Political Party Notes

In 1992, millionaire Ross Perot damaged the incumbent George HW Bush and helped to propel Bill Clinton to the White House with only 43% of the popular vote. And Ralph Nader is still vilified by some Democrats for eight years later taking crucial votes away from Al Gore in Florida.GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS UNIT 3C POLITICAL PARTIES

George W. Bush ran his 2000 election campaign calling himself a ‘compassionate conservative’ (is a term popularised by George W. Bush during his 2000 presidential campaign to denote a strand of conservative Republican philosophy which took a more compassionate view on such issues as welfare, education, immigration and poverty) .

South tends to be more republican, North East coast and West coast, more liberal or libertarian.

The trend has been towards American seeing the parties as far more distinct à1972, 46% said there were important differences in what the Republicans and Democrats stand for compared to 78% in 2008

Liberal = a view that seeks to change the political, economic and social status quo in favour f the well-being, rights and liberties of the individual, and especially those who are generally disadvantaged by society

Conservative = a view that seeks to defend the political, economic and social status quo and therefore tends to oppose changes in the institutions and structures of society

Historical Context

TWO ‘UMBRELLA’ PARTIES

•           By 20^th century each party represented such a diverse range that it was difficult to describe either as standing for something distinctively different to the other
•           The Republicans, as the party of business, were conservative, resistant to change and to government intervention in the economy. It also attracted some liberals who believed that government had a moral duty to look after the interests of those who genuinely were unable to help themselves
•           Democrats were even more right wing, determined to assert racial superiority over blacks
•           Both parties became known as ‘umbrella parties’ covering most people

NEW DEAL COALITION

•          Democrat President, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced ‘New Deal’ programme, providing benefits for unemployed, generating jobs and improving employment rights. After benefiting from policies of FDR support swung from reps who abolished slavery, to Democrats.
•          1964 Civil Rights Act signed by Democrat Johnson pulled in more support from blacks and essentially broke up the solid south.

BREAK-UP OF SOLID SOUTH

•           1960, Solid South was still intact – would all vote Democrat. Known as ‘Yellow Dog Democrats’
•           1960 à 99/106 members of House from South, all 22 southern senators and all 11 southern state governors were Democrat. 1960 pres. Candidate Kennedy won 8 of 11 Southern states
•          But in the ten subjesequent presidential elections (1964-2000) the Democrats won a majority of South on only one occasion – in 1976 with Southernor Jimmy Carter.
•          1990s – final seismic shift
•          From 1960 to 1994, the Democrats always had a majority of southern House Representatives, southern senators and southern governors
•           1994, Republicans had a majority in each of these southern positions. In 2012 all 11 southern governors were Republican and held 98 out of 138 southern house seats
•          In just 50 years political landscape shifted. Has led to polarisation of US politics

PARTISANSHIP

•           Washington politics seems to all be about Partisanship. ‘A term used to denote a state of affairs in which members of one party regularly group together in opposition to the members of another party. Partisanship is therefore typified by high levels of party discipline, frequent occurences of party-line voting, and little, if any cooperation and compromise between politicians of different parties.

Social Conservatives

•          Believe humans are inherently selfish and so need clear moral guidance through strong family units and a good education with punishments in place for those who do wrong
•           Social Conservatives began to emerge in 1970s’ – they thought there had been a ‘downward moral spiral’ as there was more free sexual expression, rising divorce rates and single parent families. Roe vs Wade (1973) were abortion was constitutionalised also increased social conservatism

•           They are anti-abortion
•           They aim to reduce access to inappropriate material i.e. Miley Cyrus
•         They would like schools to be based on Biblical principles: i.e. they would like to see Engel v Vitale (1962) Supreme Court decision overturned which ruled that school prayers were unconstitutional in publicaly funded institutions because the 1^st ammenment keeps gov out of religious matters, are suspicious of sex education, are creationist (cthis approach was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Edwards vs Aguillard (1987) on the basis that ir promoted a religious viewpoint.) This led to the development of an alternative; Intelligent Design but this too was rendered unconstitutional in December 2005 as it advances a version of Christianity

-          Two avenues have emerged for families who feel they cannot get an education that respects their values:

(1)     School voucher scheme offered in some states; It provides families with a voucher equivalent in value to the cost of educating a child in a community school and can be used in private schools

(2)    Home schooling – there are about 2 million taught this way

-          They are anti-gay marriage à In the case of Lawrence Vs Texas (2003) the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning homosexual sex were unconstitutional. This paved the way for gay marriage being constitutional in many cases. This led to ballot initiatives banning same sec marriage in 13 states

Fiscal Conservatives

•          Believe that selfishness can be harnessed to produce a dynamic, productive society
•          Believe people can be trusted to make economic decisions without involvement of gov
•          Believe society need well-resourced law enforcement agencies and punishments
•           Came to prominence in the 70s when there was low economic growth and inflation issues. Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman from the University of Chicago argued this was due to government intervention – had created welfare dependency and undermined incentives for wealthy to invest. Want small gov – low taxes, less regulations
•           Also advocates of gun rights are anti gov intervention
•          Ronald Reagan became president 1981 – ‘Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem’
•         They believe it will also lead to reduced irresponsible behaviour (less single parents, better role models)
•           George W Bush introduced to massive tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 but federal spending increased
•           Want  balanced budget amendment
•           Want to promote school vouchers so that market forces can improve poor schools
•          Anti-Affirmative Action = Supreme Court Case Grutter Vs Bollinger (2003) left the constitutional position unchanged
•          Protecting gun manufacturers from law suits i.e. Oct 2005 president signed into law a bill that protects the gun industry from lawsuits by victims of crimes in which their weapons have been used
•         Reduce environment regulations i.e. George Bush withdrew USA from Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming in 2001
•          Want to increase defence spending and challenge regimes hostile to US interests and values

Moderate Conservatives

•          Known as Rockefeller conservatism à are paternalistic in nature, agree on low taxes but understand need for welfare. Leading Rockefeller, conservative John McCain criticised social conservatives as ‘agents of intolerance’. Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg (now independent) and Arnold Schwarzenegger = all organised in a faction called the Republican Main Street Partnership
•          Nomination of John McCain as Republican president candidate 2008 argued as continuing influence of the Rockefeller’s but they are a relatively small group

Nativists

• Have existed for a long time. Essentially are anti-immigration as they believe that immigrants have forced wages down and are using up resources which doesn’t work

Blue Dog Democrats

•           Most conservative faction. Focus on ensuring a ‘deep commitment to financial stability’ à ensuring laws can be funded without increasing taxes/ government borrowing
•          111^th congress starting Jan 09 there were 47 democrats in the blue dog coalition

Democratic Leadership Council

•           Centrist members of the Democrats founded this in 1985
•           Often identified with Bill Clinton who became its leader in 1990
•           Has adopted a position of advancing traditional left-wing goals such as protecting the interests of the poor such as boosting opportunities through economic growth
•           Has come to be seen as embodying all of the weaknesses of the modern Democratic Party: failing to provide and inspiring vision for America and only winning elections when opponents were unpopular
•           111^th congress there were 58 members of the New Democrat Coalition

TO WHAT EXTENT ARE THE REPUBLICANS CONSERVATIVE?

POINT	WHY CONSERVATIVE	ARE CONSERVATIVE	AREN’T CONSERVATIVE	MINI- CONCLUSION
-Believe in a balanced budget by lowering gov spending and lowering tax	- Conservatives believe in cutting government spending to ensure a balanced budget as for them, the		Minimum wage hikes are on the ballot in four Republican-leaning states -- Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota.

HOW LIBERAL ARE THE DEMOCRAT PARTY?

POINT	LIBERAL VIEW	ARE LIBERAL	AREN’T LIBERAL	MINI - CONCLUSION
Reject laissez-faire, believe in Keynesian Economics. Believe in government spending when needed and progressive tax systems as well as government intervention in the economy at right times	Feel that if left to its own devices, a capitalist economy will work only in favour of the rich. The poor will be exploited. Believe that to some extent, government should intervene to ensure equality of opportunity	Obama pushed through congress the $787 billion economic stimulus Congress in February, 2009. The package was designed to quickly jump-start economic growth, and save between 900,000 to 2.3 million jobs. Its three categories of spending were: $288 billion in tax cuts. $224 billion in extended unemployment benefits, education and health care. $275 billion for job creation using federal contracts, grants and loans. Has also spoke out in July 2014 stating that he wishes to close loopholes that are allowing companies to escape from paying millions in tax The Minimum Wage Fairness Act proposed gradually raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 over a thirty month period. It followed President Obama’s executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour in February. Republicans predictably blocked the bill countering minimum wage raises with the issue of possible job losses. Democrats had introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act legislation in the Senate only a week before, targeting employers and barring punitive measures against workers who share wage information, but the bill is now currently dead after a failed vote to cloture on Sept 15th 2014 The Obama administration tax rate on capital gains for high-income earners shot up to 23.8%—20% plus the 3.8% ObamaCare investment surtax. Ditto for the tax on dividends. So taxes on business investment rose by nearly 60% in 2013 and are nearly 20% higher than in the Clinton years. For estates more than $5.3 million in value, the estate tax in 2013 rose to 40% from 35% in 2012.	HELP
Welfare – 110 million Americans receiving benefits from one or more gov welfare programmes.	Believe that welfare is an integral part of society, especially if there is high inequality.	Affordable Care Act was signed into law March 23 2010 and is meant to “provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes”. They felt it was in need of reform because 44 million Americans did not have health insurance, there existed a medicaid gap which left seniors unable to pay for their medication, and insurance companies could drop you if you became sick. Obamacare has already: • ObamaCare closes the Part D Medicare Coverage Gap or “Donut Hole” that was forcing Seniors to pay out of pocket for drug costs. There is also a 50% discount on brand name drugs. Seniors currently get a rebate to cover the costs and ObamaCare closes the Medicare coverage gap for good in 2020. Children under the age of 26 can stay on their parents insurance -	733,000 women over 65 who have to survive on just $458 a month. Overall, 2.6 million elderly women lived in poverty in 2012, making do with just $11,670 or less a year. Starvation isn’t common in the US, but extreme hunger still is. Congress has cut $8.6bn from food stamps. One in five US children live in poverty and over 14% of US households have experienced food insecurity. The cuts to federal food stamps  in Jan 2014 come on top of a $5bn cut in November and will reduce payments to 1.7 million of the poorest Americans by an estimated $90 a month. The measures will also add $5.7bn to the cost of a 50% subsidy on premiums for crop insurance and extend a loophole allowing multiple people to claim government subsidies for one farm. Other Democrats said the $956bn farm bill was an improvement on original Republican demands for a $40bn cut in food stamps. At least 89 Democrats voted in favour of the final bill proposed by a bipartisan conference committee representing both Senate and House.	Overall,
War	Good diplomacy is the best way to deal with terrorism.  Relying on military force to defeat terrorism creates hatred that leads to more terrorism.  Captured terrorists should be handled by law enforcement and tried in civilian courts.	The withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq began in June 2009 and was completed by December 2011, bringing an end to the Iraq War.	Withdrawal of Iraq troops was actually a result of an agreement signed by Bush in 2008 which stated by 31 December 2011 "all the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory" Obama has launched airstrikes in coalition with 40 other states against ISIS and has commanded that the attacks involve no US ground troops
Immigration	Support legal immigration.  Support amnesty for those who enter the U.S. illegally (undocumented immigrants).  Also  believe that undocumented immigrants have a right to: -- all educational and health benefits that citizens receive (financial aid, welfare, social security and medicaid), regardless of legal status. -- the same rights as American citizens.  It is unfair to arrest millions of undocumented immigrants.
Gay marriage
Gun control
Religion and Gov

PARTY DIVISIONS

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/gop-hammers-democrats-obamacare-spending-and-immigration_818151.html

TWO PARTY SYSTEM

• Is a system in which two major parties regularly win the vast majority of votes in general elections, regularly capture nearly all the seats in the legislature and alternatively control the executive branch of government.

In US:

•           Rep or Dem regularly win at least 80% of the popular vote in general elections, regularly win at least 90% of the seats in the legislature and alternately control the executive branch of government
•          In 12 presidential elections between 1968 and 2012, the Democrats and Republicans accounted for more than 80% of the popular vote on every occasion. In 8 of these elections, their combined vote exceeded 95%. Only in one of the 12 elections did the Democrats and Republicans fail to win all the Electoral College votes – rogue electors apart.
•          Following 2012 elections, only two members of senate, Bernie Sanders and Angus King, were not sitting as either Democrats or Republicans: But Sanders is only opposed by a Republican candidate at each election because he invariably votes with Democrats. King announced he will caucus with the Democrats.
•           In January 2013, 49 of the 50 state governors were either Democrats or Republicans. Every president since 1853 has been wither Democrat or Republican – that’s a 160 year period.

REASONS FOR 2 PARTY SYSTEM

(1) FPTP – make it difficult for third parties to win elections because their support is widespread and not concentrated. Therefore, whilst they pick up a fraction of the vote in almost every state, the receive no reward at all because of the winner-takes-all system. A national third party candidate merely lowers the percentage of the vote needed by the major party candidate to win the election

(2) 2 major parties are umbrellas – They encompass a wide ideological spectrum… so there is not much room left for any other parties to attract substantial support. The two main parties are ideologically all-embracing

(3) Primary elections – Help make the major parties more responsive to the electorate, minimising need for protest vote which usually goes to third parties

IS THE USA A 2 PARTY SYSTEM?

(4) Has a 50 party system – The term two party system seems to convey the idea of two disciplined, centralised national parties with national leaders and national policy programmes. Parties in the USA are still essentially decentralised, with no national ‘leader’ and no national policy programme – except maybe for four months every fourth year when these state based parties must unite in a presidential campaign. I.E. Californian Democratic Party is a very different animal from the Georgia Democratic Party. This is a natural consequence of federalism and a country in which each election is a state-based one run largely under state laws by state officials

(5) Is no-party system – Candidates are often more important than parties, split-ticket voting is common and divided government is a frequent phenomenon

THIRD PARTIES

Best known: the Reform Party (temporary third party), the Libertarian Party (permanent third party) and the Green Party (permanent third party)

Regional third parties – Strom Thurmon’s States Rights Party, George Wallace’s American Independent Party (Temporary third party)

THIRD PARTY DIFFICULTIES

Election system

FPTP makes it difficult for national third parties. But regional third parties can do well: in 1968 George Wallace won 45 Electoral College votes with 13% of the vote, but his votes were concentrated in a small number of states. In 1992 Ross Perot won no Electoral College votes with 19% of the vote. Perot’s votes were spread throughout the US

Matching funds

Major party candidates qualify by raising at least $5,000 in contributions of $250 or less in at least 20 states – not difficult. But third-party candidates qualify only by winning at least 5% of the popular vote in previous elections. In last 50 years only 3 have managed this : Wallace (1968), Anderson (1980), Perot (1992 and 1996). Has led to Perot not qualifying for matching funds in 1992 when he was attracting almost 1/5^th of voters by Reform party candidate Patrick Buchanan did in 2000 when he was attracting less than 1/100^th of votes

Ballot Access Laws

Laws in each state regulate how third-party candidates can qualify to get their name on the ballot. Tennessee requires just 25 signatures on the ballot  so there were 7 third pat and independent candidates on the ballor for the Senate swat in Tennessee in 2012. Other states I.E. NY and Cal are more demanding. In NY a third party candidate must gain a certain number of signatures in every county in the state. In 1980, John Anderson estimated he had to gather around 1.2 million signatures nationwide to get on the ballot in all 50 states. He had to spend $3 million just doing that.

Lack of resources

-Exacerbated by the two previous points, it is har for third parties to qualify for ‘matching funds’. They must spend much of their hard earned cash on ballot access petitions rather than on real campaigning. People are understandably reluctant to give money to parties that they know are going to lose: this creates something of a catch 22 situation

Lack of media attention

-          News programmes don’t think they are sufficiently news worthy. They can rarely afford making or airing adverts and candidates are usually bared from state and national televised debates

Allegations of extremism

-          2 major parties often have little difficulty in portraying third party candidates as ideological extremists because they often are – otherwise they would be running under umbrella of Democratic or Republican Party. Republicans smeared pro-segregationist George Wallace with the slogan: ‘If you liked Hitler, you’ll love Wallace’. Americans have deep fear of ideological extremists.

Cooptation

-          Some third parties which have done well in past elections have seen their policies being adopted by the Democrats if Reoubllicas, I.E. Wallacce when Nixon launched his ‘Southern Strategy’ to woo Wallace voters in the run up to the 1972 election. Happened also to Perot when both Democrat President Bill Clinton and the congressional Republicans adopted policies to deal with Perot’s flagship policy – the federal budget deficit. By 2000, the federal budget was in surplus and the Reform Party’s vote had fallen from 19% in 1992 to 0.4% in 2000. BUT THEN AGAIN, aim of third parties may not be to win election but have significant effect on policy debate.

DO THIRD PARTIES PLAY A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT?

(1) In 2012 their combined popular vote was less than 2%

(2) 5 of 9 presidential elections between 1968 and 2000 a 3^rd party played a signidicant role. On three occasions (1968,, 1992 and 2000) it could be argued that a third party decided the outcome.

2000à Nader’s 2.7% for the Green Party almost certainly cost Al Gore the presidency. In Florida, where Bush won by just 537 votes,Nader polled nearly 100,000 votes. In New Hampshire where Bush won by just 7,000 votes, Nader had over 22,000. Exit poll data suggested that at least half of those Nader votes would have been Gore voters and the other half would have probably not voted at all had Nader not been on the ballot.

2012 à Independent Angus King won the open Senate seat in Maine. In Maryland Senate race independent candidate Rob Sobhani won 17% of vote. In Montana Senate race, Libertarian Party candidate Dan Cox won 6.5% when the margin between the two major party candidates was less than 4% points. In Nevada Senate Race, the independent American Party Candidate David Vanderbeek got just under 5% of the vote with only just over 1 percentage point separating the Democrat and Republican candidates.