A Survey of USA: ----- Political Parties and Elections

Prof. Niangen Huang

Political Parties and Elections

1. How did the two major parties come into being?

2. What images of one another do the two major parties hold?

3. What are the functions of the major parties when the general election comes?

4. How is the conduct of elections regulated in the U. S.?

5. What is the "winner-take-all" system?6. How is the president elected if no candidate

receives a majority of the electoral votes?

Political Parties and Elections

The United States has a two-party system. Only the two major parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, have held the presidency or won control of Congress.

Political Parties and Elections

In the early period of the establishment of the United States, two American bourgeois parties took shapes. One was called Federalists headed by

Alexander Hamilton; The other was called "Anti-Federalists"

headed by Thomas Jefferson. Until the time before the Civil War, the Democratic Party took its present name and the Republican Party was formed.

The two parties took office by turns and thus the two-Party system was formed.

Political Parties and Elections

In 1874, the American famous political cartoonist Thomas Nest drew a political picture with a donkey representing the Democratic Party and an elephant representing the Republican Party.

From then on, the donkey and the elephant became the symbols of the two parties. The Republican Party is also called the Grand Old Party (GOP).

Political Parties and Elections

The Democratic Party grew out of the "Anti-Federalists headed by Thomas Jefferson. Later Anti-Federalists were known as Republicans. In 1791 Jefferson changed the name into "Democratic-Republicans".

During the administration (1829-1837) of Andrew Jackson the "Democratic-Republican" was changed into "Democrat".

Political Parties and Elections

It was the leading party before the Civil War and Thomas Jefferson was usually thought the first Democratic President.

The old Democrats tended to support more state autonomy and object to a too powerful central government.

Many Americans believe that Jefferson contributed much to making American Government more democratic.

Political Parties and Elections

Most of the frontiersmen and small traders who objected to the dominant control by big manufacturers and merchants gathered under the flag of the democrats.

The Southern Planters also supported the democrats who were once against interference in slavery and foreign trade by the Federal Government.

During the American Civil War the Democratic Party split and the Southern Democrats gained the dominant position in the party.

Political Parties and Elections The Democratic Party, at least partly,

defended the slave system and was thus blamed for the rebellion against the Union.

Because of its infamous reputation in the war, the Democratic Party lost much of its influence on American political life and remained obscure for some years, but it did not perish.

Political Parties and Elections The Republican Party came into being in

1854. It was a party of the northern capitalists who opposed slavery from their own political and economic interests.

Abraham Lincoln was usually considered as the first Republican President.

After the Civil War the Republican Party demanded a harsh policy in dealing with the defeated South, thus incurring deep hatred among the planters.

Political Parties and Elections

The Republican Party’s influence in the South is weaker than the Democratic Party.

As the party of the Union, the' Republicans won the support not only of the financiers, industrialists, and merchants but also of large numbers of white and newly freed black male workers and farmers.

For fifty years after 1860 this Republican coalition won every presidential race, except for Grover Cleveland's victories in 1884 and 1892. After 1920, the GOP was again dominant.

Political Parties and Elections

Both parties are moderate in their policies and leadership, although the GOP has shifted to the right in recent years. Successful party leaders must be

group diplomats; to win presidential elections, they must find a middle ground among more or less hostile groups so that they can reach agreement on general principles.

Political Parties and Elections

Each party takes its extremist supporters more or less for granted and seeks out the voters in the middle.

This is one reason that college students on the far Left or far Right are impatient with the leadership of the major parties.

Both parties seem to such students to operate in the center and in face they do.

Political Parties and Elections

The major parties are more complex today than they were in the last century. Like the government itself, they have national, state, and local organizations, and each level has executive, legislative, and other elements.

Political Parties and Elections

Each party includes (1) a pyramid of national, state, and

local organizations; (2) inner circles of leaders holding or

seeking public office; (3) networks of leaders (sometimes

called "bosses") who tend the organizational machinery continually;

Political Parties and Elections

Each party includes (4) party activists who give money,

time, and enthusiasm to the party’s candidates;

(5) voters who identify strongly with the party, almost always support its nominees, and desert only as a result of such disasters as an unpopular war, a scandal like Watergate, or soaring inflation and unemployment of the late 1970s.

Political Parties and Elections

What is the difference between the two major parties?

Democrats and Republicans hold sharply contrasting images of one another.

Political Parties and Elections

In" the mid-1980s Democrats considered the GOP to be a tough guy party that took a hard line against communists and terrorists in foreign affairs and against criminals, welfare cheats, and "draft dodgers" at home.

Political Parties and Elections

Republicans considered the Democratic Party to be the party of “the losers, the lame, and the lazy”, the party that would not meet the nation's responsibilities in the world arena, the party that was too soft toward the communists abroad and too tolerant of fringe groups at home: feminists, peaceniks, gays, and "troublemakers" in general.

Political Parties and Elections

The two major parties also differ sharply on a number of general principles, such as the proper role of government and liberalism versus conservatism.

Most Democrats believe the federal government should help people in need of housing, medical care, and the like;

Hardly more than one-quarter of polled Republicans agree with that.

Political Parties and Elections

On some highly sensitive issues such as abortion voters do not divide sharply along party lines.

On many routine, day-to-day issues party rank-and-file differences are only moderate, though even a moderate difference may have significant policy results in Washington.

Political Parties and Elections

One can hardly discern sharp differences between the party memberships in their economic or social circumstances, with a few important exceptions.

Republicans may seem to some the "party of the rich", but there are high-income Democrats as well.

Of respondents earning over $ 50,000 a year 45 percent identified themselves as Republicans, 25 percent as Democrats.

Political Parties and Elections

Even if the Democrats call themselves the "party of the poor", 18 percent of those earning less than $10,000 a year considered themselves Republicans.

Of a total 1984 sample, white women divided between the Democratic and Republican parties, in that order, 37 percent to 27 percent.

Political Parties and Elections

Democrats did enjoy a decided advantage in certain categories: black females, 64 percent to 7 percent; black males, 63 percent to 3 percent; Catholics, 45 percent to 19 percent; skilled workers 40 percent to 20 percent.

But these Democrats do not necessarily vote Democratic; moreover, these percentages may quickly change.

Political Parties and Elections

Major parties in the United States are expected to perform many functions.

The first function is to nominate candidates for office and help them in their election campaigns. For this purpose, they have to find the most suitable candidates who are most likely to be accepted by the public. Then the parties will help them to collect the money needed, mobilize the party activists or hire people to help them with the propaganda, urge the public to vote for them and, at the same time, undermine the rivals by exposing their personal flaws or attacking their policies.

Political Parties and Elections

The party victorious in an election accepts responsibility for the conduct of government by placing its partisans in key administrative posts and by electing its members to the leadership posts in the legislature.

A defeated party becomes the "loyal opposition", responsible for detecting and exposing errors of those in power.

Political Parties and Elections

Parties also inform the public on issues of the day, leading personalities in public life, and the mechanics of government. Parties, especially at the local level, have served as a kind of employment agency through their control of patronage, Leaders have long used their influence over government officials to obtain jobs for friends and party workers. They defended this practice on the grounds that when a party wins an election, it should be able to put its won supporters into office in order to carry out the mandate of the election.

Political Parties and Elections

Other functions: helping leaders to bridge the separation of powers,

linking popular wishes and government action. But the parties have had only limited success in this role.

Political Parties and Elections

There are many kinds of elections in the United States. When an American votes in November in the

presidential election each leap year, he is at the same time voting in several other elections as well.

He is also voting for a Representative or a Senator.

At regular intervals he votes to choose the governor of his state, the mayor of his town or city and the holders of several local public offices.

Political Parties and Elections

The conduct of elections for Federal, state and local offices, and of voting on state and local issues, is regulated by state laws or, in some cities and counties, by local charters.

An important exception is that the Constitution prescribes the basis of representation in Congress and the manner of electing the President, and grants to Congress the right to regulate the times, places, and manner of electing Federal officers.

Political Parties and Elections

The election process in the United States is rather complex.

The Presidential election (four stages): The first stage: the major parties hold

conventions to choose candidates for President and Vice-President and to determine the party's platform.

Political Parties and Elections

The primary qualification of the party's presidential candidate is the ability to get elected, but the delegates from the states also consider a nominee's integrity, philosophy, and talent for leadership. The party's platform is a very general statement of the party's philosophy, goals, and position on issues of national and international concern.

Political Parties and Elections

The second stage is the campaigning stage. By early fall the presidential race is on. From

that time until the election day, voters are bombarded from all sides -- by radio, television, newspapers, and personal communications with political material.

There are whistle stop tours by train, by plane, and by car. The candidate delivers countless speeches and shakes countless hands. This is a very important stage in the general election.

Political Parties and Elections

The third stage is the time for voters to choose the list of presidential electors for the state.

The number of electors of each state is equal to that of its senators and

representatives in Congress. There are altogether 538 presidential

electors, 535 from the states and 3 from the District of Columbia (without seats in Congress).

Political Parties and Elections

The voters of a state can choose presidential electors only between the Democratic list and the Republican list, because of the American Two-party system.

Political Parties and Elections

If the candidates of a party for electors in a given state receive a majority of the total vote, then the party is entitled to have all the electoral votes for that state, even though a presidential candidate receives only slightly more than electoral votes of that state. This system is known as the winner-take-all principle.

Under the two-party system, if the states controlled by one party have more electoral votes than the states controlled by the other party, then the first party wins the election.

Political Parties and Elections

Therefore when the presidential electors are chosen out in November in the presidential election year, people have already known who is going to be the U. S. president in the next four years.

Political Parties and Elections

Although the result is already known, the electors still meet in their state capitals and cast their votes for President and vice-President on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. That is the fourth stage.

Political Parties and Elections

They vote very strictly. The Democratic electors vote for the

Democratic presidential candidates and the Republican electors vote for the Republican ones.

When the new Congress assembles in early January, the electoral votes are formally counted in a joint session of the two houses and the President of the Senate announces the "state of the vote". Then comes to the end of the general election.

Political Parties and Elections

If there are three or more candidates, none of them receives more than half of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives, by a majority vote, will choose for president one out of the three having the highest electoral votes.

In this case the voting is by states, each state counting as one vote.

Political Parties and Elections

• When none of the candidates for vice-president has a majority of the electoral votes, the Senate will choose one of them to be Vice-President by a majority vote.

• As a matter of fact, only the two major parties have the chance of winning the elections though all political parties can put up their candidates for president and vice-president.