Unit 2 (Part 2): Campaigns and Voting Behavior Flashcards
Contains Chapter 9
What is a nomination?
It is a political party’s official endorsement of a candidate for office. Generally, success in the nomination game requires momentum, money, and media attention.
What is a campaign strategy?
It is the master game plan candidates lay out to guide their electoral campaigns.
What is the national party convention?
It is the supreme power within each of the parties. The convention meets every four years to nominate the party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates and to write the party’s platform.
What are superdelegates?
They are national party leaders who automatically get a delegate slot at the Democratic Party’s national convention.
What is the invisible primary?
It is the period before any votes are cast when candidates compete to win early support from the elite of the party and to create a positive first impression of their leadership skills.
What is a caucus?
It is a system for selecting convention delegates used in about a dozen states in which voters must attend an open meeting to express their presidential preference.
What are presidential primaries?
They are elections in which a state’s votes go to the polls to express their preference for a party’s nominee for president. The vast majority of delegates to the national party conventions are chosen this way.
What is frontloading?
It is the recent tendency of states to hold primaries early in the calendar in order to capitalize on media attention.
What is a party platform?
It is a political party’s statement of its goals and policies for the next four years. The platform is drafted prior to the party convention by a committee whose members are chosen in rough proportion to each candidate’s strength. It is the best formal statement of a party’s belief.
What is a direct mail?
It is a method of raising money for a political cause or candidate, in which information and requests for money are sent to people whose names appear on lists of those who have supported similar views or candidates in the past.
What are campaign contributions?
They are donations that are made directly to a candidate or a party and that must be reported to the FEC. As of 2020, individuals were allowed to donate up to $2,800 per election to a candidate and up to $35,500 to a political party.
What are independent expenditures?
They are expenses on behalf of a political message that are made by groups that are uncoordinated with any candidate’s campaign.
What is the Federal Election Campaign Act?
It is a law passed in 1974 for reforming campaign finances. The act created the Federal Election Commission and provided for limits on and disclosures of campaign contributions.
What are political action committees (PACs)?
They are groups that raise money from individuals and then distribute it as contributions to candidates that the group supports. PACs must register with the FEC and report their donations and contributions. Individual contributions to a PAC are limited to $5,000 per year, and a PAC may give up to $5,000 to a candidate for each election.
What is the Federal Election Commission (FEC)?
It is a six-member bipartisan agency created by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974. The Federal Election Commission administers and enforces campaign finance laws.
What is soft money?
It is political contributions earmarked for party-building expenses at the grassroots level or for generic party advertising. For a time, such contributions were unlimited, until they were banned by the McCain-Feingold Act.
What are 527 groups?
They are independent political groups that are not subject to contribution restrictions because they do not directly seek the election of particular candidates.
What is the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission?
It is the 2010 landmark Supreme Court case that ruled that individuals, corporations, and unions could donate unlimited amounts of money to groups that make independent political expenditures.
What are 501(c) groups?
They are groups exempted from reporting their contributions and can receive unlimited contributions. Section 501(c) of the tax code specifies that such groups cannot spend more than half their fund on political activities. They are regulated by the IRS, not the FEC.
What is selective perception?
It is the phenomenon that people’s beliefs often guide what they will pay the most attention to and how they interpret events. (Selective Exposure)
What is suffrage?
It is the legal right to vote, extended to African Americans by the 15th Amendment, women by the 19th Amendment, and 18- to 20-year-olds by the 26th Amendment.
What is political efficacy?
It is the belief that one’s political participation matters - that one’s vote can make a difference.
What is civic duty?
It is the belief that in order to support a democratic government, a citizen should vote.
What is voter registration?
It is a system adopted by the states that require voters to register before voting. Some states require citizens to register as much as 30 days in advance, whereas others permit Election Day registration.
