1. Chapter 8 Political Parties
AP U.S. Government

2. Political Parties
A group of political activists who organize to win elections, to operate the government, and to determine public policy.
Functions:
Recruiting candidates
Organizing and running elections
Presenting alternative policies
Operating government
Providing organized opposition

3. Political Parties Today
Two Major U.S. Parties
Economic Beliefs
Cultural Politics
National Security
Foreign Policy

4. Three Faces of a Party
1. Party in the Electorate – The people who identify with the party or who regularly vote for the candidates of the party in general elections

5. Three Faces of a Party 2. Party Organization
National Party Organization
Convention delegates
The National Committee/Chairperson
State Party Organization
State conventions -> endorse candidates
State party platform -> state level issues
Committee/Chairperson
Local Party Organization
Different in different regions
Local functions -> get out and vote campaigns

6. Three Faces of a Party 3. Party-in Government
Party that wins an election:
Can dominate committees in leg.
Decide appointments
Set political agenda
Checks and Balances:
Majority Party advantage tempered by opposition
Legislation often does not pass on party-line votes
Party Polarization -> sharp divisions

7. Electoral College Winner-take-all
The candidate who receives a plurality of the votes gets all the electoral votes of that state-> unit rule
Candidates who finish second receive nothing
All but two states -> Maine and Nebraska
Difficult for minor party candidates to win electoral votes
Governors are elected directly by the people and presidents are elected indirectly.

9. Minor Parties Ideological Splinter parties Impact
committed to a particular interest, issue, or ideology (ex. p. 274)
Splinter parties
formed by a dissident faction within a major political party
Impact
Provide voters with another option
Raise issues that two major parties must address
Affect the outcome of an election- spoiler effect

10. Woll Reading, Divided We Govern p.194
Would disciplined political parties that unified the exec. and leg. branches make an importance difference?
David Mayhew:
Parties jointly in power are seen to perform a service by checking each other

11. 5 questions
1. Even if important laws win enactment just as often under condition of divided party control, might they not be worse laws? Isn’t “seriously defective legislation” a likely result?
No, dubious… p rd paragraph

12. 2. Even if important individual statutes can win enactment regardless of conditions of party control, how about programmatic “coherence” across statutes?
Ideological coherence
Budgetary coherence

13. 3. Doesn’t Gov’t administration suffer as a result of divided party control?
Congress micro-managing the executive branch?

14. 4. Does the conduct of foreign policy suffer under divided party control?
“coordination?”- the record was no worse… ex: Marshall Plan est. with bipartisan cooperation, but divided party control

15. 5. Are the country’s lower-income strata served less well under divided party control?
New Deal and Great Society- (Same party control) Reagan administration and “social safety net”- (Divided control) no
Summary
Page 200, 1st paragraph

16. Summary
Page 200 1st paragraph