PARTIEs

06 - POLITICAL PARTIES

Political parties are important structures in most countries, a fact that the founders of the U.S. political system ignored when they envisioned a government with enough points of influence to make parties unnecessary. As James Madison reflected in his famous Federalist Papers, political factions were necessary evils to be controlled by federalism and separation of powers, but political parties such as those that dominated British politics could and should be avoided at all costs. Of course, parties appeared almost as soon as the new government was created, with their origins in the disagreements between two of Washington's cabinet members, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Political parties have endured throughout U.S. history, although today they are less influential in the political process than they have been during past eras.

PURPOSES OF POLITICAL PARTIES

Political parties in the U.S. fulfill the following purposes in the American political system:

1) Parties are one of several linkage institutions that connect people in a large democracy

to the government. In any country with a population large enough to form a

representative democracy, institutions that link the people to government are

a necessity. Modern linkage institutions include interest groups, the media, elections,

and political parties. Party ideology and organization increase political efficacy by

helping citizens to make sense of government decisions and processes and to feel

that government listens to them.

2) Parties pick policymakers and run campaigns. Virtually all elected officials, whether

local, state, or national, run as nominees of a major political party. Whereas personal

wealth certainly helps, most candidates rely on the party organization to coordinate and

fund their political campaigns.

3) Parties articulate policies and give cues to voters. Although both major parties are

by necessity broadly based, they each convey an image and endorse policies that

help voters decide which candidates to support.

4) Parties often coordinate governmental policy-making that would be more fragmented

among the three branches and the local, state, and federal levels. Informal

relationships between officials in different parts of government but with similar

partisan ties can make policy-making go more smoothly.

THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM

Most modern democracies have a multi-party system, so the United States is definitely in the minority with its two party system, one of only about fifteen in the world today. Even though a number of third parties have emerged in the course of U.S. history, none have endured, and with the exception of a short period in the early 1800s, two major political parties have always competed with one another for power in the system.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PARTIES

Historically, the two party system has been characterized by long periods of dominance by one party followed by a long period of dominance by the other.

The Early Years

The first two political parties to emerge during Washington's term of office were the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The major issue in the beginning was the ratification of the Constitution, with the Federalists supporting it and the Anti-Federalist wanting guarantees of individual freedoms and rights not included in the original document. The issue was resolved with the addition of the Bill of Rights, but the parties did not disappear with the issue. The Federalists were led by Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, and they came to represent urban, business-oriented men who favored elitism and a strong central government. The Federalists supported Hamilton's establishment of the Bank of the United States because they saw it as forwarding their interests and beliefs. The Anti-Federalists came to be known as the Democratic-Republicans, and led by Thomas Jefferson, favored strong state governments, rural interests, and a weaker central government. They opposed the bank as an enemy of state control and rural interests. With Hamilton's death and John Adams' unpopularity as president, Jefferson emerged as the most popular leader at the turn of the nineteenth century. As president he gradually became more accepting of stronger central government, and the two parties' points of view seemed to merge most notably in the "Era of Good Feeling" presided over by James Monroe, one of Jefferson's proteges.

The Democratic-Republicans emerged as the only party, and their dominance lasted until the mid-1800's, though under a new name, the Democrats.

Jacksonian Democracy

Antagonisms reemerged with the appearance of Andrew Jackson, who represented to many the expanding country, in which newer states found much in common with the rural southern states but little with the established northeast. The Election of 1924 boiled over into conflict between Jackson (war hero, Indian fighter from Tennessee) and John Quincy Adams, established Massachusetts lawyer and son of John Adams. A new party emerged, the Whigs, who represented many of the interests of the old Federalist party. Jackson's election in 1928 was accomplished with a coalition between South and West, forming the new Democratic party. Jackson's democrats were a rawer sort than Jefferson's, who were primarily gentlemen farmers from the South and Middle Atlantic states. With the Jackson era's universal manhood suffrage, virtually all men could vote, so rural, anti-bank, small farmers from the South and West formed the backbone of the Democratic Party, and the Whigs were left with not only the old Federalist interests, but other groups, such as wealthy rural Southerners, who had little in common with other Whigs. The party was not ideologically coherent, but found some success by nominating and electing war heroes, such as William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor.

North/South Tensions

As economic and social tensions developed between North and South by the 1840's and 50's, Whig party unity was threatened by splits between the southern and northern wings.

The issue of expansion of slavery into new territories brought about a new Republican party just as the Whigs were falling apart. The election of 1860 brought the first Republican into office, Abraham Lincoln, setting off the secession of southern states, and with them, many supporters of the Democratic party. The Civil War, then, ended the era of dominance of the Democrats, and ushered in a new Republican era.

Republican Dominance: late 1800's and early 1900's

With the exception of Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson, all presidents between Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were Republicans. During most of that time, the legislature was dominated by the Republicans as well. By 1876 all of the southern states had been restored to the Union, but their power, as well as that of the Democratic party, was much diminished. The Republicans came to champion the new era of the Industrial Revolution, a time when prominent businessmen, such as John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, dominated politics as well as business. The Republican party came to represent laissez-faire, a policy that advocated the free market and few government regulations on business. Ironically, laissez-faire, meaning "to leave alone", was the old philosophy of the Jacksonian farmers, who wanted government to allow them to make their own prosperity. the Republican philosophy of the late 1800's favored the new industrialists, not the small farmer of the earlier era.

The Great Depression and the New Deal Democrats

The prosperous, business-oriented era survived several earlier recessions but not the Great Depression that gripped the country after the stock market crash of 1929. The Republican president, Herbert Hoover, was rejected in the election of 1932 in favor of the Democrat's Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt's victory was accomplished through forging the Roosevelt Coalition of voters, a combination of many different groups that wished to see Herbert Hoover defeated. The coalition was composed of eastern workers, southern and western farmers, blacks, the ideologically liberal. The overwhelming unpopularity of Herbert Hoover and the charismatic leadership of Roosevelt temporarily united the different groups in a successful coalition.

In their efforts to bring the country out of the depression, Roosevelt's Democrats established a government more actively involved in promoting social welfare. Ironically, the formerly states rights oriented Democrats now advocated a strong central government, but one dedicated to promoting the interests of ordinary people. Both legislative and executive branches were dominated by the Democrats, and even the Supreme Court had to rein in its conservative leanings, although it did check Roosevelt's power with the famous "court-packing" case. (In an effort to get more support for his New Deal programs from the Supreme Court, Roosevelt encouraged Congress to increase the number of justices from nine to fifteen and to require mandatory retirement of justices by the age of 70.)

Roosevelt was elected for an unprecedented four terms and was followed by another Democrat, Harry Truman. In the 1948 election, Republicans gained control of the Senate, and in 1952, a Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, was elected president, thus ending the era of the Democrats.

The Era of "Divided Government"

Instead of Eisenhower's election ushering in a new era of Republican dominated government, a new balance of power between the Democrats and Republicans came into being. With a few exceptions (the last of which was 1993-1995), control of the legislature and the presidency has been "divided" between the two major political parties since the late 1940s. When the presidency has been held by one party, Congress, or at least one house, has been dominated by the other. The division brings with it the problem of "gridlock", or the tendency to paralyze decision making, with one branch advocating one policy and the other another, contradictory policy. Scholars disagree on the causes of the new division of power, but many speculate that one cause is the declining power of political parties in general.

ORGANIZATION OF THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM

Similarities between the Parties

The organization of both parties look very much the same on paper. Both have a National Committee composed of representatives from each state and territory. Each party has a full-time, paid national chairman that manages the day-to-day work of the party. Both give ultimate authority to the national convention that meets formally every four years during the summer before a presidential election in November. In Congress each party has a congressional campaign committee that assists party members running for reelection and challengers running for seats held by the opposition party. Until the 1960's both parties operated in a similar way, with party "bosses" deciding who among the loyalists would run for what office and who would get federal jobs.

Both parties by necessity must have a broad, not always consistent, ideological base. Because of the winner-take-all, or pluralist, electoral system (the person with the most votes wins; no run-offs, no majority needed) in the United States, if a party is to win elections, it must appeal to a large number of voters. Whereas generally it is assumed that the Republicans are more conservative than are the Democrats, both parties cover a broad spectrum of ideologies. Both try to "umbrella" as many voters as possible, with the usual consequence of taking a middle stance, especially in presidential election years. The two party system, then, results from the winner-take-all system and the practical response of both parties to emphasize winning elections over adherence to a strict ideology.

Differences in the Parties

In recent years the two parties have differed in organization and election tactics. Starting in the late 1960's, Republicans began to pay more attention to the power of electronic media and to the importance of paid professional consultants. They converted into a well-financed, efficient organization that depended heavily on professionals to help locate the best candidates for office, particularly ones who came across well on television. Some experts believe that these changes were largely responsible for Richard Nixon's victory in 1968. Nixon was carefully coached and his campaign was carefully managed to take advantage of electronic media. The campaign made extensive use of public opinion polls to determine party strategy. The new emphasis also influenced the party's choice of candidates in 1980 and 1984, with former television and film actor Ronald Reagan as master of the media. The party also took advantage of new technology and generated computerized mailings to raise large sums of money for campaigns. By the mid-1980's, the Republicans were raising far more money than the Democrats were.

During the same time period, the Democrats were changing in many almost opposite ways from the Republicans. Whereas both parties had once been primarily "grass roots" organizations, with local party bosses maintaining a great deal of control over elections, the Democrats became more concerned with grass roots, or common man, representation. The Democrats were reacting at least partly to the break-up of the old Roosevelt Coalition, but also to the disastrous 1968 convention in Chicago that showed the party as highly factionalized and almost leaderless. As a result, they gained a reputation for being factionalized, unorganized, and disunited.

After the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and resulting police riots at the 1968 convention and the loss of the November election to the Republican, the Democratic party appointed a special McGovern-Fraser Commission to review the party's structure and delegate selection procedures. The commission determined that minorities, women, youth, and the poor were not adequately represented at the party convention. The party adopted guidelines that increased the representation and participation of these groups. The number of superdelegates, or governors, members of Congress, and other party leaders was reduced substantially. The 1972 convention selected the man that headed the commission, George McGovern, as the candidate, but unfortunately for the party, McGovern was perceived by the general public as being too liberal to be president, and he lost in a landslide victory for Republican Richard Nixon. In its attempt to be more "grass roots" and representative, the party lost its ability to win elections, its delegates no longer representing the middle of the road. The party responded with the Hunt Commission that recommended that a set number of delegation seats (about 15%) be reserved for superdelegates. These superdelegates supported Walter Mondale, an established party leader as the Democratic candidate in 1984 and 1988. The party remained factionalized, as demonstrated by the protests of Jesse Jackson, who believed the party was deserting its mission to be representative.

During the Reagan presidency, the Democrats began to adopt some of the Republican strategies, including computerized mailing lists, opinion polls, and paid consultants. The party managed to gather their factions to support Bill Clinton's candidacy in 1992, and the successful presidential campaigns of 1992 and 1996 are an indication that the party has come a long way organizationally.

MINOR PARTIES

Whereas two parties have always dominated the American system, minor or third parties have also played a role. Two types of minor parties have emerged throughout U.S. history: those dominated by an individual personality, usually disappearing when the charismatic personality does. One example is Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose, or Progressive party, that was largely responsible for splitting the Republicans and throwing the 1912 election to the Democrats. Another example is George Wallace's American Independent Party in 1968 and 1972, starting as a southern backlash to the civil rights movement, but eventually appealing to blue collar workers in other parts of the country. There are those that are organized around a long-lasting goal or ideology. Examples are the Abolitionists, the Prohibitionists. and the Socialists. The Abolitionists and Prohibitionists disappeared after their goals were accomplished. The Socialists have remained a minor ideological party throughout the twentieth century, winning almost a million votes in the election of 1912, but running candidates for public office through the present.

Probably the most influential third party in American history was the Populist party of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that first represented the interests of farmers, but was responsible for wide-ranging democratic reforms. The Populists' best known leader was William Jennings Bryan, who was enticed to accept the nomination of the Democratic party first in 1896. The fate of the Populists was the same as for most other third parties: their goals were "umbrellaed" by a major party, deferring to the "winner-take-all, or pluralist system, that supports a two party system.

In 1992, Ross Perot, a wealthy Texas businessman, tried to defy the two party system by running for president as an independent without the support of a political party. He hired professional campaign and media advisers, created a high profile on national television interviews, bought a massive number of TV ads, and built a nationwide network of paid and volunteer campaign workers. In the election, he gained 19% of the vote, but did not capture a single electoral vote. In 1996, he again entered the race, but also announced the birth of a third party that fizzled when he received less than half as many votes as he did in 1992.

THE PARTIES TODAY: THE EFFECTS OF DEALIGNMENT

Over the past fifty years party identification appears to be weakened among American voters, with more preferring to call themselves "independents." If DEALIGNMENT indeed is occurring, does this trend indicate that parties are becoming weaker forces in the political system? Many political scientists believe so.

During the late 1800s party machines, organizations that recruited members by the use of material incentives - money, jobs, places to live - exercised a great deal of control by party "bosses." These machines, such as Tammany Hall in New York City, dictated local and state elections and distributed government jobs on the basis of support for the party, or patronage. The reforms of the early twentieth century Progressive movement, first inspired by the Populist movement, took control of nominations from party leaders and gave it to the rank-and-file. Several important changes - the establishment of primary elections in many states, the establishment of the civil service, the direct election of senators, and women's suffrage - all gave more power to voters and less to the parties.

The growing emphasis on electronic media campaigns, professional consultants, and direct-mail recruitment of voter support also may have decreased the importance of parties in the election process. In addition, partly as a result of media influence, candidate organizations, not party organizations, are the most powerful electoral forces today. Office seekers, supported by consultants and media, organize their personal following to win nominations. If they win office, they are more responsive to their personal following than to the party leadership. The result is less party clout over politicians and policy.

On the other hand, the national party organizations are significantly better funded than they were in earlier days and make use of electronic media and professional consultants themselves. They often function as advisers and all-important sources for campaign funds. Moreover, parties are deeply entrenched organizational blocks for government, particularly Congress. Although they may not be as strong an influence as they once were, they still give candidates labels that help voters make decisions during election time.