Political Parties Flashcards
Fiscal conservatives
Advocate the avoidance of deficit spending, the reduction of overall government spending and national debt, and ensuring balanced budgets
Social conservative
A political ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values
Federalism
A system based upon democratic rules and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments
Anti-federalism
A movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the Constitution of 1788
Tea Party
Members of this movement have called for a reduction of the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit by reducing government spending. In addition, they have also called for lowering taxes
Solid South
Voting block built up by Democrat Party to describe their support by the south from the American civil war through to the civil rights movement
New Deal
Government programme of intervention by FDR following the Wall Street Crash
Grand Old Party
Another name for the Republican Party
Partisan
A strong supporter of a party, cause, or person
Neo-conservative
A political ideology characterized by an emphasis on free-market capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy
RINO
Republican-in-Name-Only, meaning someone who appears too liberal to be in this party
DINO
Democrat-in-Name-Only, meaning someone who appears too conservative to be in this party
Progressive
Favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters
Bipartisanship
A political situation, especially in the context of a two-party system, as is the case for countries such as the United States, in which opposing political parties find common ground through compromise
Compassionate Conservative
A political philosophy that stresses using traditionally conservative techniques and concepts in order to improve the general welfare of society
Bill de Blasio
The current New York Mayor who used the support of the Working Families Party to win.
Rand Paul
A libertarian who won with the support of the Tea Party
Carly Fioriana
Ex-CEO of HP who ran in the 2015 presidential election
Jeb Bush
Son of former president, ex governor of Florida, and Spanish-speaking politician
Maverick
An unorthodox or independent minded person.
Party decline theory
Theory by David Broder that parties are becoming weaker and losing power over decisions.
Party renewal theory
Backlash against David Broder’s theory, arguing that party power is increasing.
Voter mobilisation
Need to get your supporters to register to vote, which requires campaign to endorse this.
Pork
Federal government contracts won by state representatives.
Coat-tails effect
When strong candidate for presidency helps other party candidates get elected, eg Ronald Reagan.
Split ticket voting
Voting for candidates of different political parties for different offices at same election.
Dennis Hastert
Speaker of the House after Newt Gingrich.
Pete Sessions
Chair of the House Rules Committee.
Kevin Brady
Chair of House Ways and Means Committee.
John McCain
Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Dianne Feinstein
Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee
Oath keepers
Group of anti-federalists seeking to uphold the US constitution and protect people from central government.
Libertarian Party
A minor party that promotes civil liberties, free markets, non-interventionism, and laissez-faire.
Jill stein
Current leader of this minor party is Dr Jill Stein.
Straight ticket voting
The practice of voting for every candidate that a political party has on a general election ballot.
Ross Perot
Ran as an independent in 1992 first before setting up the Reform Party.
Richard Hofstadter
This commentator said of minor parties: ‘They are like bees, once they have stung, they die.”
To what extent are different groups of minority voters concerned about the same political issues?
The political concerns of any US racial/ethnic minority group can be legitimately cited but candidates are most likely to discuss Latino, black and Jewish voters.
Non-racial/ethnic minorities, such as gay voters, can be credited, but voters who are clearly not part of a minority, such as women or whites, cannot.
Issues of shared importance:
Latino and black voters are more likely to be poor, unemployed and be dependent on state medical provision so will generally favour a more activist government, and be concerned about policy proposals which affect employment prospects and welfare benefits such as healthcare.
Issues of particular concern:
Latino voters are mainly Catholic and consequently will often have a pro-life
view on abortion policy; they will see politicians’ attitude to immigration reform as signalling their attitude to the Latino community, even if they do not strongly support immigration reform themselves.
Black voters will stereotypically be concerned to see the retention of programmes such as affirmative action and to see action taken over racial profiling; they have often not been supportive of marriage rights for same- sex couples, and often favour school vouchers and charter schools
Jewish voters will typically be concerned about US policy towards Israel and a continuing contribution to its security; they are stereotypically liberal on issues of social policy and tend to be for example pro-choice on abortion
To what extent has the Obama administration departed from traditional Democratic values and policies?
Policies of the Obama presidency which could be considered stereotypically Democratic include:
- intervention in the economy to promote growth, e.g. 2009 stimulus bill
- federal provision of welfare, e.g. Affordable Care Act
- rights of women, e.gg. Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, support for abortion rights, e.g. in reversal of ‘Mexico City’ policy
- rights of gays and lesbians, e.g. repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, support for same sex marriage
- minority rights, e.g. Fair Sentencing Act reducing disparity between sentences for crack and powder cocaine, amicus brief supporting affirmative action in Fisher v Texas, support for Dream Act and then comprehensive immigration reform
- support for gun control, e.g. programme announced January 2013 and support for Manchin-Toomey amendment
- environmental protection, e.g. support for ‘cap and trade’ legislation and when this failed to be passed by Congress, regulations issued by the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions in 2014
Policies of the Obama presidency which could be considered unstereotypically Democratic include:
- Afghanistan ‘surge’ in 2010
- air strikes on Libya in 2011
- retention of military commissions and indefinite detention
- increased use of drones, including killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, the first time since the 9/11 attacks that an American citizen was deliberately targeted and killed by American forces
- mass NSA surveillance programme revealed by Edward Snowden
- lukewarm relationship with organised labour, e.g. failure to push for
Employee Free Choice Act, which died in Congress; tentative and belated support for Democratic candidate running against Scott Walker in Wisconsin recall election 2012; passage of free-trade agreements, e.g. with Panama, South Korea and Colombia; pay freeze on federal workers
• ambivalence over Keystone pipeline.
Explain the main ideas and policies of the Republican Party.
Main values:
limited government – tax cuts, reduced government spending; deregulation of business, hostility to expansion of environmental regulation, or government involvement in healthcare; power to the states at expense of the federal government
social conservatism – pro-life and traditional family values, unsympathetic to rights for alternative lifestyles e.g. same sex marriage, and feminist demands for equal treatment; promotion of gun rights; belief in strong law and order so consequently hostile to ‘amnesty’ for illegal immigrants
assertive foreign policy – Republicans have become associated with the use of military power to protect American interests abroad and, during the ascendancy of the ‘neo-cons’, with the promotion of democracy through ‘regime change’ in selected dictatorships
‘The Republicans are now a divided party than the Democrats’. Discuss.
Evidence of divisions/lack of division within the Democratic Party includes:
Since the 1970s, the Democrats have acquired the label of a liberal party with a common ideology of ‘big government’ (acquired through the legacy of the New Deal and Great Society) social liberalism and accommodationist foreign policy;
President Obama alienated liberals by initiating a ‘surge’ in Afghanistan and air strikes on Libya and ISIS in Syria, by approving the extension of the Bush tax cuts and by conducting the mass surveillance programs of the NSA revealed by Edward Snowden;
The role of the ‘Blue Dogs’ and moderate senators in removing a ‘public option’ from health care reform to the dismay of liberals; the role of pro-life Democrats in promoting the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, pitting them against pro-choice groups such as NARAL;
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has emerged as a high-profile champion of the ‘middle class’ and opponent of the banks, putting her at odds with Democrats dependent on the financial industry for campaign finance such as Hillary Clinton; she has also joined with unions and environmentalists in opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership promoted by President Obama.
Evidence of divisions/lack of division within the Republican Party includes:
Since the 1980s, the Republicans have united around the Reagan agenda of
Limited government (tax cuts, reduced government spending, deregulation) social conservatism and assertive foreign policy, to the extent that liberal Republicans have been banished from the party
The social conservative agenda has been partly abandoned by the rest of the party - hostility to abortion rights remains party orthodoxy but, as public acceptance of same sex marriage has grown, national Republicans have moderated their opposition, so that none of the 2016 presidential candidates are promising a constitutional amendment banning it
The Tea Party-influenced populist wing of the party is at odds with the business/Wall St establishment over several issues, including immigration reform, Common Core, both of which business favours and Tea Party politicians reject; Tea Party politicians promoted the government shutdown in 2013 which business was opposed to
Tea Party-backed candidates, backed by groups such as the Club for Growth, have challenged incumbent ‘RINO’s seen to be insufficiently conservative and too much part of the Washington establishment, defeating e.g. Sen Richard Lugar in Indiana in 2012 and House majority leader Eric Cantor in Virginia in 2014
The higher profile of the libertarian wing of the party, largely through Sen Rand Paul, has led to disputes with ‘defense hawks’ such as Sens John McCain and Lindsey Graham over the role of the US abroad and the reauthorisation of the Patriot Act and the associated surveillance programs.
Assess the arguments that support the theory of party decline. (15 marks)
The arguments which support the theory of party decline include:
Parties are unable to organise government to deliver a political programme – decreasingly valid, as party control in Congress has strengthened
Pressure groups have taken over the role of parties in financing election campaigns – in the wake of Citizens United, increasingly valid though parties still have a significant role in funding elections
parties don’t control the selection of their own candidates –still the case, even after introduction of ‘super-delegates’ to party conventions, e.g. success of Trump in the Republican primary
Parties are loose coalitions which lack a coherent ideological identity - this has become less valid in recent years as the Democratic Party has become more clearly liberal and the Republican Party more conservative
US voters ‘split their tickets’ between candidates of different parties- decreasingly valid, spilt ticket voting has declined in recent years
The percentages of strong party identifiers have declined
Elections are increasingly candidate centred and campaign ads will frequently not mention a party name
Technology enables candidates to communicate directly with voters rather than traditional parties rallies and meetings
‘The two major parties have no significant overlap in ideas and policies.’ Discuss. (45 marks)
Factors which suggest that the two major parties now have no significant ideological overlap include:
Since the 1970s, the base of the Democratic Party has identified with ‘big government’ and liberal social causes, such as affirmative action, gay rights, abortion rights and gun control; since 2008 President Obama and Democrats in Congress have advanced (or attempted to advance) a number of liberal causes including health care reform, gender equality of pay, immigration reform, gun control etc
The Reagan presidency established the core values of the Republican Party as social and fiscal conservatism; these were reinforced subsequently by the dominance of the Christian Right and more recently by the rise of the Tea Party movement; the House Republican leadership has supported a series of ‘Ryan budgets’ which aim to cut taxes and drastically reduce government spending, and state Republican governments have actively sought to reduce the availability of abortion; they have been almost unanimously hostile to the agenda of President Obama.
Factors which suggest that the two major parties still have some significant ideological overlap include:
Despite ideological polarisation, the parties remain broad coalitions and at least some of the differences between them are more rhetorical than substantive; both parties still subscribe to the ‘American creed’ and in particular support the role of religion in public life; it is still almost impossible to be a self-confessed atheist and run for public office (there is only one in Congress currently)
Under President Clinton, the Democrats moved back towards the centre; he campaigned for and achieved a balanced budget, campaigned on ‘welfare, a second chance not a way of life’ and signed the Republican Congress’s welfare reform bill in 1995, and extended the federal death penalty
President Bush campaigned as a ‘compassionate conservative’: the major domestic policy initiative of his presidency was the No Child Left Behind education bill, co-sponsored in the Senate by Ted Kennedy; he signed a $534BN prescription drug benefit addition to Medicare in 2003 and the TARP program in 2008
President Obama has adopted a more conciliatory persona abroad than President Bush, but in substance American foreign policy is arguably unchanged; he doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay remains open
Domestically, he re-affirmed the Hyde amendment’s prohibition of federal funding on abortion through executive order and, in attempting to revive the economy and in ‘bailing out’ the banks and auto-makers, he followed the policies of his predecessor.
Assess the reasons why third parties have such a limited impact on US politics.
The reasons why third parties have such a limited impact in US politics include:
money – cost of modern elections, particularly TV advertising, means that third parties will always be struggling for exposure
Winner Takes All election system in all elections means that a vote for a third party candidate will very often be regarded as a wasted vote
ideology – despite recent polarisation, the two major parties are still broad coalitions of the left and right which means that there is only room at the margins for third parties; recent attempts to launch new centrist parties have so far been unsuccessful
congressional elections – voters are often looking at a candidate’s track record (or potential ability) in winning federal benefits for the district/state, not ideology, so there is usually little incentive to desert a major party incumbent with the consequent loss of seniority
presidential elections – third party candidates face significant problems of organisational and ballot access logistics across 50 states; they are not part of presidential debates unless they are polling at at least 15% (only one third party candidate has ever featured in one) and lack of media coverage for their party conventions deprives them of publicity
traditional party allegiances – support for the two major party may have deep historical and geographical roots which a third party will have difficulty overcoming
‘co-optation’ – if third parties’ policies show signs of gaining popular support, major party candidates are adept at subsuming them into their own programs
