Mr. Kallusingh

 The purpose of political parties is to give the people a voice, nominate candidates, inform and activate supporters, control candidates, govern, act as a watchdog  Two-Party system started with the federalist and anti-federalist, and continues the main reason it continues is that people can be stuck in their ways

 National Convention- comes together to chose the Presidential and vice-presidential candidates  National Committee- is comprised of the major political figures in the party, mainly is in charge of planning the national convention  National Chairperson- helps with party unity, raising money, and recruiting new voters  Congressional Campaign Committee- is in charge of selecting candidates to run for congress

 State Organization- look for party unity, finding candidates, campaign funds  Local Organization- local structures are so different across the nation that it is hard to define, most work within their ward/ precincts at election times

 In multiparty systems coalitions need to be formed to have a majority and avoid constant change and upheaval, coalitions are agreements among competing party groups to work together to form a majority

 Ideological Parties- focus on a comprehensive view of social, economic, and political matters; have usually been long lived  Single-issue Parties- usually focus on one issue i.e. slavery, abortion; fade away as the issue becomes less prevalent

 Economic Protest Parties- a rooted in periods of economic discontent; disappear as the economy gets better  Splinter Parties- usually rally around a strong personality that leaves a major political party; go away when the candidate returns to their original party

 Are private organization that tries to persuade public officials to follow their beliefs  Interest groups are not concerned with broad concepts; they do not care who is elected but do care about what they do; they are not accountable to the public but to their members

 Business Groups- promote the interest of their individual business or business type  Labor Groups- are workers in a similar field; they press the government for favorable policies in their field  Agricultural Groups- farmers makeup less than 2% of the population; different groups usually compete against each other (dairy vs. soy)

 Professional Groups- occupations that require extensive training i.e. medicine, law, teaching; usually are not very organized; want to promote profession and influence policy  Groups that promote causes like NRA, American Civil Liberties Union, and Planned Parenthood

 Groups that promote welfare like the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign wars, and AARP  Religious Organizations that promote their religion  Public-Interest groups try and promote the well being of all people and not a particular segment of society

 Give public information, build positive image of group, promote favorable legislation  Use propaganda to make people believe their argument to be true regardless of the truth  Lobbyist try to influence the policies that are put into place to help their own interest groups, Lobbying Disclosure Act 1995 tries to regulate this influence

 The right to vote started with white male land owners and has expanded to any citizen over 18 is eligible to vote  Each state has the right to control voting qualifications, but they must follow certain federal guidelines and can be overridden by the federal government

 Voter qualifications citizenship, residence, age, registration  Sociological Factors- lower-income voters tend to be more democratic and higher income are more republican; more educated tends to vote republican; women more demo men more repub; young more demo older more repub; protestants more repub, Catholics and Jews more demo;

 The nomination process can be done by the caucus, convention, or a direct/ open primary  People use secret ballots to vote by their precinct in a polling place; if you can not be present to vote you can request an absentee ballot

 Campaign spending is mostly used on the Presidential election billion dollars  Campaign funding can come from many different sources small contributors, wealthy individuals, candidates (Perot $65 million), political action committees PAC, temporary organizations; people giving money either like the party or want something in return

 The government has enacted a few laws that try and regulate how much money can be given to campaigns, but parties have found loopholes and exploited them

 Public opinion is a group of people that believe the same thing; these beliefs come from personal experience  Another influence on public opinion is mass media tv, newspaper, magazine, radio, internet