Chapter 08 - Political Parties

The state of the political parties is a matter of constant concern for the media. Even when an

election is relatively far off, commentators obsessively assess the relative fortunes of the Republican

and Democratic parties. As election draw closer, polls concentrate on which political party individual

voters "belong" to or support. Prior to an election, a typical poll usually asks the following question:

"Do you consider yourself to be a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent?" For many years,

Americans were divided fairly evenly among these three choices. Today, about 40 percent of all

voters call themselves independents. Of course, independents are not represented as such in

Congress, and three-quarters or more of all independents lean toward either the Republicans or the

Democrats. Still, the power of independents might be enhanced if changes were made in the way

that we choose candidates.

After the elections are over, the media publish the election results. Among other things,

Americans learn which party will control the presidency and how many Democrats and Republicans

will be sitting in the House of Representatives and the Senate when the new Congress convenes.

Notice that earlier, when discussing party membership, we put the word belong in quotation

marks. We did this because hardly anyone actually "belongs" to a political party in the sense of

being a card-carrying member. To become a member of a political party, you do not have to pay

dues, pass an examination, or swear an oath of allegiance. Therefore, we can ask an obvious

question: If it takes almost nothing to be a member of a political party, what, then, is a political party?

WHAT IS A POLITICAL PARTY?

A political party might be formally defined as a group of political activists who organize to win

elections, operate the government, and determine public policy. Political parties are thus quite

different from interest groups, which seek to influence, not run, the government.

Political parties also differ from factions, which are smaller groups that are trying to obtain power

or benefits. Factions preceded the formation of political parties in American history, and the term is

still used to refer to groups within parties that follow a particular leader or share a regional

identification or an ideological viewpoint. For example, until fairly recently the Democratic Party was

seen as containing a southern faction that was much more conservative than the rest of the party.

Factions are subgroups within parties that may try to capture a nomination or get a position adopted

by the party. A key difference between factions and parties is that factions do not have a permanent

organization, whereas political parties do.

Political parties in the United States engage in a wide variety of activities. Through these

activities, parties perform a number of functions for the political system. These functions include the

following:

1. Recruiting candidates for public office. Because it is the goal of parties to gain control of

government, they must work to recruit candidates for all elective offices.

2. Organizing and running elections. Although elections are a government activity, political parties

actually organize voter-registration drives, recruit volunteers to work at the polls, provide much of the

campaign activity to stimulate interest in the election, and work to increase voter participation.

3. Presenting alternative policies to the electorate.

4. Accepting responsibility for operating the government. When a party elects the president or

governor - or the majority of the members of a legislative body - it accepts the responsibility for

running the government. This includes developing linkages among elected officials in the various

branches of government to gain support for policies and their implementation.

5. Acting as the organized opposition to the party in power. The "out" party, or the one that does not

control the government, is expected to articulate its own policies and oppose the winning party when

appropriate.

The major functions of American political parties are carried out by a small, relatively loose-knit

nucleus of party activists. This arrangement is quite different from the more highly structured, mass-

membership organization typical of many European parties. American parties concentrate on

winning elections rather than on signing up large numbers of deeply committed, dues-paying

members who believe passionately in the party's program.

A HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES

The United States has a two-party system, and that system has been around since before 1800.

The function and character of the political parties, as well as the emergence of the two-party system

itself, have much to do with the unique historical forces operating from this country's beginning as an

independent nation. Indeed, James Madison linked the emergence of political parties to the form of

government created by our Constitution.

Generally, we can divide the evolution of our nation's political parties into seven periods:

1. The formation of parties, from 1789 to 1816.

2. The era of one-party rule, from 1816 to 1828.

3. The period from Andrew Jackson's presidency to the eve of the Civil War, from 1828 to 1856.

4. The Civil War and post-Civil War period, from 1856 to 1896.

5. The Republican ascendancy and the progressive period, from 1896 to 1932.

6. The New Deal period, from 1932 to about 1968.

7. The modern period, from approximately 1968 to the present.

The Formative Years: Federalists and Anti-Federalists

The first partisan political division in the United States occurred before the adoption of the

Constitution. As you will recall from Chapter 2, the Federalists were those who pushed for the

adoption of the Constitution, whereas the Anti-Federalists were against ratification.

In September 1796, George Washington, who had served as president for two terms, decided not

to run again. In his farewell address, he made a somber assessment of the nation's future.

Washington felt that the country might be destroyed by the "baneful [harmful] effects of the spirit of

party." He viewed parties as a threat to both national unity and the concept of popular government.

Nevertheless, in the years after the ratification of the Constitution, Americans came to realize that

something more permanent than a faction would be necessary to identify candidates for office and

represent political differences among the people. The result was two political parties.

Federalists and Republicans. One party was the Federalists, which included John Adams, the

second president (1797-1801). The Federalists represented commercial interests such as

merchants and large planters. They supported a strong national government.

Thomas Jefferson led the other party, which came to be called the Republicans, or Jeffersonian

Republicans. (These Republicans should not be confused with the later Republican Party of

Abraham Lincoln.) Jefferson's Republicans represented artisans and farmers. They strongly

supported states' rights. In 1800, when Jefferson defeated Adams in the presidential contest, one of

the world's first peaceful transfers of power from one party to another was achieved.

The One-Party Interlude. From 1800 to 1820, a majority of U.S. voters regularly elected

Jeffersonian Republicans to the presidency and to Congress. By 1816, the Federalist Party had

nearly collapsed, and two-party competition did not really exist at the national level. Because there

was no real political opposition to the Jeffersonian Republicans and thus little political debate, the

administration of James Monroe (1817-1825) came to be known as the era of good feelings.

Democrats and Whigs

Organized two-party politics returned after 1824. Following the election of John Quincy Adams as

president, the Jeffersonian Republican Party split in two. The supporters of Adams called

themselves National Republicans. The supporters of Andrew Jackson, who defeated Adams in

1828, formed theDemocratic Party. Later, the National Republicans took the name Whig Party,

which had been a traditional name for British liberals. The Whigs stood for, among other things,

federal spending on "internal improvements," such as roads.

The Democrats opposed this policy. The Democrats, who were the stronger of the two parties,

favored personal liberty and opportunity for the "common man." It was understood implicitly that the

"common man" was a white man - hostility toward African Americans was an important force holding

the disparate Democratic groups together.

The Civil War Crisis

In the 1850s, hostility between the North and the South over the issue of slavery divided both

parties. The Whigs were the first to split in two. The Whigs had been the party of an active federal

government, but southerners had come to believe that "a government strong enough to build roads

is a government strong enough to free your slaves." The southern Whigs therefore ceased to exist

as an organized party. In 1854, the northern Whigs united with antislavery Democrats and members

of the radical antislavery Free Soil Party to found the modern Republican Party.

The Post-Civil War Period

After the Civil War, the Democratic Party was able to heal its divisions. Southern resentment of the

Republicans' role in defeating the South and fears that the federal government would intervene on

behalf of African Americans ensured that the Democrats would dominate the white South for the

next century. It was in this period that the Republicans adopted the nickname GOP, which stands

for "grand old party."

Cultural Politics. Northern Democrats feared a strong government for other reasons. The

Republicans thought that the government should promote business and economic growth, but many

Republicans also wanted to use the power of government to impose evangelical Protestant moral

values on society. Democrats opposed what they saw as culturally coercive measures. Many

Republicans wanted to limit or even prohibit the sale of alcohol. They favored the establishment of

public schools - with a Protestant curriculum. As a result, Catholics were strongly Democratic.

The Triumph of the Republicans. In this period, the parties were very evenly matched in strength.

In the 1890s, however, the Republicans gained a decisive edge. In that decade, the Populist

movement emerged in the West and South to champion the interests of small farmers, who were

often greatly in debt. Populists supported inflation, which benefited debtors by reducing the real

value of outstanding debts. In 1896, when William Jennings Bryan became the Democratic

candidate for president, the Democrats embraced populism.

As it turned out, the few western farmers who were drawn to the Democrats by this step were

greatly outnumbered by urban working-class voters who believed that inflation would reduce the

purchasing power of their paychecks and who therefore became Republicans. William McKinley, the

Republican candidate, was elected with a solid majority of the votes. From 1896 until 1932, the

GOP was successful at presenting itself as the party that knew how to manage the economy.

The Progressive Interlude

In the early 1900s, a spirit of political reform arose in both major parties. Called progressivism, this

spirit was compounded of a fear of the growing power of large corporations and a belief that honest,

impartial government could regulate the economy effectively. In 1912, the Republican Party

temporarily split as former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt campaigned for the presidency

on a third-party Progressive ticket. The Republican split permitted the election of Woodrow Wilson,

the Democratic candidate, along with a Democratic Congress.

Like Roosevelt, Wilson considered himself a progressive, although he and Roosevelt did not

agree on how progressivism ought to be implemented. Wilson's progressivism marked the

beginning of a radical change in Democratic policies. Dating back to its very foundation, the

Democratic Party had been the party of limited government. Under Wilson, the Democrats became

for the first time at least as receptive as the Republicans to government action in the economy.

(Wilson's progressivism did not extend to race relations - for African Americans, the Wilson

administration was something of a disaster.)

The New Deal Era

The Republican ascendancy resumed after Wilson left office. It ended with the election of 1932, in

the depths of the Great Depression. Republican Herbert Hoover was president when the

Depression began in 1929. Although Hoover took some measures to fight the Depression, they fell

far short of what the public demanded. Significantly, Hoover opposed federal relief for the

unemployed and the destitute. In 1932, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president by

an overwhelming margin. As with the election of 1896, the vote in 1932 constituted a major political

realignment.

The Great Depression shattered the working-class belief in Republican economic competence.

Under Roosevelt, the Democrats began to make major interventions in the economy in an attempt to

combat the Depression and to relieve the suffering of the unemployed. Roosevelt's New Deal relief

programs were open to all citizens, both black and white. As a result, African Americans began to

support the Democratic Party in large numbers - a development that would have stunned any

American politician of the 1800s.

Roosevelt's political coalition was broad enough to establish the Democrats as the new majority

party, in place of the GOP. In the 1950s, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, the leading U.S.

general during World War II, won two terms as president. Otherwise, with minor interruptions, the

Democratic ascendancy lasted until about 1968.

An Era of Divided Government

The New Deal coalition managed the unlikely feat of including both African Americans and whites

who were hostile to African American advancement. This balancing act came to an end in the

1960s, a decade that was marked by the civil rights movement, by several years of "race riots" in

major cities, and by increasingly heated protests against the Vietnam War (1965-1975). For many

economically moderate, socially conservative voters, especially in the South, social issues had

become more important than economic ones, and these individuals left the Democratic Party. These

voters outnumbered the new voters who joined the Democrats - newly enfranchised African

Americans and former liberal Republicans in New England and the upper Midwest.

The Parties in Balance. The result, after 1968, was a slow-motion realignment that left the nation

almost evenly divided in politics. In presidential elections, the Republicans had more success than

the Democrats. Until the 1990s, Congress remained Democratic, but official party labels can be

misleading. Some of the Democrats were southern conservatives who normally voted with the

Republicans on issues. As these conservative Democrats retired, they were largely replaced by

Republicans. In 1994, Republicans were able to take control of both the House and the Senate for

the first time in many years.

Red State, Blue State. Nothing demonstrated the nation's close political divisions more clearly

than the 2000 presidential elections. Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore won the popular

vote, but lost the electoral college by a narrow margin to Republican George W. Bush. The

closeness of the vote in the electoral college led the press to repeatedly publish the map of the

results state by state. Commentators discussed at length the supposed differences between the

Republican "red states" and the Democratic "blue states."

An interesting characteristic of the red state-blue state division is that it is an almost exact reversal

of the presidential elections of 1896. Except for the state of Washington, every state that supported

Democrat William Jennings Bryan in 1896 supported Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and

2004. This reversal parallels the transformation of the Democrats from an anti-civil rights to a pro-

civil rights party and from a party that supported limited government to a party that favors expanded

positive government action.

A Series of "Wave" Elections

Not only was the presidential election of 2000 very close, but the partisan balance in the U.S.

Congress was also very close in the opening years of the twenty-first century. It is true that from

1995 until the elections of 2006, the Republicans had majorities in the House of Representatives and

- except for a brief interval - in the Senate. The margin of control in the Senate, however, was

frequently no more than a single vote. GOP margins in the House were also very narrow. In those

years, both parties had positive images among a majority of poll respondents. Both parties enjoyed

approval levels of just over 50 percent.

From time to time, voters demonstrate that they are relatively dissatisfied with the performance of

one or another of the major parties. This dissatisfaction can produce a "wave" of support for the

other party. Unlike realignments, the effects of wave elections are temporary. The first decade of

the twenty-first century was marked by a series of wave elections in which the voters punished first

one party and then the other. In the end, the major parties were again closely tied in levels of

support, but both had lost a substantial amount of popularity.

Wave Elections Sweep out the Republicans. By 2006, the Republicans were in some difficulty.

As the war in Iraq dragged on, ever-larger numbers of voters came to believe that U.S. intervention

had been a mistake. In the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats took control of the U.S. House

and Senate in a wave election. President Bush's approval ratings were among the lowest ever

recorded for a president.

In December 2007, the nation's economy entered a recession - not a good sign for the party that

controls the presidency. In September 2008, a worldwide financial panic turned what had been a

modest recession into the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The collapse in economic activity was soon dubbed the "Great Recession." The political

consequences of such a development on the eve of a presidential election were inevitable.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was elected with one of the largest margins in

recent years - a 7.3 percentage-point margin over Republican candidate John McCain. The

Democrats also picked up eight seats in the U.S. Senate and twenty-one seats in the House, giving

them commanding majorities in both chambers. From July 2009 through January 2010, the

Democrats controlled sixty Senate seats, enough to pass legislation in the face of united Republican

opposition.

Democrats in Trouble. By 2010, the Republicans had regained the support they lost during the

previous five years. They did not achieve this feat by improving their popularity among the voters,

however. Instead, it was the Democrats who lost popularity. Both parties were now polling in the 40

percent range. In the midterm elections of 2010, the Republicans benefited from one of the

strongest wave elections in decades. They added a net total of sixty-three seats in the House,

gaining control of that body. The Democrats lost six seats in the Senate, but retained control. The

Republicans also scored heavily in state-level elections.

What happened to the Democrats? One explanation is that many independents now blamed the

Democrats for persistent unemployment. Not until 2010 did the economy actually begin to create

more jobs than had been lost, and the recovery was very weak through 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Many observers, however, argued that independents turned away from the Democrats in the

belief that the party was expanding the scope of the federal government to an unacceptable degree.

The approximately $800 billion stimulus package of February 2009, while initially popular, was

eventually seen by many as evidence of government expansion. The Democratic health-care reform

package was also crucial in fostering the perception of the party as being committed to "big

government." By passing this legislation, the Democrats attained a goal dating back half a century.

In the public mind, however, health care had little or no relation to the economic crisis.

Republican Overreach. The incoming class of Republican House members in 2011 included a

large contingent loyal to the Tea Party movement, and many incumbent members aligned

themselves with the movement as well. These legislators pledged to oppose any compromise with

the Democrats - even though the Democratic Party still controlled the Senate and the presidency.

Republican Speaker John Boehner was hard-pressed to maintain unity in his party on legislative

matters.

On issues of principle, however, House Republicans easily united behind an aggressive

conservative agenda, expressed in the proposals of Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan of

Wisconsin. Ryan's bills passed the House on near-party-line votes in 2011 and 2012 but died in the

Senate. Republicans contended that the plans would reduce the federal budget deficit by making

enormous cuts to domestic spending. Democrats countered that the cuts would do nothing about

the deficit because the bills also contained large tax cuts, and that the plans would do serious

damage to valued programs such as Medicare.

The uncompromising spirit of the Republicans received its greatest test in June and July of 2011,

when House Republicans refused to lift the nation's debt ceiling unless the Democrats accepted

large cuts in spending. President Obama and Speaker Boehner reached a compromise at the end

of July, but the threat at the nation's ability to meet its obligations severely damaged the popularity of

everyone concerned - especially the House Republicans.

The 2012 Republican presidential primaries, in which candidates fought over who would be seen

as the most conservative, also gave many people - women in particular - the impression that the

GOP stood for policies well to the right of what the average voter could support. The Republicans

therefore lost much of the advantage they gained in the 2010 elections. Yet the Democrats were not

out of the woods either. Pundits expected very close contests in the 2012 elections - for the

presidency and also for control of the U.S. House and Senate.

THE TWO MAJOR U.S. PARTIES TODAY

It is sometimes claimed that the major American political parties are like Tweedledee and

Tweedledum, the twins in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. Such claims are especially

popular among supporters of radical third parties, such as the Green Party and the Libertarian

Party. Third-party advocates have an interest in claiming that there is no difference between the two

major parties. Such allegations cannot disguise the fact that the major parties do have very

substantial differences, both in their policies and in their constituents.

The Parties' Core Constituents

You learned in Chapter 6 how demographic factors affect support for the two parties. Democrats

receive disproportionate support not only from the least well-educated voters but also from

individuals with advanced degrees. Businesspersons are much more likely to vote Republican than

are labor union members. The Jewish electorate is heavily Democratic; white evangelical Christians

who are regular churchgoers tend to be Republicans. Hispanics are strongly Democratic, and

African Americans are overwhelmingly so. City dwellers tend to be Democrats, and rural people

tend to be Republicans. Such tendencies represent the influences of economic interests and

cultural values, which are often in conflict with each other.

Core Economic Interests

A coalition of the labor movement and various racial and ethnic minorities has been the core of

Democratic Party support since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The social programs and

increased government intervention in the economy that made up Roosevelt's New Deal were

intended to ease the pressure of economic hard times on these groups. This goal remains important

for many Democrats today. In general, Democratic identifiers are more likely to approve of social-

welfare spending, to support government regulation of business, and to endorse measures to

improve the situation of minorities. Republicans are more supportive of the private marketplace and

believe more strongly in an ethic of self-reliance and limited government.

During the administrations of Democrat Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Republican George W. Bush

(2001-2009), it seemed for several years that the major parties had come to a consensus on the size

of government. To be sure, the GOP continued to accuse Democrats of being the party of "big

government." It was Clinton, however, who led the effort to reform the welfare system, cutting

benefits. Bush, in contrast, added drug coverage to the Medicare program and increased federal

support for public schools through the No Child Left Behind law.

With the arrival of the Obama administration, however, the parties appeared to revert to their

traditional positions on the size of government. The question remains as to whether the Republicans

will maintain antigovernment now that they lost the presidency again and do not control the Senate.

The rise of the Tea Party movement suggests that they might.

Cultural Politics

In recent years, cultural values have played a significant role in defining the beliefs of the two major

parties. For example, in 1987 Democrats were almost as likely to favor stricter abortion laws (40

percent) as Republicans were (48 percent). Today, Republicans are twice as likely to favor stricter

abortion laws (50 percent to 25 percent).

Cultural Politics and Socioeconomic Status. Some years ago, Thomas Frank reported seeing the

following bumper sticker at a gun show in Kansas City: "A working person voting for the Democrats

is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders." (Colonel Sanders is the iconic founder of KFC, a chain

of fried-chicken restaurants.) In light of the economic traditions of the two parties, this seems to be

an odd statement. In fact, the sticker is an exact reversal of an earlier one directed against the

Republicans.

You can make sense of such a sentiment by remembering what you learned in Chapter 6 -

although economic conservatism is associated with higher incomes, social conservatism is relatively

more common among lower-income groups. The individual who displayed the bumper sticker,

therefore, was in effect claiming that cultural concerns - in this example, presumably the right to own

handguns - were far more important than economic ones. Frank argues that despite Republican

control of both the White House and Congress during much of the George W. Bush administration,

cultural conservatives continued to view themselves as embattled "ordinary Americans" under threat

from a liberal, cosmopolitan elite. Of course, the election of Barack Obama and a strongly

Democratic Congress in 2008 certainly magnified such fears. One result was the Tea Party

movement.

The Regional Factor in Cultural Politics. Conventionally, some parts of the country are viewed as

culturally liberal, and others as culturally conservative. On a regional basis, cultural liberalism (as

opposed to economic liberalism) may be associated with economic dynamism. The San Francisco

Bay Area can serve as an example. The greater Bay Area contains Silicon Valley, the heart of the

high-tech industry. It has the highest per capita personal income of any metropolitan area in

America. It also is one of the most liberal regions of the country. San Francisco liberalism is largely

cultural - one sign of this liberalism is that the city has been called the "capital" of gay America.

To further illustrate this point, we can compare the political preferences of relatively wealthy states

with those of relatively poor ones. Of the fifteen states with the highest per capita personal incomes

in 2008, fourteen voted for Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential elections of that year. Of the

fifteen with the lowest per capita incomes in 2008, thirteen voted for Republican John McCain.

Given these data, it seems hard to believe that upper-income voters really are more Republican

than lower-income ones. Still, within any given state or region, upscale voters are more likely to be

Republican regardless of whether the area as a whole leans Democratic, or Republican. States that

vote Democratic are often northern states that contain large cities. At least part of this reverse-

income effect may simply be that urban areas are more prosperous, culturally liberal, and

Democratic than the countryside, and that the North is more prosperous, culturally liberal, and

Democratic than the South.

Cultural Divisions within the Democratic Party. The extremely close and hard-fought Democratic

presidential primary contest between Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008

exposed a series of cultural divisions within the Democratic Party that political scientists have been

aware of for some time. Of course, African Americans supported Obama strongly, and women

tended to favor Clinton. Beyond these obvious patterns, Clinton appeared to do well among older

people, white working-class voters, and Latinos, while Obama received more support from the young

and from better-educated, upscale Democrats.

Yet the differences between the two candidates on policy issues were actually very small.

Likewise, there was no evidence that Obama fans and Clinton backers held significantly different

positions on the issues - the two groups may have been somewhat different kinds of people, but they

appeared to have similar politics.

To a degree, Obama's narrow victory reflects changes in the Democrats' core constituencies.

Traditionally, the candidate with a stronger working-class appeal could expect to win over the largest

number of Democrats. As we have noted, however, in recent years well-educated, professional

individuals have shifted to the Democrats, even as voters without college degrees have grown more

Republican. By 2008, Obama's educated supporters made up a larger share of the Democratic

Party than in years past. Still, Obama could not have won without strong support from African

Americans of all classes.

Cultural Divisions among the Republicans. One wing of the Republican Party, often called the

Religious Right, is energized by conservative religious beliefs. These conservatives are often

evangelical Protestants but may also be Catholics, Mormons, or adherents of other faiths. For these

voters, moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage are key. The other wing of the GOP is more

oriented toward economic issues and business concerns. These voters are often small-business

owners or have some other connection to commercial enterprise. Such voters oppose high tax rates

and are concerned about government regulations that interfere with the conduct of business.

Of course, many Republicans are pro-business and also support the Religious Right. Some

economically oriented Republicans, however, are strongly libertarian and dislike government

regulation of social issues as well as economic ones. Likewise, some on the Religious Right are not

particularly committed to the free market ethos of the party's business wing and are willing to support

a variety of government interventions in the economy.

Successful Republican presidential candidates appeal to both wings of the party. Former

Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president in 2012, initially found

it hard to appeal to the Religious Right. Romney's moderate positions on a number of issues in the

past had led many to doubt his conservatism (which is actually quite strong). In the end, however,

Romney was able to unite his party behind him. Both business-oriented Republicans and the

Religious Right were solid in their opposition to the Obama administration.

Moderate and Radical Republicans. During the Obama administration, a new fault line appeared

to be opening up in the Republican Party - between moderate conservatives and more radical ones.

The more radical wing was often highly critical of the existing Republican Party leadership, accusing

it of being little better than the Democrats. The Tea Party movement was strongly identified with this

point of view. Together with groups such as the Club for Growth, Tea Party activists sought to purge

the Republicans of the so-called RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). Between the newly resurgent

political right and the apparent legislative overreach of the Democrats during 2009 and 2010, it may

be worth asking whether the two major parties are becoming too radical.

THE THREE FACES OF A PARTY

Although American parties are known by a single name and, in the public mind, have a common

historical identity, each party really has three major components. The first component is the party-

in-the-electorate. This phrase refers to all those individuals who claim an attachment to the political

party. They need not participate in election campaigns. Rather, the party-in-the-electorate is the

large number of Americans who feel some loyalty to the party or who use partisanship as a cue to

decide who will earn their vote. Party membership is not really a rational choice. Rather, it is an

emotional tie somewhat analogous to identifying with a region or a baseball team. Although

individuals may hold a deep loyalty to or identification with a political party, there is no need for

members in the party-of-the-electorate to speak out publicly, to contribute to campaigns, or to vote

all Republican or all Democratic. Nevertheless, the party leaders pay close attention to their

members in the electorate.

The second component, the party organization, provides the structural framework for the political

party by recruiting volunteers to become party leaders, identifying potential candidates, and

organizing caucuses, conventions, and election campaigns for its candidates, as will be discussed in

more detail shortly. It is the party organization and its active workers that keep the party functioning

between elections, as well as ensure that the party puts forth electable candidates and clear

positions in the elections. If the party-in-the-electorate declines in numbers and loyalty, the party

organization must try to find a strategy to rebuild the grassroots following.

The party-in-government is the third component of American political parties. The party-in-

government consists of those elected and appointed officials who identify with a political party.

Generally, elected officials do not also hold official party positions within the formal organization,

although they often have the informal power to appoint party executives.

Party Organization

Each of the American political parties is often seen as having a pyramid-shaped organization, with

the national chairperson and committee at the top and the local precinct chairperson at the bottom.

This structure, however, does not accurately reflect the relative power of the individual components

of the party organization. If it did, the national chairperson of the Democratic Party or the

Republican Party, along with the national committee, could simply dictate how the organization was

to be run, just as if it were ExxonMobil or Apple. In reality, the political parties have a confederal

structure, in which each unit has significant autonomy and is linked only loosely to the other units.

The National Party Organization. Each party has a national organization, the most conspicuous

part of which is the national convention, held every four years. The convention is used to officially

nominate the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. In addition, the party platform is

developed at the national convention. The platform sets forth the party's position on the issues and

makes promises to initiate certain policies if the party wins the presidency.

After the convention, the platform sometimes is neglected or ignored when party candidates

disagree with it. Because candidates are trying to win votes from a wide spectrum of voters, it can

be counterproductive to emphasize the fairly narrow and sometimes controversial goals set forth in

the platform. Still, once elected, the parties do try to carry out platform promises, and many of the

promises eventually become law. Of course, some general goals, such as economic prosperity, are

included in the platform of both parties.

Convention Delegates. The party convention provides the most striking illustration of the

difference between the ordinary members of a party, or party identifiers, and party activists. As a

series of studies by the New York Times shows, delegates to the national party conventions are

different from ordinary party identifiers. Delegates to the Democratic National Convention often take

stands on issues that are far more liberal than the positions of ordinary Democratic voters.

Delegates to the Republican National Convention are often more conservative than ordinary

Republicans. Why does this happen? In part, it is because a person, to become a delegate, must

be appointed by party leaders or gather votes in a primary election from party members who care

enough to vote in a primary.

In addition, the primaries generally pit presidential candidates against one another on intraparty

issues. Competition within each party tends to pull candidates away from the center, and delegates

even more so. Often, the most important activity for the convention is making peace among the

delegates who support different candidates and helping them accept a party platform that will appeal

to the general electorate.

The National Committee. At the national convention, each of the parties formally chooses a

national standing committee, elected by the individual state parties. This national

committee directs and coordinates party activities during the following four years.

One of the jobs of the national committee is to ratify the presidential nominee's choice of a

national chairperson, who in principle acts as the spokesperson for the party. The national

chairperson and the national committee plan the next campaign and the next convention, obtain

financial contributions, and publicize the national party.

Picking a National Chairperson. In general, the party's presidential candidate chooses the

national chairperson. (If that candidate loses, however, the chairperson is often changed.) The

national chairperson performs such jobs as establishing a national party headquarters, raising

campaign funds and distributing them to state parties and to candidates, and appearing in the media

as a party spokesperson. The national chairperson, along with the national committee, attempts to

maintain some sort of communication among the different levels of the party organization. The fact,

though, is that the real strength and power of the party are at the state level.

The State Party Organization. Because every state is unique, it is impossible to describe what an

"average" state political party is like. Nonetheless, state parties have several organizational features

in common. Each state party has a chairperson, a committee, and a number of local organizations.

In theory, the role of the state central committee - the principal organized structure of each political

party within each state - is similar in the various states. The committee has responsibility for

carrying out the policy decisions of the party's state convention.

Also, like the national committee, the state central committee has control over the use of party

campaign funds during political campaigns. Usually, the state central committee has little, if any,

influence on party candidates once they are elected.

Local Party Machinery: The Grassroots. The lowest layer of party machinery is the local

organization, supported by district leaders, precinct or ward captains, and party workers.

Patronage and City Machines. In the 1800s, the institution of patronage - the rewarding of the

faithful with government jobs or contracts - held the local organization together. For immigrants and

the poor, the political machine often furnished important services and protections. The big-city

machine was the archetypal example. The last big-city political machine to exercise substantial

power was run by Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley (1955-1978), who was also an important figure in

national Democratic politics. City machines are now dead, mostly because their function of

providing social services (and reaping the reward of votes) has been taken over by state and

national agencies.

Local Party Organizations Today. Local political organizations are still able to provide the foot

soldiers of politics - individuals who pass out literature and get out the vote on Election Day, which

can be crucial in local elections. In many regions, local Democratic and Republican organizations

still exercise some patronage, such as awarding courthouse jobs, contracts for street repair, and

other lucrative construction contracts. The constitutionality of awarding - or not awarding - contracts

on the basis of political affiliation has been subject to challenge, however. The Supreme Court has

ruled that firing or failing to hire individuals because of their political affiliation is an infringement of

the employees' First Amendment rights to free expression. Local party organizations are also the

most important vehicles for recruiting young adults into political work, because political involvement

at the local level offers activists many opportunities to gain experience.

The Party-in-Government

After the election is over and the winners are announced, the focus of party activity shifts from

getting out the vote to organizing and controlling the government. Party membership plays an

important role in the day-to-day operations of Congress, with partisanship determining everything

from office space to committee assignments and power on Capitol Hill. For the president, the

political party furnishes a pool of qualified applicants for political appointments to run the

government. (Although it is uncommon to do so, presidents can and occasionally do appoint

executive personnel, such as cabinet members, from the opposition party.) There are not as many

of these appointed positions as presidents might like, and presidential power is limited by the

permanent bureaucracy. Judicial appointments also offer a great opportunity to the winning party.

For the most part, presidents are likely to appoint federal judges from their own party.

Divided Government. All of these party appointments suggest that the winning political party,

whether at the national, state, or local level, has a great deal of control in the American system. The

degree of control that a winning party can actually exercise, however, depends on several factors.

At the national level, an important factor is whether the party controls both the executive and the

legislative branches of government. If it does, the party leadership in Congress may be reluctant to

exercise congressional checks on presidential powers. If Congress cooperates in implementing

legislation approved by the president, the president, in turn, will not feel it necessary to exercise the

veto power. Certainly, this situation existed while the Republicans controlled both the legislative and

executive branches of government from January 2003 to January 2007, and when the Democrats

controlled the government in the two years following Obama's inauguration in January 2009.

The winning party has less control over the government when the government is divided.

A divided government is one in which the executive and the legislative branches are controlled by

different parties. After the 2010 elections, this was the situation facing the nation. Even though the

Democrats still controlled the presidency and the U.S. Senate, they could not pass legislation unless

it was also supported by Republicans in the House. Although House Republicans could not pass

legislation either, they energetically sought to use what bargaining power they had.

The Limits of Party Unity. There are other ways in which the power of the parties is limited.

Consider how major laws are passed in Congress. Traditionally, legislation was rarely passed by a

vote strictly along party lines. Although most Democrats might oppose a bill, for example, some

Democrats would vote for it. Their votes, combined with the votes of Republicans, were often

enough to pass the bill. Similarly, support from some Republicans enabled bills sponsored by the

Democrats to pass.

One reason that the political parties traditionally found it so hard to rally all of their members in

Congress to vote along party lines was that candidates who won most elections largely did so on

their own, without significant help from a political party. A candidate generally gained a nomination

through her or his own hard work and personal political organization. In many other countries, most

candidates are selected by the party organization, not by primary elections. This means, though,

that in the United States the parties have very little control over the candidates who run under the

party labels. In fact, a candidate could run as a Republican, for example, and advocate beliefs

repugnant to the national party, such as racism. No one in the Republican Party organization could

stop this person from being nominated or even elected.

Party Polarization. In recent years, it has become increasingly difficult for legislators in either

party to obtain support for important legislation from members of the other party. More and more,

voting takes place strictly along party lines. Discipline within the party caucuses has never been

greater. The Republicans, who took the lead in the development of party unity, presented a united

front throughout much of the 1990s. By 2009, the Democrats had largely caught up, although even

then the party's congressional delegation contained a number of dissidents, notably the conservative

Blue Dog caucus in the U.S. House. One reason for party-line voting is that political overlap

between the two parties has essentially vanished. Political scientists calculated that in 2009, the

most conservative Blue Dog Democrat in the House was still more liberal than the most liberal

Republican - if a term such as liberal Republican still makes any sense.

For much of the twentieth century, however, liberal Republicans were a real presence in the

nation's politics, and so were extremely conservative Democrats. Millions of Americans formed their

party attachments not through ideology, but on the basis of tradition and sentiment. Old-stock New

England Yankees were Republicans because New England Yankees had always been

Republicans. White southerners were, by and large, Democrats because that party affiliation was

part of what it meant to be a southerner. Ideologically, however, most of the southerners were well

to the right of the average Yankee. Likewise, Yankee Republicans were, on average, more liberal

than most southern Democrats. Today, liberal Yankees are usually Democrats, and conservative

southerners are Republicans.

Blocking Tactics. One effect of the new polarization is that interpersonal relationships between

members of the parties have deteriorated. True, some senators and representatives are able to

maintain friendships across party lines, but such friendships have become less common. A second

effect is the growing tactic of blocking bills to make the other party appear ineffective, without any

attempt to reach a compromise. Republicans pioneered this tactic in the 1990s under House

Speaker Newt Gingrich in an attempt to embarrass Democratic president Bill Clinton, and they tried

it again in 2010 and 2011, with varying degrees of success.

Democrats contended that the tactic demonstrated Republican irresponsibility. It is also possible

to propose - rather than oppose - legislation for political ends, however. For example, in 2010 the

Democrats introduced an immigration reform package, in the apparent hopes that it would mobilize

their support among Latino voters, even though it had little chance of passing or even coming to a

vote.

WHY HAS THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM ENDURED?

There are several reasons why two major parties have dominated the political landscape in the

United States for almost two centuries. These reasons have to do with (1) the historical foundations

of the system, (2) political socialization and practical considerations, (3) the winner-take-all electoral

system, and (4) state and federal laws favoring the two-party system.

The Historical Foundations of the Two-Party System

As we have seen, at many times in American history one preeminent issue or dispute has divided

the nation politically. In the beginning, Americans were at odds over ratifying the Constitution. After

the Constitution went into effect, the power of the federal government became the major national

issue. Thereafter, the dispute over slavery divided the nation, North versus South. At times - for

example, in the North after the Civil War - cultural differences have been important, with advocates

of government-sponsored morality (such as banning alcoholic beverages) pitted against advocates

of personal liberty.

During much of the twentieth century, economic differences were preeminent. In the New Deal

period, the Democrats became known as the party of the working class, while the Republicans

became known as the party of the middle class and upper classes and commercial interests. In

situations like these, when politics is based on an argument between two opposing points of view,

advocates of each viewpoint can mobilize most effectively by forming a single, unified party. The

result is a two-party system. When such a system has been in existence for almost two centuries, it

becomes difficult to imagine an alternative.

Political Socialization and Practical Considerations

Given that the majority of Americans identify with one of the two major political parties, it is not

surprising that most children learn at a fairly young age to think of themselves as either Democrats

or Republicans. This generates a built-in mechanism to perpetuate a two-party system. Also, most

politically oriented people who aspire to work for change consider that the only realistic way to

capture political power in this country is to be either a Republican or a Democrat.

The Winner-Take-All Electoral System

At almost every level of government in the United States, the outcome of elections is based on

theplurality, winner-take-all principle. In a plurality system, the winner is the person who obtains the

most votes, even if that person does not receive a majority (more than 50 percent) of the votes.

Whoever gets the most votes gets everything. Most legislators in the United States are elected from

single-member districts in which only one person represents the constituency, and the candidate

who finishes second in such an election receives nothing for the effort.

Presidential Voting. The winner-take-all system also operates in the election of the U.S.

president. Recall that the voters in each state do not vote for a president directly but vote

for electoral college delegates who are committed to the various presidential candidates. These

delegates are called electors.

In all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), if a presidential candidate wins a plurality in the state,

then all of the state's electoral votes go to that candidate. This is known as the unit rule. For

example, suppose that the electors pledged to a particular presidential candidate receive a plurality

of 40 percent of the votes in a state. That presidential candidate will receive all of that state's votes

in the electoral college. Minor parties have a difficult time competing under such a system. Because

voters know that minor parties cannot win any electoral votes, they often will not vote for minor-party

candidates, even if the candidates are in tune with them ideologically.

Popular Election of the Governors and the President. In most of Europe, the chief executive

(usually called the prime minister) is elected by the legislature, or parliament. If the parliament

contains three or more parties, as is usually the situation, two or more of the parties can join together

in a coalition to choose the prime minister and the other leaders of government. In the United

States, however, the people elect the president and the governors of all fifty states. There is no

opportunity for two or more parties to negotiate a coalition. Here, too, the winner-take-all principle

discriminates powerfully against any third party.

Proportional Representation. Many other nations use a system of proportional representation. If,

during the national election, party X obtains 12 percent of the vote, party Y gets 43 percent of the

vote, and party Z gets the remaining 45 percent of the vote, then party X gets 12 percent of the seats

in the legislature, party Y gets 43 percent of the seats, and party Z gets 45 percent of the seats.

Some nations implement proportional representation by creating districts that elect multiple

representatives. Such a system, however, can require the creation of districts that are

uncomfortably large. The nation of Israel, for example, is a single, large electoral district. Every

party runs nationwide.

An alternate system is to let voters choose both a local representative and a preferred party.

Germany uses such a system to elect members of the Bundestag, its parliament. Suppose that the

Green Party wins the support of 10 percent of the voters in a particular German state, but only a few

Greens win in their local districts. If this happens, enough Greens will be added from the party's

statewide list of candidates to boost its Bundestag delegation to 10 percent of the total from that

state. Regardless of how proportional representation is implemented, the system gives smaller

parties a greater incentive to organize than in the United States.

State and Federal Laws Favoring the Two Parties

Many state and federal election laws offer a clear advantage to the two major parties. In some

states, the established major parties need to gather fewer signatures to place their candidates on the

ballot than minor parties or independent candidates do. The criterion for determining how many

signatures will be required is often based on the total party vote in the last general election, thus

penalizing a new political party that did not compete in that election.

At the national level, minor parties face different obstacles. All of the rules and procedures of both

houses of Congress divide committee seats, staff members, and other privileges on the basis of

party membership. A legislator who is elected on a minor-party ticket, such as the Conservative

Party of New York, must choose to be counted with one of the major parties to obtain a committee

assignment.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules for campaign financing also place restrictions on

minor-party candidates. Such candidates are not eligible for federal matching funds in either the

primary or the general election. In the 1980 elections, John Anderson, running for president as an

independent, sued the FEC for campaign funds. The commission finally agreed to repay part of his

campaign costs after the election in proportion to the votes he received. Giving funds to a candidate

when the campaign is over is, of course, much less helpful than providing funds while the campaign

is still underway.

THE ROLE OF MINOR PARTIES IN U.S. POLITICS

For the reasons just discussed, minor parties have a difficult, if not impossible, time competing within

the American two-party political system. Nonetheless, minor parties have played an important role

in our political life. Parties other than the Republicans or Democrats are usually called third

parties. (Technically, of course, there could be fourth, fifth, or sixth parties as well, but we use the

term third party because it has endured.) Third parties can come into existence in a number of

ways. They may be founded from scratch by individuals or groups who are committed to a particular

interest, issue, or ideology. They can split off from one of the major parties when a group becomes

dissatisfied with the major party's policies. Finally, they can be organized around a particular

charismatic leader and serve as that person's vehicle for contesting elections.

Frequently, third parties have acted as barometers of change in the political mood, forcing the

major parties to recognize new issues or trends in the thinking of Americans. Political scientists

believe that third parties have acted as safety valves for dissident groups, preventing major

confrontations and political unrest. In some instances, third parties have functioned as way stations

for voters en route from one of the major parties to the other.

Ideological Third Parties

The longest-lived third parties have been those with strong ideological foundations that are typically

at odds with the majority mind-set. The Socialist Party is an example. The party was founded in

1901 and lasted until 1972, when it was finally dissolved. (A smaller party later took up the name.)

The Socialists were never very popular in the United States. Indeed, the term socialist has recently

gained currency as a conservative insult directed at President Obama. In Europe, however, socialist

parties became very important, and socialist is merely a description.

Ideology has at least two functions in such parties. First, the members of the party regard

themselves as outsiders and look to one another for support - ideology provides great psychological

cohesiveness. Second, because the rewards of ideological commitment are partly psychological,

these parties do not think in terms of immediate electoral success. A poor showing at the polls

therefore does not dissuade either the leadership or the grassroots participants from continuing their

quest for change in American government (and, ultimately, American society).

Today's active ideological parties include the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. The

Libertarian Party supports a laissez-faire ("let it be") capitalist economic program, together with a

hands-off policy on regulating matters of moral conduct. The Green Party began as a grassroots

environmentalist organization with affiliated political parties across North American and Western

Europe. It was established in the United States as a national party in 1996 and nominated Ralph

Nader to run for president in 2000. Nader campaigned against what he called "corporate greed,"

advocated universal health insurance, and promoted environmental concerns. He ran again for

president as an independent in 2004 and 2008.

Splinter Parties

Some of the most successful minor parties have been those that split from major parties. The

impetus for these splinter parties, or factions, has usually been a situation in which a particular

personality was at odds with the major party. The most successful of these splinter parties was the

"Bull Moose" Progressive Party, formed in 1912 to support Theodore Roosevelt for president. The

Republican national convention of that year denied Roosevelt the nomination, despite the fact that

he had won most of the primaries. He therefore left the GOP and ran against Republican "regular"

William Howard Taft in the general election. Although Roosevelt did not win the election, he did split

the Republican vote so that Democrat Woodrow Wilson became president.

Third parties have also been formed to back individual candidates who were not rebelling against

a particular party. H. Ross Perot, for example, who challenged Republican George H. W. Bush and

Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992, had not previously been active in a major party. Perot's supporters

probably would have split their votes between Bush and Clinton had Perot not been in the race. In

theory, Perot ran in 1992 as a nonparty independent. In practice, he had to create a campaign

organization. By 1996, Perot's organization was formalized as the Reform Party.

The Impact of Minor Parties

Third parties have rarely been able to affect American politics by actually winning elections. (One

exception is that third-party and independent candidates have occasionally won races for state

governorships - for example, Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota on the Reform Party

ticket in 1998.) Instead, the impact of third parties has taken two forms. First, third parties can

influence one of the major parties to take up one or more issues. Second, third parties can

determine the outcome of a particular election by pulling votes from one of the major-party

candidates in what is called the "spoiler effect."

Influencing the Major Parties. One of the most clear-cut examples of a major party adopting the

issues of a minor party took place in 1896, when the Democratic Party took over the Populist

demand for "free silver" - that is, a policy of coining enough new money to create inflation.

Absorbing the Populists cost the Democrats votes overall.

Affecting the Outcome of an Election. The presidential elections of 2000 were one instance in

which a minor party may have altered the outcome. Green Party candidate Ralph Nader received

almost 100,000 votes in Florida, a majority of which would probably have gone to Democrat Al Gore

if Nader had not been in the race.

The real question, however, is not whether the Nader vote had an effect - clearly, it did - but

whether the effect was important. The problem is that in elections as close as the presidential

elections of 2000, any factor with an impact on the outcome can be said to have determined the

results of the elections.

MECHANISMS OF POLITICAL CHANGE

In the future, could one of the two parties decisively overtake the other and become the "natural

party of government"? The Republicans held this status from 1896 until 1932, and the Democrats

enjoyed it for many years after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

Realignment

One mechanism by which a party might gain dominance is realignment. In this process, major

constituencies shift their allegiance from one party to another, creating a long-term alteration in the

political environment. Realignment has often been associated with particular elections,

called realigning elections. The election of 1896, which established a Republican ascendancy, was

clearly a realigning election. So was the election of 1932, which made the Democrats the leading

party.

Realignments in American Politics. A number of myths exist about the concept of realignment.

One is that in realignment a newly dominant party must replace the previously dominant party.

Actually, realignment could easily strengthen an already dominant party. Alternatively, realignment

could result in a tie. This has happened - twice. One example was the realignment of the 1850s,

which resulted in Abraham Lincoln's election as president in 1860. After the Civil War, the

Republicans and the Democrats were almost evenly matched nationally.

The most recent realignment - which also resulted in two closely matched parties - was a gradual

process that took place over many years. In 1968, Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon

adopted a "southern strategy," aimed at drawing dissatisfied southern Democrats into the

Republican Party. At the presidential level, the strategy was an immediate success, although years

would pass before the Republicans could gain dominance in the South's delegation to Congress or

in state legislatures. Another milestone in the progress of the Republican realignment was Ronald

Reagan's sweeping victory in the presidential elections of 1980.

Is Realignment Still Possible? The sheer size of our nation, combined with the inexorable

pressure toward a two-party system, has resulted in parties made up of voters with conflicting

interests or values. The pre-Civil War party system involved two parties - Whigs and Democrats -

with support in both the North and the South. This system could survive only by burying, as deeply

as possible, the issue of slavery. We should not be surprised that the structure eventually

collapsed. The Republican Ascendancy of 1896-1932 united capitalists and industrial workers under

the Republican banner, despite serious economic conflicts between the two. The New Deal

Democratic coalition after 1932 brought African Americans and ardent segregationists into the same

party.

For realignment to occur, a substantial body of citizens must come to believe that their party can

no longer represent their interests or values. The problem must be fundamental and not attributable

to the behavior of an individual politician. Despite the divisions within the parties discussed earlier, it

is not easy to identify large groups of Republicans or Democrats today who might reach such a

conclusion.

In recent years, however, a number of small-scale realignments have taken place. Many West

Virginia voters switched from the Democrats to the Republicans in the belief that Democratic

environmentalists were "anti-coal." Muslims of Middle Eastern ancestry provide another small-scale

example. This group formerly had a Republican majority, but during the last decade, many Muslim

Republicans decided that the Democrats were more likely to protect Muslim rights and interests.

Dealignment

Among political scientists, one common argument has been that realignment is no longer likely

because voters are not as committed to the two major parties as they were in the 1800s and early

1900s. In this view, called dealignment theory, large numbers of independent voters may result in

political volatility, but the absence of strong partisan attachments means that it is no longer easy to

"lock in" political preferences for decades.

Independent Voters. Trends in party identification have been measured by standard polling

techniques. Since 1944, there has been a rise in the number of independent voters combined with a

fall in support for the Democrats from the mid-1960s on. The decline in Democratic identification

may be due to the consolidation of the Republican support in the South since 1968, a process that

by now is substantially complete. In any event, the traditional Democratic advantage in party

identification has largely vanished.

Not only has the number of independents grown over the last half century, but voters are also less

willing to vote a straight ticket - that is, to vote for all the candidates of one party. In the early

twentieth century,straight-ticket voting was nearly universal. By mid-century, 12 percent of voters

engaged in split-ticket voting - voting for candidates of two or more parties for different offices,

such as voting for a Republican presidential candidate and a Democratic congressional candidate.

By the 1970s and 1980s, 25 to 30 percent of all ballots cast in presidential election years were split-

ticket. A major reason was that many voters, especially in the South, were pairing a Republican for

president with a conservative Democrat for Congress. In recent years, conservative Democrats

have become scarce, and the incidence of split-ticket voting has ranged only from 17 to 19 percent.

Not-So-Independent Voters. A problem with dealignment theory is that many of the "independent"

voters are not all that independent. For some time, about one-third of the voters who classified

themselves as independents typically voted Democratic, and another one-third typically voted

Republican. The remaining third consisted of true independents and became known as swing

voters - they could swing back and forth between the parties.

By 2011, after a series of up-and-down movements, the two major parties were tied when

independent "leaners" were added to their core supporters. Both the Republicans and the

Democrats had the support of 45 percent of the voters. The relatively modest number of true

independents - currently a tenth of the total electorate - raises a strategic question for the parties. Is

it more important to sway the independents, or can a party obtain better results by improving voter

turnout among its natural supporters?

Tipping

Political transformation can also result from changes in the composition of the electorate. Even

when groups of voters never change their party preferences, if one group becomes more numerous

over time, it can become dominant for that reason alone. We call this kind of demographically based

change tipping.

Tipping in Massachusetts and California. Consider Massachusetts, where for generations Irish

Catholics confronted Protestant Yankees in the political arena. Most of the Yankees were

Republicans, and most of the Irish were Democrats. The Yankees were numerically dominant from

the founding of the state until 1928. In that year, for the first time, Democratic Irish voters came to

outnumber the Republican Yankees. Massachusetts, which previously had been one of the most

solidly Republican states, became one of the most reliably Democratic states in the nation.

California may have experienced a tipping effect during the 1990s. From 1952 through 1988,

California normally supported Republican presidential candidates. Since 1992, however, no GOP

presidential candidate has managed to carry California. The improved performance of the

Democrats in California is almost certainly a function of demography. In 1999, California became

the third state, after Hawaii and New Mexico, in which non-Hispanic whites do not make up a

majority of the population.

Tipping in the Twenty-First Century? It is possible that states other than California may tip to a

different party in future years. John B. Judis and Ruy Teixiera have argued that the Democrats are

poised to become the new majority party due to a growth in the number of liberal professionals and

Hispanic immigrants. This thesis attracted much ridicule prior to 2006, as the Republicans continued

to triumph in midterm and presidential elections.

By 2008, however, the thesis had become more credible. In that year, a growing Hispanic vote

clearly pushed several southwestern states, such as Nevada and Colorado, into the Democratic

column, while larger numbers of upscale urban voters in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., helped

Obama carry the traditionally Republican state of Virginia. Of course, 2010 was a very good year for

the Republicans, and several more years could pass before we know whether the predictions of

Judis and Teixeira hold water or not.

DID YOU KNOW?

~The political party with the most seats in the House of Representatives chooses the Speaker of the

House, makes any new rules it wants, obtains a majority of the seats on each important committee,

chooses committee chairs, and hires most of the congressional staff.

~The Democrats and the Republicans each had exactly one woman delegate at their conventions in

1900.

~It took 103 ballots for John W. Davis to be nominated at the Democratic National Convention in

1924.

~In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that "We are all Republicans, we are all

Federalists."

~It takes about seven hundred thousand signatures to qualify to be on the ballot as a presidential

candidate in all fifty states.

~The Reform Party, established in 1996, used a vote-by-mail process for the first step of its

nominating convention and also accepted votes cast by e-mail.