Exam 2 Questions Flashcards
In 2012, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney raised about ________ each in their respective campaigns.
$1 Billion
The Tea Party movement is
an organized challenge to incumbents in the Republican Party by the most conservative wing of the Republican Party.
What are political parties more capable of doing than interest groups?
organizing people on a mass scale
A political party is an organization…
that tries to influence the government by getting its members elected to office.
The fact that interest groups favor the wealthy and well educated can be understood as a reflection of what eternal dilemma in American politics?
Liberty is often inconsistent with equality.
Strong and often corrupt urban political party organizations during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were called ________.
machines
Individuals and organizations can give an unlimited amount to ________.
super PACs
The New Politics movement gave rise to ________ groups.
public interest
When a group is called a membership association, it means that
members play an important role in the daily activities of the group.
The major organizational factors shared by most interest groups are
leadership, money, an agency or office, and members.
Party activists are ________ to contribute time, energy, and effort to party affairs and ________ to hold more extreme views than the party’s rank-and-file voters.
more likely; more likely
In 1994,
the Republican Party won control of both houses of Congress for the first time since the 1950s.
Why is it important for interest groups to offer selective benefits?
It is necessary to limit the extent of the free-rider problem.
What is the most important attempt to limit the influence of lobbyists in recent years?
the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act
The average winning margin in House elections is ________ percent.
40
T/F
The national leadership of the Democratic Party supports less regulation of business.
False
One reason that America has such low levels of political involvement and voter turnout is that
political parties are not strong enough to function effectively.
Between the Civil War and the 1960s, the ________ was a Democratic stronghold.
South
Lobbying is…
an attempt by an individual or group to influence the passage of legislation by exerting direct pressure on members of Congress
The best description of the ideal of pluralism is that
interests should be free to compete with each other for governmental influence.
________ was elected president with no political party affiliation.
George Washington
The Christian Coalition is a(n) ________ group.
ideological
A ________ is a closed meeting of a political group’s members who gather to determine strategy and select candidates.
caucus
Which of the following groups is most likely to belong to the New Politics movement?
upper-middle-class professionals, for whom the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s were key experiences
Which of the following is NOT a key organizational component of interest groups?
newsletter and website
The practice of lobbying is protected by ________.
the First Amendment
Another name for lobbying is ________.
petitioning
The National Governor’s Association is a good example of a
public-sector interest group
Organized interest groups enhance American democracy by
representing the interests of large numbers of people and encouraging political participation.
Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the proliferation of groups promoted ________.
governmental responsiveness
The solidary benefits of interest groups include ________.
friendship and consciousness-raising
What distinguishes lobbying from other strategies of influence?
Lobbyists try to exert pressure directly on government officials themselves.
The United States began its tradition of the ________ during the early nineteenth century
two-party system
One way that AARP has been effective at overcoming the free-rider problem is by providing ________ benefits to its members
Selective
527 committees are an important part of the American political system because they
are able to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they do not coordinate their activities with a political party.
A benefit that is sought by an interest group and that once achieved cannot be denied to nonmembers is called a ________.
collective good
Which of the following has Congress NOT done in recent years in order to limit the influence
outlawed all contact between lobbyists and members of Congress during legislative sessions
Incumbents in Congress
typically raise three times the money for their political campaigns than challengers.
Women in the United States are ________ the ________ Party.
somewhat more likely to support; Democratic
Which of the following statements about partisan identification in the United States is most accurate?
Party identification varies significantly by income, race, and gender
