The Personal Vote and Modern Parties Last time –The nationalization of party organizations The personal vote Ballot reforms, communications technology and the political economy of modern campaigns

Last time: Demise of the First Party System Electoral politics was popularized in the 1810s and 1820s –property qualifications were eliminated on white male suffrage –westward expansion and organization of new territories put pressure on state governments to pay more attention politically to new communities 1824 prez election: final breakdown of the “Era of Good Feeling”

Last time: Van Buren and the Second Party System Replacing the elite politics of the 1 st party system was the mass politics of the 2 nd party system Van Buren’s organizational strategy: The key factors of production in politics are labor, capital and ideas. – organize state/local parties around labor using patronage jobs and contracts –organize a national coalition around a shared core of policy ideas; raise capital from benefit seekers to sell those ideas in a coordinated way: the “Caucus” – a national committee, headquartered in Washington, to provide logistics, fundraising, strategy, and propaganda (via a chain of party-run newspapers) the “National Alliance” – a somewhat loose affiliation of state and local “Republican” leaders who pre-committed to forming a long-term relationship

The voting system evolves 1830s: states start passing ballot laws that require votes to be written or printed, often regulating the form of the ballot, but allowing private provision these quickly evolved into party-strip ballots voting was still public; this encouraged parties to make their ballots distinctive –party-strip ballot is similar to closed-list PR: candidates on a ticket are chosen via centralized process and tied together physically

The personal vote states varied in their election timing, but federal election dates were standardized before the Civil War If the federal office on the ballot is way more important than other offices, voter choice at the “top” of the ticket determines choice of ticket –personal characteristics of candidates at the top of the ticket matter –reelection strategies: advertising, position-taking, claiming credit –collective policies are problematic for credit-claiming –incentives to personalize policy actions for voters

Problems with the personal vote Multiple offices on a party-strip ballot create “free- riding” opportunities Party organizations built on patronage may induce inefficiently large government –this is a form of rent-seeking; encourages third-party entry Australian ballot and primary elections allow voters to hold individual candidates accountable for their performance, but make it harder to hold a party collectively accountable

Evolution of campaigning 19 th -century campaigns depended on party labor to spread the message and get out the vote Ballot reforms allowed voters to hold individual incumbents accountable at the expense of collective responsibility Personal accountability  incentive to have personal organization  incentive to raise money to hire staff and expert advisers Radio, telephone, automobiles all dramatically lower the costs of communicating with individual, distributed voters. Each costs money