The Pros and Cons of a Two-Party System.

by Rena Silverman

The challenge of running a competitive campaign for the U.S. presidency is made easier by the existence of the political parties and other organizations—from the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association—that support individual candidates and their agendas. The Democratic and Republican parties sponsor political advertising, organize volunteers, and help get out the vote on Election Day.

Before the 2004 election, some politicians and observers thought that the Democratic and Republican parties might be coming into a period of decline. That’s because a campaign finance law passed in 2002—the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, pronounced BICK-ruh)—was expected to put a big dent in how much money the parties could raise. The new law prohibited the parties from accepting “soft” money—that’s the term for unregulated money with no limits on amounts. Instead, they’d have to raise all their funds in “hard” money, which is regulated by federal law. If they could no longer receive $100,000 checks from rich friends, would the parties survive?

As it turns out, they did just fine. In the years since BCRA passed, the parties mobilized and raised millions of dollars in hard money from small and medium donors and wound up with more money than ever before. Having weathered that storm, the two major parties are still enormously important players in presidential elections.

Early History: How the Political Parties Came to Be

The U.S. Constitution has nothing to say about political parties. In fact, the Constitution’s framers were resolutely opposed to the formation of political parties in this country. Based on their knowledge of the way things worked in Britain, the framers believed that parties created unnecessary and counterproductive divisions within a nation. They thought that candidates should be judged on their personal merits and their stands on the issues, not their party affiliations.

Before long, however, early opposition gave way to the political and practical convenience of a party system. Parties enhanced cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of government and made it easier to coordinate policy-making among the different levels of government—from the federal level down to the states, counties, and towns. More important, parties allowed diverse groups of like-minded Americans from throughout the country to come together and have an influence on national policy-making and the election of the president.

Every individual elected to the U.S. presidency since George Washington has run with the support of one of the two major political parties of the time.

The National Committees

Each of the major political parties is led by a national committee headquartered in Washington, D.C. While the national parties used to come to life only every four years in running the presidential nominating conventions, in the last three decades they have shifted dramatically to full-time professional organizations supporting state and local parties and recruiting and training candidates.

In addition to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC), the two major parties each have official campaign committees that raise money to elect the parties’ House and Senate candidates.

In recent election cycles, a key function of the Democratic and Republican National Committees has been to raise money to support its party and candidates. In 2004, the DNC took in $394 million and the RNC raised $392 million. (Interestingly, that was the first time since records have been kept that the DNC’s receipts exceeded the RNC’s, though overall the several Republican committees still beat the Democratic total.).

The amounts raised by the parties almost invariably increase from one election cycle to the next. (Campaign finance experts usually look at a two-year period, such as 2007–2008, as one “election cycle.”) As we’ve mentioned, some experts thought that the campaign finance reform law of 2002 might reduce the parties’ fund-raising, but the parties adjusted to the new rules and have, in fact, continued to bring in more contributions.

Much of the money raised by the national party organizations is passed along to state and local parties to run their campaigns. Funds are also used to pay for advertising, consultants, direct mail campaigns, get-out-the-vote efforts, and many other activities.

Other important national committee tasks include planning the party’s presidential nominating convention, promoting the election of party candidates at the national level, and trying to coordinate the work of the party at all levels—for example, by creating a unifying message for the party and its candidates.

The national committees are composed of two or more party representatives, including at least one man and one woman, from each state and U.S. territory; the Democrats also include representatives of other groups within the party, including members of Congress, Democratic governors, state and local officials, and party organizations for youth and women.

Enter the Special Interests: Independent Groups Step Up Their Campaign Activity

The political parties aren’t the only organizations working to influence the outcome of American elections. Recent presidential and congressional races have seen groups such as the Christian Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the American Medical Association, and many others playing an increasingly important—and increasingly aggressive—role in promoting candidates and their ideas and getting Americans to the polls.

In addition, in recent elections, individuals and organizations with millions of dollars to spend have formed special committees to influence the outcome of the presidential and congressional races. In some cases, these groups are established under the law so that they can accept unlimited funds and may not have to reveal who their donors are. Some of these committees are violating the spirit of campaign finance laws—though they may be doing it entirely within the letter of the law.

Some of the wealthiest organizations have such generic names, like the Joint Victory Committee (a Democratic 527 committee) and Progress for America (Republican), that it’s impossible to know what their goals are without doing some research.

Many advocates of campaign finance reform would like to see stricter rules governing these high-flying political committees, including making them subject to the same contribution limits as political action committees (or PACs), which are closely regulated by federal election law.

Groups that Influence Elections

Interest groups that seek to influence federal elections (that is, for president and Congress) have three main ways to organize themselves under U.S. election and tax law. Of the three, political action committees are the most heavily regulated, so individuals and interest groups that want to spend lots of cash on campaigns are increasingly making use of 527 and 501(c) groups.

Political Action Committees (PACs)—PACs are allowed to raise and spend only “hard” money that complies with strict federal regulations. PACs are limited in how much they can accept from donors and how much they can donate to any campaign, though they can spend unlimited amounts of their own money independently. PACs must report who their large donors are and how they’ve spent their money.

527 Committees—Organized under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, they must report major donors to the IRS, but rules are less strict than for PACs. The biggest difference: 527s can accept unlimited donations of “soft,” unregulated money. And in 2004, some 527s received millions from individual donors. During the 2004 campaign, one 527, Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, got lots of publicity when it aired questionable attacks on the war record of Democratic candidate John Kerry.

501(c) Groups—This section of the tax code used to cover mostly old-fashioned nonprofit groups like the American Red Cross, but in recent years, political players have discovered they can use this type of tax-exempt group to run political ads and engage in other similar activities. 501(c) groups do not have to reveal their donors or their expenditures. Such groups are not supposed to have political action as their primary purpose, but this rule is sometimes ignored.

posted by rena silverman

Pros

Cons

The Parties Help Voters Decide They help clarify the issues and simplify the choices voters have to make in elections. Without the parties, voters would have to find their way through a confusing maze of issues and candidate positions with little help. With parties, government can be held accountable—if you don’t like how Party A is running your city, you have a definite alternative to vote for. The Parties Make Government More Effective Parties are often the link among the different branches of the U.S. government and the three levels of government—federal, state, and local. They enable politicians to form coalitions and to get things done. The Parties Make It Easier to Run for Office Just as parties help the voters, they help candidates by providing an existing base of support and mobilizing voters and party supporters behind a candidacy.

The Parties Limit the Choices for Voters Because we have only two dominant parties, the parties generally select candidates with the broadest possible appeal. The system discourages campaigning by “fringe” or even remotely controversial candidates. The Parties Promote Division and Deadlock Each party is forever seeking political advantage over the other. As a result, candidates and sitting officeholders are under pressure to stick to the “party line” and not to compromise with the other party. This hyper-competitive attitude contributes to gridlock in Congress, preventing constructive solutions to complex and controversial issues. The Parties Promote Corruption Throughout the nation’s history, the political parties have been associated with corrupt practices, such as patronage and the awarding of government contracts to party insiders—and those charges are still made today. In addition, the parties regularly face criticism for questionable fund-raising practices that effectively place politicians in debt to big contributors.

John Adams

Haiku of the day (but don’t expect one tomorrow)

John Adams
You did not shake hands
Instead you would chose to bow
Uppity bastard

posted by Rena Silverman

Harry S. Truman

Haiku of the day

…But Don’t Expect One Tomorrow

Harry S Truman
Faked his eye exam
Signed up for combat duty
No time for chickens

posted by Rena Silverman

George Washington

Haiku of the Day (but don’t expect one tomorrow)

George Washington
What kind of fool stands
in a boat on the river?
A real landlubber

Posted by Rena Silverman

Third-Party Candidates, by Rena Silverman

White the Democrat and Republican parties have dominated United States
politics for over 140 years, the American political system does allow
other parties and independent candidates to also run for office. Over
the last twenty-five years, a nimiety of third-party candidates have
gained enough voters to make a difference in the outcome of the
presidential race.

In 1992 and 1996, businessman Ross Perot ran as an angry centrist
tired of political corruption in Washington. in 1992, he got an
extraordinarily high 19% of the popular vote. Some believe that he
took more votes away from the republican George H. W. Bush than from
the Democrat Bill Clinton and therefore helped Clinton to victory. In
1996, Perot received 8% of the vote.

Progressive advocate Ralph Nader in 2000 ran as the Green Party
candidate, gaining just 2.7% of the vote. Since Nader was running on
an anti-corporate, environmentalist platform, he almost certainly took
more votes from Democrat Al Gore than from Republican George W. Bush.
Angry Democrats accused Nader of being a “spoiler,” arguing that he
effectively helped the candidate who was worse from his own political
perspective: Bush. But, Nader and the Green Party rebutted that Gore
was too pro-business to merit their support.

by rena silverman

Policlicks 101 – Election Resources and the Web, by Rena Silverman

The openness of the internet is what makes it a great election-year resource for voters: no matter what kind of information for which you are looking, there’s a good chance you’ll land quickly upon it. But the internet’s wide-open culture also makes it a place where political scam artists and special interests can seek to influence your vote. A few things to keep in mind:

• Determine the source of information! Who is writing this? Anyone legit? An individual trying to gain support for candidate over the other? Is it a satire? etc.
• Some Web sites thrive on rumor and innuendo, others publish blatantly false stories about candidate’s views and backgrounds to serve their own political interests.
• During campaigns, some people set up sites that mimic the sites of candidates so they can provide false or misleading information or satirize the candidate.

The Bottom line: Web Surfers Beware…

Nevertheless there are plenty of trustworthy people in the world.

Here is a detailed list of good political sites on the Web:

Vote411.org: The League of Women Voters’ nonpartisan resource for election and voting information through vote411.org citizens can find such items as voter reg and absentee ballot rules, early voting provisions, ID requirements, candidate information, a national polling place locater and more.

Cspan’s 2008 Vote Web page. Offers video of candidate events and links to candidates official Web sites: Click on “American Politics/Road to the White House.

Federal Election Commission. The Official site of the government agency that regulates campaign finances. Information on campaign contributions to candidates. You may want to check out the “Press Office” section, since the site can be a little difficult to navigate.

Grolier Online: The American Presidency. Offers age-appropriate information for children and teens on American Presidency, the Electoral College and historical information related to the Executive Branch.

PollingReport.Com. Nonpartisan site that offers updated and archived opinion polling on elections and public policy.

Democratic National Committee. Official Democratic Party site that offers critical views of Republican candidates and positions as well as information on the convention and party platform rules.

Republican National Committee. Official Republican Party site that offers Republican views on Democratic candidates, information on the upcoming convention and party platform rules.

FactCheck.org. Nonpartisan Web site that checks the accuracy of political ads and allegations. Sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

by Rena Silverman

Campaign Volunteers, Internet "Politicians" – Impossible. by Rena Silverman

The Democratic nature of the Internet–that anyone can post–is precisely what makes its effects so hard to predict.

Two examples from the current presidential campaign, both related to the democratic candidate Barack Obama, show how Internet action can present a candidate with unexpected benefits and unexpected problems.

In one case a man allegedly acting independently, created a video posted on youtube.com that linked Hillary Clinton Big Brother in 1984. It ended with the tag line barackobama.com. The video which used images from an anti-Microsoft ad that Apple Computer had sponsored s earlier received millions of views and was in effect a gift to the Obama campaign and a blow to the Hillary campaign.

In another case a young vol built up a community on myspace.com, that eventually attracted 160,000 “friends” for the candidate. But in April 2007, when the volunteer and official campaign had a falling out over whether the volunteer would be compensated, the messy controversy became a negative story for the Obama campaign.

in both instances the fact that the volunteer was not a paid employee but a skilled and dedicated online activist–a “netizen”–made the volunteer impossible to control. Campaigns are learning that they must deal very carefully with expert-free agents who can both help & hurt their candidates.

Rena Silverman

Presidents Who Won with Less Than 50% of the Vote, by Rena Silverman

Presidents Who Won with Less Than 50% of the Vote

Year	Candidates	Popular Vote	Percent of Popular Vote
1824	John Qunicy Adams	108,740	30.5
	Andrew Jackson	153,544	43.1
	Henry Clay	47,136	13.0
	William H. Crawford	46,979	12.9
1844	James K. Polk	1,338,464	49.6
	Henry Clay	1,300,097	48.1
	James G. Birney	62,300	3.3
1848	Zachary Taylor	1,360,967	47.4
	Lewis Cass	1,222,342	42.5
	Martin Van Buren	291,263	2.3
1856	James Buchanan	1,832,955	45.3
	John C. Fremont	1,339,932	33.1
	Millard Fillmore	871,731	26.1
1860	Abraham Lincoln	1,865,593	39.8

	Stephen A. Douglas	1,382,713	29.5
	John C. Breckenridge	848,356	18.1
	John Bell	592,906	12.6
1876	Rutherford B. Hayes	4,036,572	48.0
	Samuel Tilden	4,284,020	51.0
1880	James A. Garfield	4,453,295	48.5
	Winfield Hancock	4,414,082	48.1
	James B. Weaver	308,578	3.4
1884	Grover Cleveland	4,879507	48.5
	James G. Blaine	4,850,293	48.2

	Benjamin F. Butler	175,370	1.8
	John P. St. John	150,369	1.5
1888	Benjamin Harrison	5,447,129	47.9
	Grover Cleveland	5,537,857	48.6
	Clinton B. Fisk	249,506	2.2
	Anson J. Streeter	146,935	1.3
1892	Grover Cleveland	5,555,426	46.1
	Benjamin Harrison	5,182,690	43.0
	James B. Weaver	1,029,846	8.5
	John Bidwell	264,133	2.2
1912	Woodrow Wilson	6,296547	41.9
	Theodore Roosevelt	4,118,571	27.4
	William Howard Taft	3,486,720	23.2
	Eugene V. Debs	900,672	6.0
	Eugene W. Chafin	206,275	1.4
1916	Woodrow Wilson	9,127,695	49.4
	Charles Evans Hughes	8,533,507	46.2
	A. L. Benson	585,113	3.2
	J. Frank Hanly	220,506	1.2
1948	Harry S. Truman	24,105,812	49.5

	Thomas E. Dewey	21,970,065	45.1
	J. Strom Thurmond	1,169,063	2.4
	Henry Wallace	1,157,172	2.4
1960	John F. Kennedy	34,227,096	49.9
	Richard M. Nixon	34,108,546	49.6
	Harry F. Byrd	440,298	0.6
1968	Richard M. Nixon	31,785,480	43.4
	Hubert Humphrey	31,275,165	42.7
	George Wallace	9,906,473	13.5
1992	William J. Clinton	44,909,889	42.9

	George H. Bush	39,104,545	37.4
	H. Ross Perot	19,742,267	18.9
1996	William J. Clinton	47,402,357	49.2
	Robert Dole	39,198,755	40.7
	H. Ross Perot	8,085,402	8.4
2000	George W. Bush	50,456,002	47.8
	Albert Gore	50,999,897	48.4
	Ralph Nader	2,882,995	2.7

Note: In 1896 William McKinley won with 50.2 percent of the popular vote; in 1976, Jimmy Carter won with 50.1; in 1980, Ronald Reagan won with 50.8 percent; finally, in 2004, George W. Bush Won with 50.6 percent.

Compiled by Rena Silverman, All Rights Reserved

Welcome

In the words of Lyndon B. Johnson, “Being President is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but stand there and take it.”

But what exactly does a President, a leader of 5 legislative branches, 10 executive branches, 20 departments, 95 independent agencies and the Free World do at work every day? Have you ever considered being President? Do you have what it takes? To which past president do you most relate? Do you even know your history and finally, why are you reading my blog?

Let us first begin with a few facts about what exactly a President does; it is with great,
obsessive thought I present to you a list-like summary of presidential duties:

A President….
-is commander in chief of the army and navy and national guard when a guard
is called to federal service
-may appoint judges and supreme court and other federal courts,
ambassadors, etc with “advice and consent” of the senate
-can grant pardons and reprives
-can veto legislation..(but there’s also that two-thirds vote thing)
-can make treaties with two-thirds consent of senate
-shall report to congress state of union and recommend laws
-shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed and that is a quote

Then there’s of course, the obvious: the President needs to be head of his/her
political party and spokesperson of America, which are within the informal range
influence

by rena silverman.

Teddy Roosevelt

Haiku of the day (but don’t expect one tomorrow)

Teddy Roosevelt
appeal rested on
resemblance to a cuddly
stuffed animal toy

Posted by Rena Silverman

Abraham Lincoln

Haiku of the day (but don’t expect one tomorrow)

Abraham Lincoln
Emancipation
This Civil War bores me so!
Let’s go see a play

Posted by Rena Silverman

Woodrow Wilson

Haiku of the Day (but don’t expect one tomorrow)

Woodrow Wilson
The French loved Woodrow
But he’s no Jerry Lewis
Makes Gore look relaxed

posted by Rena Silverman

James Monroe

Haiku of the Day (but don’t expect one tomorrow)

James Monroe

The Monroe Doctrine
Europe, mind your own affairs
It’s our hemisphere

Posted by Rena Silverman

Andrew Jackson

Haiku of the day (but don’t expect one tomorrow)

Andrew Jackson
New Orleans battle
After Ghent Treaty was signed
No CNN then

posted by Rena Silverman

Ronald Reagan

Haiku of the Day (but don’t expect one tomorrow)

Ronald Reagan
Former actor who
used the proper method –
act as if until

by Rena Silverman

COPYRIGHT 2008. RENA SILVERMAN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.