Chapter 2: A brief history of American political parties
The first American political parties: The parties or factions that were feared were the divisions condemned by eighteenth-century British theorists like Lord Bolingbroke (“Governing by party …must always end in government by faction”) or David Hume (“Factions subvert government …and beget the fiercest animosities among men of the same nation”).
Party system: A party system is the name given to an ongoing electoral situation in which two or more parties compete for power against each other and take each other into account as they govern and set electoral strategies.
Legitimacy of the electoral process: Because of the crisis brought on by the election of 1800, the Constitution was amended to have presidential and vice presidential candidates run as a ticket. It should be noted that the Federalists were well enough organized in 1800 that one of their electors did not vote for Adams’s designated running mate, Charles C. Pinckney, but rather for John Jay, precisely to avoid the possibility of a tie vote should Adams have prevailed.
Democratic-Republicans in 1820: Such was the dominance of the Democratic-Republicans that one of their electors voted against James Monroe for re-election as president in 1820, because he wanted Washington to remain the only president to have been chosen unanimously.
The 1824 election: States retained the right to determine how electors were chosen. More and more states were moving away from a choice by state legislators to popular vote. The election of 1824 is the first for which popular vote totals are available, with approximately 350,000 White males voting.
The 1896 election: Political scientists, following V. O. Key, look at particular elections as critical elections, because the electorate is energized and concerned about its results. Some elections have been labeled as realigning elections, because the ways in which the party coalitions are aligned change significantly. The elections of 1828 (with the emergence of the popular Jackson Democrats and the Whigs as the main rivals), 1860 (with the Republicans and Democrats clashing over the issue of slavery), 1896 (with the parties staying the same but the key issue becoming an economic issue that led to a change in electoral coalitions), and 1932 (with the parties’ responses to the Great Depression causing another electoral coalition shift, while the two parties remained the same) are normally listed as the important realigning elections in American history. Others claim that this history is better understood as realigning eras, with these elections merely as convenient points to view ways in which the electorate is shifting.
The Washington precedent: The “Washington precedent” was formalized in the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1951. A reaction to Roosevelt’s four terms, the amendment limited future presidents to two full terms.
Parties as a means to organize the government: V. O. Key also is credited with drawing attention to the tripartite nature of party—as organization, in government, and in the electorate. The connections among the three aspects of party were strongest in the Gilded Age, but they remain important to analyze even in the twenty-first century.
Party organizations remained in existence, but their power was gone: In fact, in 1964, Neil Cotter and Bernard Hennessy wrote a book about the two national party committees titled Politics without Power, and in 1971 David Broder, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and columnist for the Washington Post, published a widely acclaimed analysis of party politics titled The Party’s Over.
Bible study: And, of course, the irony of Thurmond’s life was complete when it was revealed that he had an illegitimate daughter by an African American woman, a daughter he had been supporting while touting racist views in public life.
Chapter 3: Party organizations: What do they look like? What do they do?
Incumbents run without any major party opposition: In 2002, eighty incumbents won re-election to the US House of Representatives without opposition; in 2004, the number was sixty-five. The recent high was in 1996, when ninety-four incumbents were unopposed.
$5,000 for House candidates and $35,000 for Senate candidates: State parties can also give up to $5,000 to each candidate for federal office, in effect raising the contribution limit from national parties that simply transfer the money to the states.
Leaders of the Hill committees: This section has concentrated on House races rather than Senate races. Much the same process goes on in Senate races. However, because all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election every two years, but only one-third of the Senate seats are being contested, the resource allocation problem is more acute and more significant for the House Hill committees.
Formal structure of party organizations: It should come as no surprise that there is considerable variation from state to state in terms of formal structure.
The conventions of the two national parties set the rules: The two major parties differ somewhat on this point. For the Republicans, rules set at one quadrennial convention remain in effect and cannot be altered until the next convention. For the Democrats, since 1970, party commissions and at times the national committee have been able to modify the rules between conventions. Republican Party rules tend to leave more leeway for states to differ in their procedures than do the Democrats’ rules, which often restrain state autonomy. These differences reflect philosophical differences between the parties regarding the primacy of state or national governance.
Kickoff to the fall campaign: One variant on this theme deals with those states in which delegates to the national convention are chosen by state conventions, even though no statewide nominations are determined. In these cases, the extent of party unity will vary according to the acrimony among the presidential contenders—and that will often be a function of the timing of the convention within the presidential nominating calendar.
Chapter 4: Who are Republicans? Who are Democrats? Who are the “others”?
Party identification: Scholars now agree that party identification is not completely independent of short-term events of the day, for example, popular candidates or political scandals. However, party identification is generally conceived to be a long-term predilection toward one party or the other that persists despite election-specific events. In other words, self-reported partisan attachment is a more accurate measure than voting behavior at any one point in time.
Commercial pollsters: For purposes of predicting who will win an election, pollsters must distinguish between those respondents likely to vote and those less likely to do so. To understand the partisan leanings of the electorate, however, such a distinction is not necessary. In fact, one important research question that focuses on the quality of representation in the United States deals with whether more Republican or Democratic partisans in the total electorate turn out to vote.
Party affiliation: The National Election Studies question goes on to ask respondents who reply that they consider themselves in one party or the other if they are a strong or a weak supporter of that party; it asks those who say they consider themselves independent if they lean one way or the other. This analysis, following that of Harold Stanley and Richard Niemi, “Partisanship, Party Coalitions, and Group Support,” relies on only the first question.
Party identification of particular groups in society: Analyzing the party identification of members of particular demographic or socioeconomic groups is complex. Most of us are “members” of more than one group. One might be a White southerner, a Catholic, and a union member. These group affiliations pull in different directions. In this analysis, group membership refers to the mean probability that some in a particular group will identify with a political party. Through multiple regression techniques, it is also possible to state how much more likely an individual is to identify with a party because of some particular trait than the same individual would be with all of his or her relevant characteristics except that trait. Where appropriate, we will mention Stanley and Niemi’s analysis of these contributions as well.
Competing group allegiance: Hispanics in the United States come from a number of different backgrounds—Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, and other countries in Latin America. Cuban Americans, heavily concentrated in Florida, have had a historical allegiance to the Republican Party, based on the party’s policy stands toward Castro.
Black contribution to party coalitions: Of course, Black Catholics would count in each of these percentages; the categories are not mutually exclusive.
It is possible to view public opinion on political issues along a spectrum from conservative on the right to liberal on the left: This assumption is certainly an oversimplification of the actual spectrum of public opinion at a time when many complex issues are on the political agenda and when a conservative stance on one does not necessarily imply a conservative stance on another. With this caveat, the assumption is still useful in understanding how political activists can be distinguished from rank-and-file party identifiers.
Party unity score: Party unity scores are the percentage of time that a representative votes with their party on those votes on which a majority of one party votes together against a majority of the other party.
Republicans opposing a large portion of his initiatives: Congressional Quarterly also computes a presidential support and a presidential opposition score. As one would imagine, Democrats in both houses of Congress tend to support President Biden overwhelmingly and oppose him rarely; for Republicans, one sees the opposite pattern.
Chapter 5: Presidential elections: Nominating campaigns and general elections
Typology of competition for presidential nominations: The nominating rules changed significantly after the 1968 presidential election. The thrust of the reforms was to make the process more democratic and less in control of party leaders. This analysis examines only the postreform era.
“Out” party nomination: Throughout this section I discuss only major party nominations. Third- or minor-party candidacies are at times important in American presidential elections and will be discussed below. Internal politics within the nonmajor parties, however, will not be discussed because they are often sui generis, without lessons that can carry to the future.
Presumptive nominee: The definitions of “presumptive nominee” and “serious contenders” in Table 4 are clearly subjective. “Presumptive nominees” were distinguished from mere front runners if the media analysis generally concluded that the nomination was assumed for that candidate—unless someone else could upend him. “Serious contenders” was defined broadly as well-known party leaders or officeholders who received votes in some primary contests. Those who entered primaries but did not fare well are included, but those who were often mentioned or even declared but never entered a primary are not.
The delegates routinely vote for the candidate for vice president suggested to them by the presidential candidate: The most recent exception to that rule was in 1956 when Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson allowed the convention to choose his running mate. Other nominee choices have been challenged on the floor, but none of their nominations has ever been in serious doubt.
Democratic National Conventions are generally larger than Republican National Conventions: Rules for selection of delegates to the national conventions can be found on the parties’ websites, www.democrats.org for the Democrats and www.gop.com for the Republicans.
Guidelines on state leaders: Philosophical differences among the parties are seen in the party rules. The Republicans believe more in states’ rights and give near total discretion to their state units. The Democrats believe more in central control. In addition, the Republicans believe that the convention is the only sovereign body for the party and thus the only party empowered to impose rules on the party. The Democrats cede some of that power to party commissions and/or to the national committee.
Percentage of votes received in the primary: The Democrats have a minimal percentage or threshold that a candidate must receive in order to win any delegates; that number has varied over the years and is currently set at 15 percent. Front runners want a higher threshold, and upstart candidates want a lower threshold in order to win some delegates even while trailing badly in the voting.
Proportional representation: To confuse the matter further, in some states the rules for primaries are set in state law; in other states they are left for the parties to determine themselves. Thus, in Michigan in 2004, for example, the Democrats used one system and the Republicans another.
Unified party: A third variation among primary systems deals with who selects the actual delegates to the convention and the extent to which these delegates remain pledged to the primary winner. Generally, the presidential candidate either selects the candidates for delegate who will run on their slate or the presidential candidate names the delegates after the votes have been cast and the number of delegates to be selected has been determined. Delegates from most states are pledged to the candidate for whom they have been chosen for one or two ballots at the convention or until that candidate is no longer running. That last provision is particularly important in the pre-convention stage of the nominating process because delegates pledged to a candidate who drops out (because of lack of overall support) become free agents, ripe for the plucking by the remaining candidates. How delegates for candidates who have dropped out would vote at a convention that went more than one ballot is an unanswered question over which political scientists and political journalists swoon.
The rest were chosen in caucuses: In the Democratic Party, some of the delegates, the so-called superdelegates, are chosen because of formal positions they hold and are selected by their peers, for example, members of Congress.
The supporters of either party: In an effort to alleviate this concern, at least partially, the Democrats have changed their rules for the 2008 nomination to allow a limited number of caucus states, with populations more representative of the nation and of the party, to move up their delegate selection dates.
Clinton’s initial monetary advantage: Candidates must reach a threshold of donations received, in relatively small individual contributions from a significant number of individuals spread throughout a number of states, in order to qualify for matching funds. Once the level has been achieved, the government matches contributions of under $250. If a candidate accepts public money, however, they must agree to restrictions on how much money will be spent in campaigning both in individual states and overall.
2000 nomination of George W. Bush: The one early exception was former Texas governor and secretary of the treasury John Connally, who thought that he could not win the Republican nomination in 1980 unless he significantly outspent his rivals. He raised over $12 million, largely from his Texas oil friends, but still fared extremely poorly, eventually winning only one delegate to the convention. In 1996, millionaire publisher Malcolm “Steve” Forbes also funded his own campaign, making what was seen as a quixotic candidacy more realistic; that experience alerted campaign operatives to a possibility that was exploited in 2000 by George W. Bush.
Hanging chad: Immediately after the election, the US Congress and many state legislatures began to look at the ballot and the physical means through which Americans vote. Although these changes are important, they are largely technical in nature. There is no philosophical argument holding that flawed ballots are good.
No elector may hold any other office of trust under the Constitution: Many do not realize that, even in the twenty-first century, electors are actual people who physically go to their state capitols to cast their votes for president.
Cast their votes accordingly: In Maine and Nebraska, state law stipulates that the elector pledged to the popular winner of the vote in each congressional district will win that election and cast one vote for president, and the two electors pledged to the winner of the statewide popular vote win that election and cast the other two votes.
Reconstituted party system: Most Americans are surprised to learn that only five of the past ten presidential elections have resulted in the winning candidates receiving a majority of the votes cast, though all except George W. Bush in 2000 won a plurality. Even with minor-party candidates playing a relatively lesser role in American elections, they have denied a presidential candidate a majority by splintering the vote far more often than not.
One group of reformers, spearheaded by FairVote, a project of the Center for Voting and Democracy, calls for instant runoff voting, a system through which voters rank candidates and their votes are automatically cast for their highest remaining candidate if their first choice is not among the top two finishers: Such a system, which has been adopted in some communities, would solve the runoff problem, but although this reform idea is gaining adherents, it is far from widely accepted.
Reaching a decisive result in a relatively short time: The election of 2000 and the election of 1876, which also had to be resolved many weeks after the votes were counted, are the two principal exceptions.
Campaign visits: The notable exceptions were California and New York, where candidates often stopped for fundraising events.
Chapter 6: Subnational nominations and elections
The party selects its nominee: Minor parties, which often have few enrolled members, are given the option of choosing nominees by party caucuses or conventions in most states. In addition, in a few states, the major parties nominate by caucus or convention for at least some offices, though there is often a provision for challenging the nominee chosen in a party meeting through a primary election. Connecticut is an example of a state with such a system.
Voting in primary elections: One often sees reference to the “independent party.” Independents are called that because they are independent of party affiliation. Some candidates have formed an “independent party” to capture those dissatisfied with the major parties, but normally the term refers to those who are not enrolled in any political party.
Democrats for the Democratic nomination: Exceptions do exist to this rule. In New York State, for example, state law permits a political party’s relevant committee to permit someone registered in another party to seek the first party’s nomination. This strategy is often used by minor parties that seek commitments from candidates on specific issues in exchange for their nomination or under threat of withholding that nomination. Often Republicans run not only on their party’s line but also as conservatives or as candidates of the Right-to-Life Party. Democrats seek the Working Families Party nod. The candidate’s vote in the elections in New York is the total number of votes received on all lines on the ballot.
In 2014, thirty-six governorships were on the ballot: Five states—Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia—hold their statewide elections in odd-numbered years; thus the elections correspond with neither presidential nor off-year congressional elections. Two states—New Hampshire and Vermont—elect governors to two-year terms; the other states’ governors serve four-year terms.
Term limits: Thirty-six states limit their governors’ tenure in office, all to two terms except Virginia, in which the limit is one term. Some states allow governors to serve again after having left office for at least one term.
Chapter 7: Far from the perfect democracy
Democracies sorted by turnout: Data were collected by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and rank countries that have had two or more elections since 1945 according to the average turnout (based on voting age population) of all elections. The United States places 114th of 140 democracies.
Registration laws: Various reform efforts have sought to address the problem of low voter turnout in the United States. The most successful of those efforts has been the Voting Rights Act of 1965, most recently renewed for another twenty-five years, which imposed federal standards on states and regions within states that had been shown to discriminate on the basis of race. Ample evidence points to the success of this legislation in raising registration, voting, and officeholding among African Americans. In 1993, after an extended debate, the Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Motor Voter Bill, an act to ease voter registration. Although the process has been eased, the result has not been the dramatic increases in registration and voting that were anticipated.
Voting is mandatory: These countries range from Australia, with very strict enforcement, to Bolivia and the Netherlands, with virtually no enforcement. However, those countries in which voting is compulsory by statute, regardless of the sanctions or enforcement mechanisms, vote in higher percentages than do those without such a requirement.
Person-to-person politics: The Democratic Party has attempted to reform the process frequently, most recently in 2006, when Nevada was permitted to hold its caucuses between the date of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, and South Carolina was allowed to move its primary date to one week after New Hampshire’s. That change was a compromise that satisfied no one and was not viewed as addressing the fundamental process.
Front-loading of the process: To be fair, there is little agreement about how it should be changed. If one party’s nominee is known in advance, as when a sitting president seeks re-election, the other party benefits if its candidate can secure the nomination early as well. Then the out-party candidate can concentrate on the general election campaign, rather than defending itself against charges from people within their own party.
Electoral College system: In addition to moving to direct election of the president, others have suggested allocating electoral votes proportionately or by districts, as is done in Maine and Nebraska. In 2006, reformers led by the Center for Voting and Democracy and former third-party presidential candidate John Anderson proposed changing the system without a constitutional amendment. Their proposal called for states to enter into a compact so that all of the signatory states would agree to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the national vote; the compact would go into effect once enough states had agreed to the compact that they controlled a majority of the Electoral College. This reform was taken seriously enough that it was endorsed by the New York Times in a lead editorial on March 14, 2006. That the proposal was seriously put forth and that an institution as serious as the New York Times would endorse it are clear signs of systemic problems. A fundamental aspect of the constitutional process for selecting the president should not be altered by a means that is, by design, going around the Constitution. On what basis does a constitutional democracy flourish if finding a loophole is considered the legitimate means to effect fundamental change? At the same time, however, that serious people are frustrated enough to consider such an effort signifies that the system itself is in need of reform. And the politicians in charge are not likely to take a reform effort seriously unless the people force them to do so.
$100,000,000 per candidate: Enough early readers of this book have asked whether an extra zero was added to that number in error that I feel compelled to repeat here—$100,000,000.
Free expression of political beliefs: A closely related question is whether such regulation is possible. In 2006, as the House of Representatives debated an effort to plug the loophole through which 527 groups entered the process, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) compared the effort to the “Whac-a-Mole” carnival game, in which a new mole appears every time the player knocks one down.
Freedom through the world: Freedom House’s definition of democratic and free governments and ratings of various governments can be found at www.freedomhouse.org.