Today
many Americans take pride in their status as ãindependent voters,ä partly
because they see parties as lacking vision for the country.
Since many people think that each of the major parties only cares about
defeating or humiliating the other, they avoid identification as a ãloyal
Democratä or a ãstaunch Republican.ä
These negative attitudes toward parties are rooted in the roles that they
play in American politics.
In
most democracies political parties are important institutions that link citizens
to their government. The founders
of the U.S. political system hoped to avoid the ãmischiefä of political
factions when they envisioned a government with enough points of influence to
make parties unnecessary. James
Madison reflected in his famous Federalist #10 that political factions are
necessary evils to be controlled by federalism and separation of powers, but the
founders still believed that political parties such as those that dominated
British politics could and should be avoided at all costs.
Of course, parties appeared almost as soon as the new government was
created, with their origins in the disagreements between two of Washington's
cabinet members, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.
Some
observers believe that modern avoidance of political party labels may have been
reversed by the election of 2004. Voter
participation increased dramatically in that year, partly because of almost
unprecedented efforts by both Republicans and Democrats, again reflecting that
parties are an integral part of the American political system.
Political
parties fulfill the following functions in the American political system:
á Running candidates for political office - Parties pick policymakers and run campaigns. Most elected officials, whether at the local, state, or national level, run as nominees of a major political party. Whereas personal wealth certainly helps, most candidates rely on the party organization to coordinate and fund their political campaigns.
Most
modern democracies have a multi-party system, so the United States is definitely
in the minority with its two party system, one of only about fifteen in the
world today. Even though a number of third parties have emerged in the course of
U.S. history, none have endured, and with the exception of a short period in the
early 1800s, two major political parties have always competed with one another
for power in the system. Three
important reasons for the American two-party system are:
In contrast to most large economic organizations, such as corporations, the people at the top of the party organizations do not have a lot of power over those at the lower levels. Instead, the parties have strong ãgrass roots,ä or state and/or local control over important decisions. To be sure, each has a national committee that organizes a convention every four years to nominate a president. Each party has a national chairperson who serves as spokesperson, and it least nominally coordinates the election campaign for the presidential candidate. In reality, however, the candidate runs his own campaign, with the help of multiple advisers, including the party chairman.
Local party organizations are still very important in political campaigns because they provide the foot soldiers that hand out party literature, call on citizens to register and to come to the polls on election day. In 2004 both parties ran active get-out-the-vote campaigns at the grass roots level, resulting in a very high voter turnout.
The organization of both parties looks very much the same on paper. Both have:
Historically,
the two-party system has been characterized by long periods of dominance by one
party followed by a long period of dominance by the other.
The eras begin and end with shifts in the voting population called realignments
that occur because issues change, and new schisms form between groups.
THE EARLY YEARS
The
first two political parties to emerge during Washington's term of office were
the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The major issue in the
beginning was the ratification of the Constitution, with the Federalists
supporting it and the Anti-Federalist wanting guarantees of individual freedoms
and rights not included in the original document. The issue was resolved with
the addition of the Bill of Rights, but the parties did not disappear with the
issue.
The
Federalists were led by Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, and
they came to represent urban, business-oriented men who favored elitism and a
strong central government. The Federalists supported Hamilton's establishment of
the Bank of the United States because they saw it as forwarding their interests
and beliefs. The Anti-Federalists came to be known as the Democratic-Republicans,
led by Thomas Jefferson. They
favored strong state governments, rural interests, and a weaker central
government. They opposed the bank as an enemy of state control and rural
interests.
With
Hamilton's death and John Adams' unpopularity as president, Jefferson emerged as
the most popular leader at the turn of the nineteenth century. As president he
gradually became more accepting of stronger central government, and the two
parties' points of view seemed to merge most notably in the "Era of Good
Feeling" presided over by James Monroe, one of Jefferson's proteges.
The Democratic-Republicans emerged as the only party, and their dominance
lasted until the mid-1800's, though under a new name, the Democrats.
The
two-party system reemerged with the appearance of Andrew Jackson, who
represented to many the expanding country, in which newer states found much in
common with the rural southern states but little with the established northeast.
A new party emerged, the Whigs, who represented many of the
interests of the old Federalist party.
Jackson's
election in 1828 was accomplished with a coalition between South and West,
forming the new Democratic Party. Jackson's Democrats were a rawer sort
than Jefferson's, who were primarily gentlemen farmers from the South and Middle
Atlantic states. With the Jacksonian era's universal manhood suffrage,
virtually all men could vote, so rural, anti-bank, small farmers from the South
and West formed the backbone of the Democratic Party. During this era the Democrats initiated the tradition of
holding a national convention to nominate a presidential candidate.
Delegates selected from state and local parties would vote for the
candidate, rather than a handful of party leaders who met in secret (called a
caucus). The Whigs were left with not only the old Federalist interests, but
other groups, such as wealthy rural Southerners, who had little in common with
other Whigs. The party was not ideologically coherent, but found some success by
nominating and electing war heroes, such as William Henry Harrison and Zachary
Taylor.
As
economic and social tensions developed between North and South by the 1840's and
50's, Whig party unity was threatened by splits between the southern and
northern wings.
As
the Whigs were falling apart, a new Republican Party emerged from the
issue of expansion of slavery into new territories. The election of 1860 brought
the first Republican - Abraham Lincoln - into office, setting off the secession
of southern states, and with them, many supporters of the Democratic Party. The
Civil War, then, ended the era of dominance of the Democrats, and ushered in a
new Republican era. Voters
realigned, then, according to regional differences and conflicting points of
view regarding expansion of slavery and states rights.
With
the exception of Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson, all presidents from
Abraham Lincoln (1861-1895) through Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) were Republicans.
During most of that time, Republicans dominated the legislature as well. By 1876
all of the southern states had been restored to the Union, but their power, as
well as that of the Democratic Party, was much diminished.
The Republicans came to champion the new era of the
Industrial Revolution, a time when prominent businessmen, such as John
Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, dominated politics as well as business. The
Republican Party came to represent laissez-faire, a policy that advocated the
free market and few government regulations on business. Ironically,
laissez-faire, meaning "to leave alone", was the old philosophy of the
Jacksonian farmers, who wanted government to allow them to make their own
prosperity. The Republican philosophy of the late 1800's favored the new
industrialists, not the small farmer of the earlier era.
The
prosperous, business-oriented era survived several earlier recessions but not
the Great Depression that gripped the country after the stock market crash of
1929. The cataclysmic economic downturn caused major realignments of voters that
swung the balance of power to the Democrats. The Republican president, Herbert Hoover, was rejected in the
election of 1932 in favor of the Democrat's Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt's
victory was accomplished through forging the ãRoosevelt Coalitionä of
voters, a combination of many different groups that wished to see Herbert Hoover
defeated. The coalition was composed of eastern workers, southern and western
farmers, blacks, and the ideologically liberal.
In their efforts to bring the country out of the
depression, Roosevelt's Democrats established a government more actively
involved in promoting social welfare. Ironically, the formerly states rights
oriented Democrats now advocated a strong central government, but one dedicated
to promoting the interests of ordinary people. Democrats dominated both
legislative and executive branches. Even
the Supreme Court had to rein in its conservative leanings, although it did
check Roosevelt's power with the famous "court-packing" case. (In an
effort to get more support for his New Deal programs from the Supreme Court,
Roosevelt encouraged Congress to increase the number of justices from nine to
fifteen and to require mandatory retirement of justices by the age of 70.
Roosevelt eventually withdrew his plan).
Roosevelt
was elected for an unprecedented four terms and was followed by another
Democrat, Harry Truman. Even though a Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, was elected
president in 1952, Congress remained Democratic.
The Democrats regained the White House in 1960 and retained it throughout
the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
But a new era began with the presidency of Richard Nixon in 1969.
Richard
Nixonâs election in 1968 did not usher in a new era of Republican dominated
government. Instead, a new balance
of power between the Democrats and Republicans came into being. With a few
exceptions, control of the legislature and the presidency has been
"divided" between the two major political parties since the late
1940s. When one party holds the presidency, the other has dominated Congress, or
at least the Senate.
The
division brings with it the problem of "gridlock", or the
tendency to paralyze decision making, with one branch advocating one policy and
the other another, contradictory policy. Scholars have various theories about
the causes of the new division of power, but one cause may be the declining
power of political parties in general.
The Republican Hold on the Presidency: 1969-1993
From
1969 through 1993, the Republicans held the Presidency except during the Carter
Presidency from 1977-1981. Starting
in the late 1960's, Republicans began to pay more attention to the power of
electronic media and to the importance of paid professional consultants. They
converted into a well-financed, efficient organization that depended heavily on
professionals to help locate the best candidates for office.
Some
experts believe that these changes were largely responsible for Richard Nixon's
victory in 1968. Nixon was carefully coached and his campaign was carefully
managed to take advantage of electronic media. The campaign made extensive use
of public opinion polls to determine party strategy. The new emphasis also
influenced the party's choice of candidates in 1980 and 1984, with former
television and film actor Ronald Reagan as master of the media. The party also
took advantage of new technology and generated computerized mailings to raise
large sums of money for campaigns. By the mid-1980's, the Republicans were
raising far more money than the Democrats were.
During
the same time period, the Democrats were changing in many almost opposite ways
from the Republicans. The Democrats
became more concerned with grass roots, or common man, representation. The
Democrats were reacting at least partly to the break-up of the old Roosevelt
Coalition, but also to the disastrous 1968 convention in Chicago that showed the
party as highly factionalized and almost leaderless. As a result, they gained a
reputation for being unorganized and disunited.
In
1969, the Democratic party appointed a special McGovern-Fraser Commission
to review the party's structure and delegate selection procedures. The
commission determined that minorities, women, youth, and the poor were not
adequately represented at the party convention. The party adopted guidelines
that increased the representation and participation of these groups. The number
of superdelegates, or governors, members of Congress, and other party leaders
was reduced substantially. The 1972 convention selected as their candidate
George McGovern, a liberal who lost in a landslide to Republican Richard Nixon.
Although Democrat Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976, he was
defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the Republican Party held the
Presidency until 1993.
Divided Government Today
During the Reagan presidency, the Democrats began to adopt some of the
Republican strategies, including computerized mailing lists, opinion polls, and
paid consultants. The party managed to get their candidate, Bill Clinton, to the
White House in 1993, a position that he held for two terms.
However, government remained divided because the Republicans won both
houses of Congress in 1994 and held them until 2001, when the Senate regained a
Democratic majority. By this time,
Republican George W. Bush had been elected President, so the tradition of
divided government ö established in 1969 ö continued.
However, Republicans regained control of the Senate in the election of
2002, and they swept the presidency and both houses of Congress in the election
of 2004. These recent events have
led some observers to speculate that a new Republican era is beginning, and that
divided government as a persistent phenomenon may be ending.
Whereas two parties have always dominated the American
system, minor or third parties have also played a role. Minor parties may be
divided into two categories:
Probably
the most influential third party in American history was the Populist Party
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that first represented the
interests of farmers, but was responsible for wide-ranging democratic reforms.
The Populists' best known leader was William Jennings Bryan, who was enticed to
accept the nomination of the Democratic party first in 1896. The fate of the
Populists was the same as for most other third parties: their goals adopted by a
major party, deferring to the "winner-take-all, or pluralist system, that
supports a two party system.
In
1992 Ross Perot, a wealthy Texas businessman, tried to defy the two party system
by running for president as an independent without the support of a political
party. He hired professional campaign and media advisers, created a high profile
on national television interviews, bought a massive number of TV ads, and built
a nationwide network of paid and volunteer campaign workers. In the election, he
gained 19% of the vote, but did not capture a single electoral vote. In 1996, he
again entered the race, but also announced the birth of a third party that
fizzled when he received less than half as many votes as he did in 1992.
In 2000 Ralph Nader ran for the Green Party, but he won only about 3% of
the vote. In 2004 Nader ran as an
independent, and the Green Party fielded their own candidates for office, but
neither managed to garner many votes.
Minor
parties have sometimes had a big impact on American politics when their
platforms have been taken over by major parties. For example, Populist reforms for 8-hour workdays for city
workers and farm subsidies for rural areas were later pushed forward by the
Democratic Party. Third parties
have almost certainly affected election outcomes, most obviously in 1912, when
Theodore Roosevelt ran for the Progressive Party, splitting the Republican vote
and throwing the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Many Democrats believe
that Al Gore would have won the election of 2000 had Ralph Nader not run.
Likewise, some Republicans claim that Ross Perot was responsible for
George H. Bushâs loss of the election of 1992.
In
the modern era voter realignments do not appear to be as clearcut as they once
were, partly because of the phenomenon of dealignment.
Over the past fifty years party identification appears to be weakened
among American voters, with more preferring to call themselves
"independents." Not only
have ties to the two major parties weakened in recent years, but voters are less
willing to vote a straight ticket, or support all candidates of one party
for all positions. In the early
1950s only about 12% of all voters engaged in ticket splitting, or voting
for candidates from both parties for different positions.
In recent years, that figure has been between 20 and 40%.
If dealignment indeed is occurring, does this trend indicate that parties
are becoming weaker forces in the political system? Many political scientists
believe so.
EARLY
20TH CENTURY REFORMS
During
the late 1800s party machines, organizations that recruited members by the use
of material incentives - money, jobs, places to live - exercised a great deal of
control by party "bosses." These machines, such as Tammany Hall in New
York City, dictated local and state elections and distributed government jobs on
the basis of support for the party, or patronage. The reforms of the early
twentieth century Progressive movement, first inspired by the Populist movement,
took control of nominations from party leaders and gave it to the rank-and-file.
Several important changes - the establishment of primary elections in many
states, the establishment of the civil service, the direct election of senators,
and women's suffrage - all gave more power to voters and less to the parties.
LATE
20TH CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS
The
growing emphasis on electronic media campaigns, professional consultants, and
direct-mail recruitment of voter support also may have decreased the importance
of parties in the election process. In addition, partly as a result of media
influence, candidate organizations, not party organizations, are the most
powerful electoral forces today. Office seekers, supported by consultants and
media, organize their personal following to win nominations. If they win office,
they are more responsive to their personal following than to the party
leadership. The result is less party clout over politicians and policy.
On
the other hand, the national party organizations are significantly better funded
than they were in earlier days and make use of electronic media and professional
consultants themselves. They often function as advisers and all-important
sources for campaign funds. Moreover, parties are deeply entrenched
organizational blocks for government, particularly Congress. Although they may
not be as strong an influence as they once were, parties form a basic building
block for the American political system, and they still give candidates labels
that help voters make decisions during election time.
The Republican sweep of the presidency and Congress in
2004 may be an indication that a major realignment of Americans is underway.
The split between the ãRed Statesä (Republican) and the ãBlue
Statesä (Democrats) separated states along the west coast, the Northeast, and
the Midwest (blue states) from the rest of the country that supported Republican
George W. Bush. Voters of both parties appeared to have stronger party
loyalties than in recent years, and divisions were especially apparent between
rural (Republicans) and urban voters (Democrats).
The breakup of the Solid South also appeared to be complete, with
long-time Democratic senators resigning and being replaced by Republican.
It is too early to tell whether the new divisions will be long-lasting.
IMPORTANT
DEFINITIONS AND IDENTIFICATIONS:
Anti-Federalists
Dealignment
Democratic
Republican Party
Divided
Government
Era
of Good Feeling
Federalist
Party
Grass-roots
organization
gridlock
Linkage
institutions
McGovern-Fraser
Commission
Political
efficacy
Populist
Party
Proportional
representation
Roosevelt
Coalition
Straight
ticket
Ticket
splitting
Universal
manhood suffrage
Whig
Party
Winner-take-all
electoral system