Political Parties

 Start with a 2013 FRQ question  Notes on Chapter 8 – Political Parties  Discussion of looming shutdown and defunding Obamacare – videos and readings  Practice FRQ for tomorrow’s quiz - #1 FRQ in the back of the book  Practice Multiple Choice questions To-Do List

Party Coalitions Today Source: Authors’ analysis of Pew Research Center polls conducted in January and February T8-4

 Pick candidates  Run campaigns  Give cues to voters (educate voters)  Articulate policies (party platform)  Coordinate policymaking (btwn branches – Obama wants healthcare – he looks to Dems in Leg. Branch to make it happen) Quick Review: TASKS of Parties as Linkage Institutions

Decline in Political Parties in Elections  Television has taken away some of the power of political parties  Candidates can easily get out their own message  Can directly access voters  No more party machines! No patronage.  Today’s parties are more fragmented  Party dealignment  People gradually moving away from both parties

Responsible Party Model  Present and follow clear goals/policies  Minority party must say what they would do if THEY were in power  Accept responsibility for government’s performance

 Def: when one party controls the White House and the other party controls one or both houses of Congress  Advantages  Check other’s agenda – can’t enact entire platform  Parties have to compromise to get things done  Not a lot of compromise happening in today’s Congress…more to come Divided Government

 Party with the control over the most gov’t offices will have the most influence in determining who gets what, where, when and how.  Carry out the policies created at National Conventions (platforms) Review Slide from Thursday: Party in Government

 Definition: Devoted to or biased in support of a party, group, or cause  Our 113 th Congress  House: Controlled by Republicans (233 to 200 and 2 vacancies)  Senate: Controlled by Democrats (52 to 46 and 2 Indepedents)  Partisans Politics

Fewer Moderates

 “Many political observers have lamented the increasing partisanship and dysfunction of Congress. Polarization and the vitriolic politics that it generates have been especially pronounced in the House of Representatives, where the common ground between the parties has vanished as the contingent of independent-minded centrists has disappeared at a remarkable rate in recent decades – from 192 such Representatives in 1972, to 129 in 1992, to just 12 in 2012” Moderates and Gridlock

 “The absence of such moderates willing to work across the aisle is perhaps the most powerful example of how unrepresentative our winner-take-all system of elections has become, as an upcoming FairVote analysis on the disparities between the ideological makeup of the U.S. electorate and the U.S. House will explain” Moderates and Gridlock

 Pros:  Expand the political agenda  “safety valves” for popular discontent  Cons:  Almost never win office  We have a winner-take-all system – NOT proportional to the percentage of votes received  Example (page 244 of textbook): party 1 gets 45%, party 2 gets 40% and party 3 gets 15% of votes – Party 1 wins all (even without a majority) Third Parties

 Platforms  Tea Party

 Food stamps article  Government defunding Obamacare  Government shutdown/budget/debt ceiling Current Events