the
  current officeholder, Federalist President John
  Adams.
• b. The Anti-Federalists then took control of
  politics.
• c. They later became the Democratic-Republicans
  and then the Democrats.
• There have been four eras during which one party
  dominated national politics.
• From 1800 to 1860, the Democrats held power.
• a. They were a coalition of small farmers,
  debtors, frontier pioneers, and slave holders.
• b. By the mide-1820s, they had split into
  factions, or dissenting groups.

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12. In 1854 the Republican Party formed. It
controlled national politics from 1860 to
1932. a. The party was supported by business and
financial interests, farmers, laborers, and newly
freed African Americans. b. By 1896, the
Republicans drew from a broad range of the
electorate people eligible to vote. c. At that
time the nations party politics began to move
toward the economic arena and away from
sectionalism, or devotion to the interests of one
region, that had plagued the nation for
years. 13. The Great Depression had a huge impact
on American life, and one change it saw was the
return to dominance of the Democrats. a. From
1932 to 1968, they operated from a strong base of
southerners, small farmers, labor union members,
and city people. 14. A new era began in 1968 with
the election of the Republican President Richard
Nixon. a. Since then, neither party has entirely
dominated politics. b. For much of that time,
while one party held the White House, the other
controlled Congress.
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• Section 4 The Minor Parties
• 15. Four types of minor parties have played a
  role in American politics.
• 16. Ideological parties are based on certain
  social, economic, or political ideas.
• a. They do not often win elections, but they
  remain active for a long time.
• 17. Single-issue parties focus on one public
  policy matter.
• a. They fade away after the issue has been
  resolved or people lose interest.
• b. Sometimes they are able to get one of the
  major parties to take on their issue.
• 18.Economic protest parties appear during tough
  financial times.
• a. They criticize the economic actions and plans
  of the major parties.

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• 19. Splinter parties - Most of the important
  minor parties in American politics parties that
  have broken away from one of the major parties.
• a. Usually they have a stronger leader who did
  not win a major partys nomination.
• 20. Although most Americans do not support them,
  minor parties still have an impact on politics
  and on the major parties.
• a. The minor parties members act a critics and
  innovators, drawing attention to otherwise
  neglected or controversial issues.
• 21. Strong third-party candidates can also play
  the spoiler role in elections.
• a. This means that they pull away votes from one
  of the major parties, weakening that partys
  ability to win an election.

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• Section 5 Party Organization
• 22. The major parties are decentralized, or
  fragmented.
• a. At the national level, the party machinery
  has four basic elements
• the national convention that nominates the
  partys candidates
• the national committee that runs the partys
  affairs between conventions
• the national chairperson who leads the national
  committee
• the congressional campaign committees that work
  to elect party members to Congress

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• 23. From the perspective of its members, a party
  has three basic and loosely connected parts.
• The party organization consists of the party
  machinerys leaders.
• The party in the electorate refers to those
  followers who usually vote for the partys
  candidates.
• The party in government describes the partys
  officeholders

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• 24. At the State and local levels, State law
  largely sets party structure.
• At the State level, a chairperson heads a central
  committee.
• b. Local party structure varies widely, with a
  party unit for each district in which elections
  are held.
• c. The districts include congressional and
  legislative districts, counties, cities, and
  towns, wards, and precincts.
• d. A ward is a small unit of a city a precinct
  is a subdivision of a ward.

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• 25. Political parties have been in decline since
  the 1960s.
• a. More and more voters regard themselves as
  independents.
• b. Also, split-ticket voting, or voting for
  candidates of different parties in the same
  election, has increased.

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