chapter 6: elections presidential & congressional

Chapter 6: Elections

Presidential

&

Congressional

Who Becomes President?• One former general (Eisenhower)

• Five former Congressmen (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Bush)

• Three governors (Carter, Reagan, Clinton)

• Three with extensive federal government experience (Johnson, Nixon, Bush)

The Role of Character

• Presidential campaigns = intense public scrutiny

• Such issues can be a deterrent for running

( example: Colin Powell)

• Negative charges must be answered.

Character

• 1969 Ted Kennedy (D-MA) car accident

• 1970s Watergate

• 1987 Gary Hart/Donna Rice

• 1988 Joe Biden plagiarism scandal

• 1988 Both VP candidates and marijuana charges

• 1996 Congresswoman Molinari (R-NY) and marijuana

Do we care?

• 1996 Clinton extramarital affairs

• 1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal

• 2004 Bush drug use

Character

• What is the distinction between public and private?

• If a candidate uses personal life to advantage, is all up for public critique?

• President v. Pope

Presidential Character Types(Barber’s theory)

• One Baseline is activity-passivity: How much energy is expended on the job

• Second Baseline is positive-negative affect: Does the individual enjoy serving as President?

Barber’s Character patterns

1. Active-positive = active, enjoy job, seek results (Jefferson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Ford, carter, Bush I)

2. Active-negative = expend great effort with little emotional reward, see work as compulsory, seek to get and keep power

(Madison, Taft, Harding, Reagan)

Barber’s Character patterns

3. Passive-positive = relatively less energetic, seek affection, exude hope, want to be well-regarded (Adams, Wilson, Hoover, Johnson, Nixon)

4. Passive-negative = do little, enjoy it less, politicians because it is a duty (Washington, Coolidge, Eisenhower)

Presidential Selection

• Step One

1. Secure nomination

2. Iowa caucuses

3. New Hampshire primaries

4. Candidates usually announce by June 30 of the year before an election

Presidential Selection• Step Two

1. Following the primaries, the parties hold national conventions in the summer.

2. Ratify nomination

Presidential Selection

3. Convention enables delegates to organize for campaign

4. Approve platforms

5. Pep rally for the party

Presidential Selection

• Step Three

1. The General Election follows the conventions.

2. Campaign for votes3. Election day----the Tuesday following the

first Monday in November.4. The American people elect electors who

elect the president on our behalf

Presidential Selection

The Electoral College: indirect democracy

1) Each state has the same number of electoral votes as it has representatives and senators.

-- example, Delaware has two senators and one rep. so Delaware has three electoral votes

The Electoral College (cont)

2) Most states award electoral votes according to a unit rule. The candidate who wins a plurality of the popular votes in a state (that is, more popular votes than anyone else even if this total falls short of a 50 percent plus one majority) receives all of the state’s electoral votes.

The Electoral College (cont)

3) To win the presidency, a candidate needs a majority of the 538 electoral votes available nationwide---270 votes.

The Electoral College (cont)

4) If there are multiple candidates and no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the House of Representatives selects the president from the top three presidential electoral-vote recipients. In this case each state’s congressional delegation casts a single vote.

Potential problems with Electoral College

1. Electors are not bound by the Constitution nor the federal law to cast their votes as they are pledge. -- Faithless Elector (does not vote for the popular vote winner in state)

2. Possibility that a presidential election could go to the House (ex. 1824 J. Quincy Adams wins over Andrew Jackson)

Potential problems with Electoral College

3) The winner of the popular vote may not win the electoral vote.

• If least popular candidate wins states with lots of electoral votes.

4) Candidates campaign more in states with more electoral votes

Reform Proposals

1. Abolish electoral college and hold direct election

2. Abolish the unite rule so a state’s electoral votes would be awarded in proportion to the popular vote

3. Eliminate the faithless lector problem by legally binding all electors to vote together or award the votes automatically

Electoral-Vote-Rich StatesState Electoral Votes

CA 54 Total=243

NY 33

TX 32

FL 25

PA 23

IL 22

OH 21

Michigan 18

NJ 15

Types of Presidential Elections

1. Maintaining Election: the larger party (ie, membership level of party) maintains control of the presidency.

2. Deviating Elections: enough votes shift to the smaller party to give it the presidency but it remains the smaller party

Types of Presidential Elections

3) Reinstating election: the larger party, who lost Presidency in deviating election, returns to power

4) Realigning or critical election: the smaller party wins the presidency and enough voters change their party registrations so that this party becomes the new majority.

Congressional Elections

• United States House of Representatives

• Must be 25 years

• Citizen for at least 7 years

• Inhabitant of states that elect

• United States Senate

• 30 years old

• Citizen for at least nine years

• Inhabitant in the state that elects

Members of House & Senate(avg. member)

• Well-educated• Middle-aged• Middle- or upper-income• White• Male• Protestant• Banker, lawyer or businessman, former

military

Women in Congress

• There have been 235 women elected or appointed to the U.S. Congress. Jeannette Rankin, Republican from Montana, was the first woman elected to serve in Congress. On November 9, 1916, she was elected to the House of Representatives as Montana's Representative-at-Large to the 65th Congress; she served from 1917-1919.

Women in Congress• There are a record number of women

serving in the 109th Congress: 68 in the House and 14 in the Senate.

• There have been 202 women elected to the House of Representatives. Of these, 35 were elected to fill vacancies caused by their husbands' deaths.

• There have been 33 women elected to the Senate. Of these, 8 were elected to fill vacancies caused by their husbands' deaths. Seven women went from the House to the Senate.

Minorities in Congress

• See table 6.5• http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjec

ts/Minorities_vrd.htm• A record number of 43 African-American Members serve

in the 109th Congress; 42 in the House of Representatives, one in the Senate. There have been 117 black Members of Congress: 112 elected to the House and five to the Senate. The majority of the black Members (90) have been Democrats; the rest (27) have been Republicans. The first black Member of Congress was Hiram Rhodes Revels (R-MS), who served in the Senate in the 41st Congress (1870).

Name Recognition

• JC Watts (R-OK) – U of OK quarterback

• Fred Thompson (R-TN) – Law & Order

• Fred Grandy – The Love Boat

• Bill Bradley (D-NJ) – New York Knicks

• Sonny Bono (D-CA) – singer, Sonny and Cher

Incumbency

• Re-election rates high

• In last 50 years, re-election rates between 88 – 96%

• See Table 6.6

Incumbents have name recognition, credibility, access to media, access to money, easier to raise money.

Campaign Monies

• Avg. cost of 2004 Senate race--$10 million

($36 million spent in South Dakota, $407 million total)

• Avg. cost of 2004 House race—15% increase

• 40% contributions—individual

• 30% PACS

2004 Presidential Race

• Individual contributions to presidential candidates $617 million

• Public funds to presidential candidates and party conventions $207 million

• 527 spending $187 million• Convention host committee spending$139 million• DNC and RNC $92 million• PAC contributions to presidential candidates$4 million• Candidate self-financing $556,000• TOTAL$1.2 billion