NEW COMPETITION FOR THE PARTY CAMPAIGN MACHINE

Until 2002, the Democratic and Republican national party organizations benefited from soft money-the unregulated money collected for party building activities. Despite previous campaign finance regulating contribution to presidential and congressional campaigns by individual and PACs, party professionals discovered an enormous loophole. Parties used the unregulated soft money to build state-of-the art campaign machines to help party candidates, new office buildings, in Washington, D.C. and campaign services for party candidates. In-house television and radio studios created attack ads aimed against the opposing party and its candidates specific to a particular district or state. Soft money resources provide funding and development for direct mail campaigns, news releases, training courses for potential candidates, Websites, and a generous employee payroll for finance, advertising, information technology, campaign planning, and video specialists and support personnel.

Concern for the way campaigns were financed resulted in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, know as McCain-Feingold. The days of unlimited contribution to parties ended with the bills passage. The ban on soft money will hurt the party organizations; less money will pour into party coffers than in the past. However, the law allows for larger regulated money contributions to the parities than previously. The beneficiaries of the new law will be 527 committees-private not-for-profit organizations, with no formal ties to the political parties. No restrictions are placed on the size of contributions from these entities that espouse a cause or ideology or partisan agenda. A new competition from nonparty organization will cause both the Democrat and Republican parties to abandoned their traditional role as community-based organizations with close links to voters in favor of a new role as campaign service organizations for candidates. The implications from these change and how well political parties function as a tool for democracy will be addressed in this chapter.

THE ROLE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN A DEMOCRACY

Parties and majority rule are related in a number of ways. The textbook suggests that when political parties are working properly, they can be essential tools of popular sovereignty; whether or not our own political parties fulfill these responsibilities to democracy is a question that is explored in this chapter. Parties' mobilizing activities can contribute to democracy by educating people about politics; elections create an incentive to include as many voters as possible; parties try to broaden their appeal by running candidates from many ethnic, racial, and religious groups; and parties can make majority preferences effective, and hold government accountable.

THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM

Most nations have either one-party systems or multiparty systems; most Western democracies have multiparty systems. By contrast, two parties have dominated the political scene in the United States since 1836; Democrats and Republicans have controlled the presidency and Congress since 1860. Competition on the national level between the two dominant parties has been extremely close since the end of the Civil War. Although the United States has a two-party system at the national level, there is variation at the regional, state, and local levels.

Parties were created almost immediately after the founding of the Republic, even though the Founders were hostile to them in theory. The Federalists were formed by supporters of Alexander Hamilton, while the Republicans were formed by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others who opposed Hamilton's program of protective tariffs, a national bank, and federal assumption of Revolutionary War debts. After the election of John Adams as president (1796), the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts to repress dissent and opposition to Federalist policies. For their part, the Republican party used the Alien and Sedition Acts to rally opposition to the Federalists, and won a victory with Thomas Jefferson's election in 1800. However, Federalists became tainted by their sympathies with Great Britain in an anti-British era, their attempt to take New England out of the Union during the War of 1812, and their inability to transform themselves from a party of the wealthy in an age when democracy was becoming more popular. The two-party system evolved into a one-party or no-party system by 1816, generally known as the Era of Good Feelings because of the lack of party competition.

A strong two-party system developed in the 1830s between the Democrats (formerly the Democratic Republicans) and the Whigs. The Democrats and Whigs were very different parties from those in the first party system, caused by a significant democratization of American life. The Civil War split the parties: the Northern and Southern wings of each party mirrored the split in the nation. The Whig party disintegrated and disappeared; several of its fragments joined with "free soilers" and antislavery Democrats to form the ancestor of the Republican party. The Democrats survived but could not agree on a candidate to run against Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and each wing of the party nominated its own candidate. Following Reconstruction, Republicans and Democrats were somewhat balanced in national politics.

The late nineteenth century was a time of rapid transformation of the American economy and society, accompanied by the development of third parties, including the Greenback party and the Populist party. In 1896, the Populist party joined with the Democratic party to nominate William Jennings Bryan, who called for "free coinage of silver" to help debtors with cheaper currency. Businesses warned of the dangers of a Populist-Democratic victory, and conservative Democrats deserted their party to join the Republicans, who nominated William McKinley. Republicans dominated American politics after McKinley's election until the Great Depression and the election of 1932.

The New Deal party system grew out of the crisis of the Great Depression and favorable public reactions to government efforts to deal with the economic collapse, creating a realignment (1932-1936) from Republican to Democratic dominance. The relative balance of power shifted to the Democratic party, with dominance in Congress, governorships, and state legislatures. Democrats also maintained a large lead over the Republicans in party identification among the electorate, and were supported by a broad coalition of groups. Party realignment occurs when there is a fundamental and long-lasting shift of party identification. Realignments seem to be triggered by the transformation of structural factors. They occur when the old party system is unable to accommodate or solve problems that develop during rapid social, economic, and cultural changes. Such a transition did not take place after 1968 as it did following the 1896 and 1932 elections. Some political observers prefer the term dealignment to describe the ambiguity of the change that is now occurring, as well as the increasing tendency of Americans not to claim any party identification at all. This new party system is characterized by the relative parity of the major parties in a context where the population identifies less with either party and also becomes increasingly alienated from them and less confident that parties can solve the nation's problems. There is evidence to support the dealignment interpretation.

WHY A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM?

The United States is unusual in having a two-party system because most Western democracies have multiparty systems. Electoral rules help to account for the difference: most other democratic nations elect their representatives on the basis of proportional representation, while elections in the United States are organized on a winner-take-all, single-member-district system (one representative from each district). This system discourages the development of minor parties because a party will have no representation at all if its candidate does not receive a plurality of the vote, and voters usually believe that a vote for a minor party will be wasted. Moreover, the dominant parties often establish rules that make it difficult for other parties to get on the ballot.

The American two-party system has been encouraged by a broad popular consensus on values like individualism, private property, limited government, and the market. The absence of a strong labor movement has also been a contributing factor. The United States lacks both the traditional conservative party groupings that grew out of feudalism and a strong labor movement; this helps us to understand why a broad range of parties does not exist in America. Congress also suspended the Federal Communications Commission's equal time and fairness doctrine requirements to allow televised debates between presidential candidates within each of the major parties, and between the major party nominees in the general election campaign.

Minor parties have played a less important role in the United States than in virtually any other democratic nation. In our entire history, only the Republican party has managed to replace one of the major parties. Nevertheless, a number of different types of parties have evolved. Protest parties sometimes arise as part of a protest movement, while ideological parties are based on a particular philosophy or system of political beliefs. Single-issue parties are barely distinguishable from interest groups, except that they run their own candidates for public office; splinter parties form when a faction within one of the major political parties "bolts" to run its own candidate for president.

Minor parties may articulate and popularize new ideas that are eventually taken over by one or both major parties. Sometimes minor parties allow people with grievances to express themselves in a way that is not possible within the major parties. Because minor parties are not likely to win national elections, they are usually not as cautious as the major parties.

THE PARTIES AS ORGANIZATIONS

In most democratic countries, parties are fairly well-structured organizations, led by party professionals and committed to a set of policies and principles; they tend to have clearly defined membership requirements, centralized control over nominations and financing, and discipline over party members who hold political office. American parties are composed of many diverse and independent groups and individuals, characterized by weak party discipline in which party leaders cannot automatically count on the support of their own party (in contrast with parliamentary systems with strong party discipline such as Britain's).

Americans do not formally join parties in the sense of paying dues and receiving membership cards. To Americans, membership in a party may simply refer to voting for a party's candidates, to voting in a party primary, or to contributing money. American parties are decentralized: each level of the party is relatively independent of the others. There are few resources or devices within either of the two parties to compel one level of the party organization to do the bidding of another. The national party is unable to control the nomination of candidates running under its party label, the flow of money that funds electoral campaigns, or the behavior of its officeholders.

American politics is candidate centered. Candidates have independent sources of campaign financing, their own campaign organizations, and their own campaign themes and priorities. The party can do very little about nominees who oppose party leaders and reject national party platforms and policies. Candidates are now almost exclusively nominated in primaries or grassroots caucuses, where the party organizations have little influence. By contrast, people in most European countries vote for parties rather than for individual candidates. Independent candidates cannot force themselves on the party through primaries or caucuses.

The Republican and Democratic parties are both broad coalitions, seeking to attract as many individuals and groups as possible. There are strong pressures on the parties to be ideologically ambiguous in order to win in winner-take-all, single-member-district elections. Each party has a core of supporters (like delegates to the party convention) who are more ideologically oriented than the general public; the result is a party system that is less ideologically focused compared to parties in other democratic countries, but still with significant differences between them. It is common in other Western democracies for the major parties to be closely aligned with an ideology, but ideological contests are not the norm in U.S. elections. The two parties are in agreement on fundamental values and objectives, such as the Constitution, the Bill Rights, free enterprise, and individualism. At the same time, the two parties frequently disagree on specific public policies, such as the form of taxation. The evidence indicates that the differences between Democrats and Republicans are real, important, and enduring.

THE PARTIES IN THE GOVERNMENT AND THE ELECTORATE

The parties in government refers to government officials elected under the party's label, and one of the roles of parties is to persuade officials in the different branches to cooperate with each other, something the parties only partially do in practice. The framers of the Constitution were fearful of the possibilities of tyrannical government; as a result, they designed a system of government (including separation of powers and the federal system) in which power is so fragmented and competitive that effectiveness is unlikely. The problem of fragmented and separated powers in the United States is almost unique among the Western democracies. Divided (party) government refers to a situation with opposing parties in the executive and legislative branches, and has been more frequent in recent years. Long-term party division between the presidency and Congress exaggerates the problems caused by the constitutional separation of powers.

Parties in the electorate refers to individuals who are supporters of the party in the general populace. Partisanship is declining among the American electorate, as fewer Americans identify with either of the political parties, and more call themselves independents.

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