Political Parties Flashcards
In modern U.S. politics, problems are usually solved by two important types of organizations:
Interest groups and political parties
political parties
Essentially, political parties are groups of people with similar interests who work together to create and implement policies.
How do political parties create and implement policies.
by gaining control over the government by winning elections.
What did James Madison believe about political parties?
They were inevitable in any society, as individuals started to work together to protect themselves from the government.
What are both political parties responsible for?
Communicating public preferences to the government.
True or False. Political parties are directly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution and they have real, legal authority to influence policy.
False
Who do interest groups try to interest?
political leaders
Who do political parties try to interest
the people
party platform
- documents stating what the political parties stand for
How often is the party platform adopted?
it is adopted at each party’s presidential nominating convention every four years.
What can a party do once in power
- It can implement the policy preferences by electing an elite to to the gov
What may happen to a party it makes it’s positions too narrow?
Too few people will agree and it’ll become marginalized
What may happen to a party if it makes it’s stance to broad?
it might find itself in a situation where the members of the party disagree with one another, making it difficult to pass legislation, even if the party can secure victory.
T/F Political Parties have existed since the US formed
False
What issues did young America focus on?
Most politics during the time of the nation’s founding were local in nature and based on elite politics, limited suffrage (or the ability to vote in elections), and property ownership.
What level of politics were citizens interested in when America was first founded?
Residents of the various colonies, and later of the various states, were far more interested in events in their state legislatures than in those occurring at the national level or later in the nation’s capital.
What did George Washington have to say about political parties?
he warned of the potential negative effects of parties in his farewell address to the nation, including their potentially divisive nature and the fact that they might not always focus on the common good but rather on partisan ends. (and damn did that age well)
Have parties gotten more or less partisan
More partisan, in fact the first parties were loosely affiliated party coalitions,
First 2 political parties came from what 2 groups
Federalists and the Anti Federalists
First 2 political parties
Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson; Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton
How did the authors of the constitution feel about political parties?
They wanted to avoid them
How did the authors of the constitution try to avoid the formation of political parties
They felt the importance of states in the U.S. federal structure would make it difficult for national parties to form. They also hoped that having a college of electors vote for the executive branch, with the top two vote-getters becoming president and vice president, would discourage the formation of parties.
How effective were the authors of the constitution in avoiding the formation of political parties
parties. Their system worked for the first two presidential elections, when essentially all the electors voted for George Washington to serve as president. But by 1796, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist camps had organized into electoral coalitions.
Describe the first election to have political parties (aka the second elections)
The Anti-Federalists joined with many others active in the process to become known as the Democratic-Republicans. The Federalist John Adams won the Electoral College vote, but his authority was undermined when the vice presidency went to Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, who finished second.
What was unique about the president and vice president in the 1796 elections?
They were from different parties (federalist pres and democratic-republican vice)
How did having a vice president with a different party affect the power of the president?
It undermined it
What did the Democratic Republicans try to do to make it so that the president and the vice president would be of the same party?
coordinating the electors to vote for their top two candidates.
How did the proposed idea to make people vote for the top two candidates work out?
the vote ended in a tie, it was ultimately left to Congress to decide who would be the third president of the United States
What did congress do after the democratic republicans failed to solve the issue of the pres and vice possibly having different parties?
Congress and the states voted to ratify the Twelfth Amendment, which went into effect in 1804. This amendment changed the rules so that the president and vice president would be selected through separate elections within the Electoral College, and it altered the method that Congress used to fill the offices in the event that no candidate won a majority.
Why did the Federalist party eventually collapse?
It was unable to coordinate elites, and it eventually collapsed following its opposition to the War of 1812.
What common factor did the candidates of the 1824 election share?
They were all members of the democratic-republican party.
Beginning of the second party system
Since there were so many members of the same party running, even though Andrew Jackson got the most electoral votes, he did not get more then half of the ones available, so the twelfth amendment required that the election would be decided by the house of representatives. The election was redone with only the top 3 candidates. The fourth in the running supported John Adams, and he won. This divided the democratic-republicans into separate groups. (aka the democratic party was formed)
How did the formation of the Democratic Party mark an important shift in U.S. politics?
Rather than being built largely to coordinate elite behavior, the Democratic Party worked to organize the electorate by taking advantage of state-level laws that had extended suffrage from male property owners to nearly all White men.
What was the democratic party built to include?
this new party organization was built to include structures that focused on organizing and mobilizing voters for elections at all levels of government.
Which system did the democratic party perfect?
The party also perfected an existing spoils system, in which support for the party during elections was rewarded with jobs in the government bureaucracy after victory.
political machines
organizations that secured votes for the party’s candidates or supported the party in other ways
What was the early democratic party very focused on?
elections
How did the democratic party seek to maintain power?
by creating a broader coalition and thereby expanding the range of issues upon which the party was constructed.
What did the democratic party emphasize?
personal politics
What did personal politics focus on?
building direct relationships with voters rather than on promoting specific issues.
What caused the democratic party to lose denomination in 1850.
What caused regional tensions to threaten the nation’s very existence. The growing power of industrialists, who preferred greater national authority, combined with increasing tensions between the northern and southern states over slavery, led to the rise of the Republican Party and its leader Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1860, while the Democratic Party dominated in the South.
What led to the rise of the Republican Party
The growing power of industrialists, who preferred greater national authority, combined with increasing tensions between the northern and southern states over slavery,
Who was the first leader of the Republican Party?
Abraham Lincoln
third parties, or minor parties
Political parties that are formed as alternatives to the Republican and Democratic parties
Why did the Populist Party form?
in reaction to what its constituents perceived as the domination of U.S. society by big business and a decline in the power of farmers and rural communities. The Populist Party called for the regulation of railroads, an income tax, and the popular election of U.S. senators, who at this time were chosen by state legislatures and not by ordinary voters.
What did the Populist Party want?
The Populist Party called for the regulation of railroads, an income tax, and the popular election of U.S. senators, who at this time were chosen by state legislatures and not by ordinary voters.
Why in the presidential election of 1896, did the Populists supported the Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan.
The party’s candidate in the 1892 elections, James B. Weaver, did not perform as well as the two main party candidates,
In 1912, former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt attempted to form a third party, known as the
Progressive Party
In 1912, former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt attempted to form a third party, as an alternative for what?
business minded republicans
The progressive party sought to resolve what?
to correct the many problems that had arisen as the United States transformed itself from a rural, agricultural nation into an increasingly urbanized, industrialized country dominated by big business interests.
