Whereas interest groups are more directly concerned with public policy and involve themselves with elections only to advance their policy interests, political parties are more concerned with winning public office. For them, influencing policy is usually secondary.
American Parties: A Historical Perspective
The history of American political parties can be summarized in terms of seven political epochs. (Dates are given below for identification purposes, but the transitions from one epoch to the next were not as sharply defined as the dates may suggest.)
The emergence of parties under the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans (1789–1828)
Though Washington warned against "factions," parties emerged from those supporting Hamilton's policies (formation of a national bank, use of federal funds to repay states' war debts) and those supporting Thomas Jefferson's policies (a more limited federal governmental role). The former called themselves Federalists and the latter Democratic-Republicans. The Federalist candidate in 1796, John Adams, won narrowly in an election which established the precedent that electors in the Electoral College would announce and commit themselves to one party or the other, enabling voters to pick between the parties. In the elections of 1800 the Federalists were defeated, establishing the precedent of alternation of parties in political power—although in the short run the Democratic-Republicans' success under Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe overpowered the Federalists, who ceased to exist by 1820. Their success reflected their solid base in agrarian interests, in contrast to the Federalist base in the numerically smaller interests of merchants, manufacturers, and shippers.
Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs (1828–1860)
By the 1920s, the Democratic-Republicans had become split. The 1824 elections were thrown to the House of Representatives when no one candidate received a majority of electoral votes. The House passed over Andrew Jackson, the candidate with the most votes, to pick John Quincy Adams. Jackson mobilized his supporters in what was by then called the Democratic Party and won a resounding victory in 1828. His opponents formed the Whig Party. The Jacksonian Democrats appealed to the "common man" and successfully urged states to lower property requirements for voting and choose electors by popular vote instead of by the state legislatures. The expanded electorate, which had grown from 365,000 in 1824 to over 2 million in 1840, favored the Democrats. This epoch set the precedent of national campaigning and popular organizing.
Era of Republican Dominance (1860–1932)
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the slavery issue split the Democratic Party into Northern Democrats and Southern Democrats and led to the founding of the Republican Party in 1854 to oppose slavery in the western territories. Lincoln did not receive a majority of the popular vote in 1860 but was chosen by the Electoral College. After the war, the Republican Party won every election until 1932 with two exceptions. Democratic Governor Grover Cleveland of New York won on a reform ticket in 1884 and 1892, and Princeton political scientist Woodrow Wilson won in 1912 after Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican Party by running on a third, progressive party ("The Bull Moose Party"). Wilson was reelected during World War I, but Republicans won back the White House in the 1920s. Throughout most of this epoch the Democrats were a minority party, rooted in Southern agrarian interests, opposing Republicans, rooted in dominant Northern industrial interests and their policies of high tariffs to protect manufacturers and tight money in the form of a gold standard to protect bankers.
The New Deal Democratic Party (1932–1968)
The Great Depression, which started in 1929, brought Republican pro-business policies into disrepute and, together with World War II, led to an unprecedented four consecutive terms in office of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR's policies, known as the New Deal, instituted Social Security and other "social safety net" programs for the poor, created employment programs and gave rights to unions for workers, and reached out to Catholics, Jews, African Americans, and other ethnic groups. The New Deal coalition included these ethnic groups, organized labor, and urban working classes. At the same time, Southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats"), hard-hit by the Depression, did not start splitting from the Democratic Party until the party's 1948 platform called for an end to segregation. Even then, most Dixiecrats remained in the party until after the wave of civil rights legislation under Johnson in the 1960s.
The New Republican Majority (1968–1980)
The slide of the "solid South" into the Republican camp in presidential elections, combined with a popular reaction against "big government" welfare and other programs in Johnson's Great Society legislation, and combined with a general conservative swing in public opinion after Vietnam and the social turmoil of the 1960s, created a new Republican majority capable of defeating the New Deal coalition. For many, what led to the new Republican majority was symbolized by the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, with its unruly street protesters attacked by the police of the city's Democratic mayor, one of the last formidable party "bosses." The Democratic Convention's 1968 reforms, opening party processes more to women and minorities, alienated previously dominant Democratic office-holders and led to a 1972 convention dominated by antiwar protesters, civil rights advocates, feminist organizations, and other liberals who nominated George McGovern. McGovern was defeated by Richard Nixon in a huge landslide reflecting a popular reaction against the liberal causes of the 1960s, with which the Democratic Party had become closely associated. This association with social issues also split the traditional New Deal coalition, which was centered on economic rather than social concerns. As the New Deal coalition splintered, the Republicans became a majority party once again.
The Reagan Coalition (1980–1992)
Ronald Reagan, a former actor, proved a masterful party leader in consolidating the new Republican coalition of traditional business and professional supporters opposed to high taxes and "big government," Southern whites opposed to affirmative action, religious fundamentalists opposed to rulings of Supreme Court justices appointed by liberal presidents, anti-communists wanting more aggressive action to oppose Soviet-backed regimes around the world, and social conservatives yearning for a return to tough stances on crime, abortion, and other moral issues. Reagan's personal charisma held this diverse coalition together but was not able to lead the Republican Party to the control of Congress. At the same time, the Democratic Party came to be seen as a party of special interests, beholden to organized labor, civil rights organizations, feminists, and environmentalists. These interests were strong enough to force liberal stands in Democratic party platforms but were far too weak to lead to electoral victory for liberal Democratic candidate Mondale in 1984 or Dukakis in 1988.
Clinton and the "New" Democrats (1992–2000)
By the 1990s, the Republican coalition was experiencing difficulties: the undermining of the anticommunist appeal after the collapse of the Soviet Union, reaction against religious fundamentalism, and splits between economic conservatives and social conservatives on such issues as free trade, relations with China, and the priority to be given to the anti-abortion issue. Meanwhile, the Democratic Leadership Council, formed in the 1980s by Democratic governors and senators concerned about their party's minority status, were led by then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton to embrace a "new" platform. The new Democratic strategy was to downplay social justice and social welfare issues and to return to an emphasis on policies for restoring economic prosperity. As the national economy faltered prior to the 1992 elections, Clinton was able to appeal to the middle class on the economic growth issue. Environmentalists, feminists, civil rights activists, and other Democratic liberals, having seen the defeats of the 1980s, largely accepted the Clinton strategy.
Clinton in office pursued a mix of liberal (gays in the military, federal health care, family medical leave) and conservative (abolishing "welfare as we know it", higher anti-crime spending, reducing the deficit) policies design to retain traditional Democratic supporters while preempting Republican appeals to the middle and working classes. Nonetheless, the Republicans won control of Congress in a 1994 off-year landslide, the first time Republicans had controlled both houses in forty years.
In 1996 Clinton was reelected as the first Democrat to be reelected since FDR, benefiting from a strong economy and the unpopularity in public opinion of then Republican leader House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whom he portrayed as an extremist. The 1996 elections seemed to indicate that an increasingly skeptical public was satisfied with, perhaps even desired, a divided government in which a Democratic president counterbalanced a Republican Congress. Reaction against Gingrich and his policies, particularly when they led to technical "shut-downs" of government, was reflected in the 1998 off-year elections, where Republicans failed to make the gains traditional to the non-presidential party in off election years. Gingrich resigned after the 1998 elections.
Political Parties and Democratic Government
Many Americans believe in the responsible party model, in which competitive parties adopt a platform of principles, recruit candidates and direct campaigns based on their platforms, and then hold elected officials responsible for implementing the platform of the winning party. This model does not describe American party politics, in which winning elections is usually more important than commitment to policies. In fact, the American electoral system creates an incentive for vote-maximizing parties to appeal to the center, making the parties often appear similar in policy terms.
Parties have more influence at the primary election stage, though even here most political candidates today are self-recruited and contact party officials often as a courtesy rather than necessity. The nominee is selected by the party's voters in the primary election, not directly by party officials, whose support is only one of many possible success factors for candidates. After the primaries, nominated candidates may have little need of their parties at all. Though party conventions pass political platforms, no mechanism exists in the American political system to bind candidates to party platforms and, indeed, it is not uncommon for candidates to distance themselves from their supposed platforms. The decline in party power in the twentieth century is associated with the decline of party-controlled patronage, the dispensing of governmental jobs and welfare by party "machines" in large cities, which has been replaced by civil service systems, government employment agencies, and bureaucratic welfare departments.
Parties as Organizers of Elections
Although they do not determine public policy, political parties still play an important role in organizing elections. Nonpartisan elections—elections without party candidates&mdsh;are common only at the local level. At state and national levels, the party caucus was the earliest nominating mechanism. It was simply a meeting of party leaders meeting to decide the party's nominees several months before the general election. Starting in the Jacksonian era, nomination by caucus gave way to nomination by political conventions made up at the state level of members nominated by county conventions and nominated governors, U.S. senators, and other state officials. State party conventions are still held in many states but do not have the power they once held. Instead, party primaries are now the usual way in which Democratic and Republican nominees are selected. Closed primary states allow only registered Democrats to vote in Democratic primaries, and registered Republicans in Republican primaries. Open primary states, by contrast, let voters choose on election day the primary in which they wish to vote. Winners of the Republican and Democratic primaries face each other several months later in the general election, usually on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
Where's the Party?
What, exactly, is the Democratic or Republican party?
The party-in-the-electorate is all those individuals who vote for the party. Many individuals, of course, are ticket splitters and do not identify with just one party.
The party-in-the-government is all those officials who were nominated by the party and were subsequently elected. At the national level, the majority party in the House meets in caucus to select the Speaker of the House and other officials. The minority party selects the minority leader and minority whip.
The party organization is the system of party officials from the precinct and ward level on up to the county and state levels and then to the national level. There are 50 state party committees and over 3,000 county committees in each party, constituting the most important building blocks for party organization in the nation. At the highest level, the Republican and Democratic National Committees, each headed by a national chair elected by the party's national convention, often take the lead in fund-raising for presidential campaigns. The national committees also conduct polls, analyze voter trends, develop campaign advertising themes, and run candidate campaign training schools.
There is also a legislative party structure, based on the candidates a party elects to legislative office. The extensive party organization of members of Congress is discussed further in Chapter 10.
National Party Conventions
In principle, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions select their party's presidential nominees. In reality, in modern times the nominee is selected in advance of the convention based on results of the primary elections. The last brokered convention, in which convention delegates exercised independent power rather than rubber-stamping the primary leader on the first ballot, was the 1952 Democratic convention, which eventually chose Adlai Stevenson on the third ballot. The main suspense at national party conventions now centers on selection of the vice-presidential running mate, not the presidential nominee. The running mate is normally selected by the presidential nominee and is announced at the national convention.
For both Republicans and Democrats, the number of national convention delegates a state receives is based on the number of party voters in the state. In determining just which candidate's delegates are picked, Democratic rules now allot each candidate receiving over 15 percent of the vote his or her proportion based on the primary or caucus vote he or she received. Republican rules allow states to choose between proportional allotment of winner-take-all.
Convention delegates tend to be party activists who are more ideologically motivated than the average citizen. Democratic delegates are more liberal than Democratic voters, and Republican delegates are more conservative than Republican voters. As a result, party platforms drawn by the delegates may be more extreme than the campaign themes adopted by the presidential nominees, and nominees sometimes attempt to moderate planks under platform consideration during national conventions.
The Party Voters
Republicans rarely cross over to vote for Democratic presidential nominees, but Democrats are more likely to do so for Republican nominees. Reagan was able to capture one in four Democratic voters, but in the Republican Bush and Dole campaigns in the 1990s the figure dropped to only one in ten—about the same as for Republican cross-over voting. The stability of party identification and voting for the party with which one identifies means candidates often vie for independent voters, not converts from the opposite party. This is all the more so since the number of independent voters has been growing in recent years. Traditionally, most independents voted Republican. However, in the 1990s Clinton was able to win the votes of a plurality of independents.
Realignment is a long-term shift in social group support for various political parties that creates new coalitions in each party, as the Depression forged the New Deal coalition in the realigning election of 1932. In modern times, the only large-scale realignment of social group support has been the shift of southern white voters into the Republican Party.
Dealignment, by contrast, is the increasing reluctance to identify strongly with either major party, and to rely less on party identification when voting for a candidate. Although dealignment has occurred, with more independents and fewer strong Republicans or strong Democrats, there is little evidence of realignment in recent years. The Democratic Party still consistently gets disproportionate support from Catholics, Jews, African Americans, union members, big city residents, and less-educated, lower-income, and/or blue-collar groups. The Republican Party still gets disproportionate support from Protestants, whites, suburban and small-town dwellers, and higher-income, white-collar groups. On this basis it is questionable whether, for example, the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress represented a true realignment.
Third Parties in the U.S. System
While the prospects for electoral victory by American third parties are dim, they exist because there are other reasons for working for a third party. Ideological parties promote education and proselytizing around the belief system espoused by its adherents. Protest parties seek to focus public attention on political issues, as the Populist Party of the late 1800s focused attention on the plight of farmers and the evils of eastern railroads and other monopolies. Likewise, single-issue parties like the Greenback Party of the same period, sought to focus attention on a single issue—in this case, the need to reject the gold standard. Finally, splinter parties are dissatisfied factions of major parties, such as the 1948 American Independent ("Dixiecrat") Party formed by Southern Democrats angry over the civil rights plank of their party's platform.
The Reform Party
Dealignment and disillusionment with "politics as usual" has meant that in some polls prior to the 1996 elections, a majority of Americans expressed support for an alternative to the two major political parties. That almost two out of three Americans feel this way in general, however, does not translate into majority support for any particular potential third party. The most popular third party in the twentieth century was Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party, known as the Bull Moose Party, which received 27 percent of the popular vote and 88 electoral votes, enough to throw the election to the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson. The most popular recent third party was Ross Perot's Independent (1992) and Reform Party (1996) races, which garnered 19 percent and 9 percent of the popular vote respectively, but no electoral votes in either year.
The relative success of the Reform Party in 1996 was due in no small part to the wealth of its leader and candidate, Texas billionaire Ross Perot. The mechanics of gaining a place on the ballot in all 50 states requires a campaign warchest of $100 million or more, as well as tens of thousands of supporters throughout the nation. Perot used nearly $100 million of his own money in the 1992 campaign, but also capitalized on media fascination with the novelty of his race. The 1992 success qualified Perot's Reform Party for federal matching funds in 1996, but he was excluded from the 1996 presidential debates. Many factors accounted for Perot's poorer showing in 1996, but one was the difficulty of running a campaign without a clear platform other than attacking "politics as usual" and warning of the dangers of free trade agreements. In the 2000 presidential campaign, the Reform Party splintered and otherwise received relatively little media attention. Another party, Ralph Nader's Green Party, also failed to win 5 percent of the votes in 2000 but won enough to throw the election to Bush.
Why the Two-Party System Persists
The persistence of the two-party system in the United States is rooted in America's winner-take-all electoral system, which makes voting for a third party candidate seem to most like "throwing away one's vote." Countries with proportional representation electoral systems are much more likely to have third (or more) parties since in those countries a party which receives, say, only 15 percent of the vote will still be allotted 15 percent of the seats in the national legislative body. Other reasons for the lack of success of third parties in the United States include America's cultural consensus, which has rejected Communist, Socialist, and other radical parties. The high water mark for the Socialist Party was 6 percent in 1912, whereas in Europe socialist parties have frequently won power. There are also numerous legal obstacles in the United States to getting a third party placed on the ballot, such as requirements that petitions signed by 5–10 percent of the registered voters be filed.
Chapter Objectives
After mastering the concepts in this chapter, you will be able to:
Differentiate political parties from interest groups.
Give a brief historical account of the seven major epochs of the history of American political parties, noting party precedents set and the change in dominant political coalitions.
Contrast the responsible party model with the realities of American political parties.
Account for the decline in party power in the twentieth century.
Explain the role of nonpartisan elections in the United States.
Give a brief historical account of alternative methods of selecting party nominees (caucus, convention, primary).
Differentiate open versus closed primaries.
Explain the three meanings of "political party."
Assess the significance and functions of national political conventions.
Discuss the relation of party platforms to convention delegates and to presidential nominees.
Define party identification and cross-over voting.
Explain and trace trends in party dealignment.
Define and illustrate from history the term "party realignment," and assess whether the 1994 elections represented realignment.
Analyze the prospects for third parties in the United States.
Account for the past lack of success of American third parties.
Account for the rise and decline of the Reform Party.
Identify functions of third parties other than seeking to win electoral victory.
Many Americans believe in the responsible party model, in which competitive parties adopt a platform of principles, recruit candidates and direct campaigns based on their platforms, and then hold elected officials responsible for implementing the platform of the winning party. This model does not describe American party politics, in which winning elections is usually more important than commitment to policies. In fact, the American electoral system creates an incentive for vote-maximizing parties to appeal to the center, making the parties often appear similar in policy terms.
Although they do not determine public policy, political parties still play an important role in organizing elections. Nonpartisan elections—elections without party candidates&mdsh;are common only at the local level. At state and national levels, the party caucus was the earliest nominating mechanism. It was simply a meeting of party leaders meeting to decide the party's nominees several months before the general election. Starting in the Jacksonian era, nomination by caucus gave way to nomination by political conventions made up at the state level of members nominated by county conventions and nominated governors, U.S. senators, and other state officials. State party conventions are still held in many states but do not have the power they once held. Instead, party primaries are now the usual way in which Democratic and Republican nominees are selected. Closed primary states allow only registered Democrats to vote in Democratic primaries, and registered Republicans in Republican primaries. Open primary states, by contrast, let voters choose on election day the primary in which they wish to vote. Winners of the Republican and Democratic primaries face each other several months later in the general election, usually on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.