Texas government test 2

Media Influence

-A common element in the media campaigns of well-funded interest groups is paid advertising, which can range from large-scale expenditures like television spots and billboards to small-scale initiatives like sponsoring local Little League teams. -Television advertising is still considered the most powerful medium for messaging campaigns.

Endorsements

-Campaigns use endorsements to communicate to the public that a candidate is worthy of support because an individual or group with the appropriate reputation says so. -Endorsements by interest groups or associations, like labor unions or large professional and trade organizations, are designed to earn the votes of their members as well as to send signals to the media and political insiders that a candidate has "establishment" support.

Advertising Types

- Campaign messaging can appear on signs and billboards; in print ads, direct mail, websites, and email messages; and on radio and television spots. -Today, candidate websites are standard features of even local races. Websites often provide detailed policy positions, lists of endorsements, and particulars on the candidate's background, thus serving as the main repository of candidate information. -Biography or "bio" ads introduce a candidate to voters, and are typically used early in a campaign. -Contrast ads draw distinctions in policy or ideology by providing information about both candidates—with an eye, of course, to supporting the candidate producing the ad. -Attack ads feature negative information about an opponent. -Candidates also get exposure by attending or hosting non-media-based events like backyard barbecues, citizens' group meetings, and community gatherings.

Informing the Public and Elected Representatives

- Interest groups and their representatives sometimes exploit this lack of public attentiveness to obtain favorable treatment from the government. -Nevertheless, interest groups perform an essential function by conveying information to policymakers and the public, as they typically bring considerable expertise to their areas of focus.

Political campaigns, the news media, and the electorate each consume polls in unique ways.

- This widespread preoccupation with polls means that public opinion surveys may, at times, do as much to alter people's perceptions of a specific candidate as they do to measure those perceptions. -Campaigns use successful poll results to establish their credibility or increase the impression of their inevitability -One theory of voter behavior, known as the "bandwagon effect," suggests that voters may incorporate polls into their assessments of a candidate's chance of winning an election, and that undecided voters are likely to cast their ballots for the candidate they think is the probable winner.

Identifying Voters

- Traditionally, campaigns focused on winning the loosely affiliated and consistently undecided voters, termed "swing voters" because their votes could swing the election one way or the other. -

Grassroots Mobilization

-"Grassroots" typically refers to the work of ordinary citizens in organizing, seeking endorsements, advertising, and holding meetings and marches to promote or oppose causes, specific candidates, local measures, or amendments to the Texas Constitution.

Voting Patterns

-62 percent of the U.S. citizen population participated in the 2012 presidential race. Only 58 percent of registered voters in Texas voted in that same election, according to the Texas secretary of state. -In general, citizens who are older, white, or more educated are more likely to vote than younger, nonwhite, or less educated citizens. -In 2012, when voter turnout was lowest among 18- to 24-year-olds (at 41 percent) and highest among citizens aged 65 years and above (at 71.9 percent) -Non-Hispanic whites tended to vote at the highest rate, followed in order by non-Hispanic blacks, Hispanics, and Asian and Pacific Islanders.

Social Media

-A campaign Twitter post or Facebook status update that resonates with voters can be easily commented on and shared, reaching friends and acquaintances of the commenter or re-poster through social networks. -Other major advantages of social media sharing for campaigns are the low costs, the ability to segment the public to reach different groups with specific messages, and the ability to use current events and issues to stay in the news.

Identification

-A driver's license issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) -A personal identification card issued by DPS -An election identification card issued by DPS -A concealed handgun license issued by DPS -A U.S. passport -A military ID card with a photograph -A United States citizenship certificate with the person's photograph

Types of Elections: primary

-A primary election lets political party members choose the party's nominee for an upcoming general election. -Open primaries permit any registered voter to vote in any party's primary, with the caveat that voters can vote in only one party's primary during a single primary period. -Closed primaries require advance declaration of partisan affiliation in order to vote in a specific party's primary. Registered Republicans may only vote for Republican Party candidates, registered Democrats may only vote for Democratic Party candidates -Blanket primaries allow voters to participate in the primary of any party as long as they only vote in one party's contest per race. -Legally, Texas has closed primaries. But in practice, any registered voter may vote in the primary of any single party as long as he or she has not already voted in another party's primary during that election.

Run for a Party Nomination

-A way to participate in party politics that requires more dedication is to run for a party's nomination to a specific public office. Usually this involves running for a state-level office -Recall that Texas is divided into 150 districts for the Texas House of Representatives and 31 districts for the Texas Senate. Thus, to be elected to a state-level office, you only compete with those in your district, not with candidates from across the entire state.

The unique political character of Texas has fostered one-party rule for much of the state's history after the Civil War.

-After annexation, Texas soon slipped into the Civil War, which decimated the plantation-based agricultural system that was the state's economic engine but also clearly defined and maintained the social hierarchy. -Following the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, the Republican Party would take power by seizing control of all aspects of the state government under Reconstruction (1865-1877). The ensuing backlash against the Republicans would marginalize them for almost a century, cementing Texas as a one-party, Democratic-rule state. This would not change until the 1980s and 1990s, when the pendulum of power began to swing decisively back toward the Republican side.

The Rise of the Republican Party of Texas

-Also, religious conservatives became more involved in politics; thus, both the influx of Republicans and the increased participation of conservative voters contributed to the natural growth of the Republican base in the state. -Subsequently, John Tower's election in 1961 to Lyndon Johnson's vacated Senate seat made him the first Republican U.S. senator from Texas since Reconstruction. -A critically important milestone in this climb took place in 1978, when Bill Clements won the governorship, marking the first time since 1869 that a Republican was elected governor of Texas. -In 1998, the Republican Party's ascent reached its zenith, with party members winning all 27 statewide offices in Texas. It had been just two years earlier that Republicans won control of the Texas Senate with a slim majority (17 of 31 seats); Republicans have not relinquished this majority to this day. -Polarization in politics is usually taken to mean that two opposing or conflicting principles, tendencies, or points of view exist on a given topic, with the majority of opinions being at extremes.8 Most scholars agree that in a two-party system, moderate voices can often lose power and influence when polarization occurs. -The redistricting battles of 2003 were thus the final step in the Republican climb to power in Texas. When the results of the 2010 census were released, the redistricting process resulted in a battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Organizing Societal Interests

-Although many Texans are members of one or more politically active interest groups, these groups are not considered parties because they don't support candidates running for office under their own name. -Parties thus play a broader role: to exercise political power, they seek to bring together multiple interests (not just one, as interest groups do) within a society.

Minority Rights

-Between 1900 and 1920, immigrants of Mexican descent grew to make up 10 percent of the Texas population. This was the start of a key trend, growing Latino influence, that still affects the balance of power between political parties in Texas today

Rising campaign costs have coincided with periodic alterations to campaign finance laws, sparking fierce debate over the role of money in politics.

-Between 1986 and 2012, the average amount spent on a winning campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives increased 366 percent, from $360,000 to $1.6 million. Over the same period, the cost to win a U.S. Senate seat increased 62 percent, from $6.4 million to $10.4 million. -In 1998, state house candidates raised a combined $24 million while state senate candidates raised $9 million; by 2012, those figures had risen to $74 million for house candidates and $43 million for senate candidates.

New Approaches to Voter Contact

-Campaigners are advised to prioritize voter registration efforts by reaching young people in their natural habitats and by making politics and campaigns relevant to their daily lives. -Relevance is key, according to Rock the Vote, so campaigners who think very precisely about the habits and needs of a particular target voter might increase their chance of success.

Roles and Functions

-Citizens may not always hold political parties in the highest regard, but they still expect them to perform a range of critical functions within the political system, including organizing societal interests, recruiting political leaders, communicating popular preferences, structuring public debate, structuring political conflict and competition, organizing government, and linking state governments to the national one.

Digital Media

-Digital media has disrupted the modes of communication for campaigns in a way similar to television's impact in the age of radio. -The digital directors of campaigns base their practices on what advertisers have long known: people trust their friends, not commercials.

Reconstruction (1865-1877)

-During Reconstruction, the ideology of the Republican Party guided the drafting of the new state constitution and the selection of the new government's priorities. Governor Edmund J. Davis's Radical Republican administration was known for its devotion to public works. In control from 1870 to 1874, the Davis administration launched a public education system and constructed extensive roads, railroads, bridges, and government buildings. -In 1872, the Democratic Party regained control of the Texas Legislature. -Reconstruction officially ended with the Compromise of 1877. This resolved the disputed presidential election of 1876 in which Democrat Samuel Tilden's initial victory at the polls was overturned by a congressional commission that decided along strict party lines in favor of the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes.

Democratic Infighting

-For most of this period, conservative allegiance remained overwhelmingly Democratic among voters who famously vowed that they would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for a Republican (hence the term Yellow Dog Democrats). -Within the Democratic Party, open warfare raged between three loosely defined groups: conservatives who were pro-business and frequently resistant to civil rights progress; liberals who were progressive on civil rights, critical of corporate citizenship and the pro-business bias of state government, and in favor of increasing state services to the poor; and moderates who sought to mediate between these groups, typically by taking middle-ground positions on civil rights and social services while seeking to maintain favor with business interests in the state.

Introduction

-For our purposes here, the basic definition of an interest group is a collection of individuals organized to influence public policy, usually (though not exclusively) by attempting to influence government actors. -In the classic formulation of representative government known as pluralism, competing interests balance each other by bringing resources and arguments to bear on different sides of important public policy decisions.

Private Interest Groups

-Groups that seek to influence public policy for the specific and often exclusive benefit of their members or of people with similar interests are often called "special interest groups" by the media and in casual use. -Some of the goals that private interest groups pursue may impose costs on other private groups while also benefiting society as a secondary or unintended consequence.

Internal divisions within the dominant Democratic Party eventually weakened its hold on Texas government and led to the rise of the Republican Party in the late 20th century.

-Here it is important to note two trends that usually occur when one party is dominant in state or national politics: first, divisions within the dominant party tend to become more important than divisions between the parties; second, the more dominant the party is, the more likely there are to be significant internal divisions. Within the Texas Democratic Party, these divisions developed around a number of issues that emerged in the late 19th century, including organized labor, tenant farmers, railroad reform, temperance, and minority rights.

Register and Vote

-In Texas, a citizen who is 18 years of age by Election Day may register in person or by mail at least 30 days prior to the primary or general election in which he or she wishes to vote. - approved forms of identification for the polls include a driver's license, a passport, a military ID, or a concealed gun permit (student photo IDs are not accepted).

Organizing Sub-Government

-In Texas, the governor is responsible for appointing the members of approximately 125 boards and commissions. -Because of this, some critics charge that interest groups essentially organize sub-governments within the broader state government, thus enabling the groups to influence government policy from both the inside and the outside. -Though watchdog groups such as Texans for Public Justice try to monitor and report on the extent to which organized interests gain appointments and influence on government boards and commissions, the process itself isn't inherently illegal under state law.

Both parties in Texas today reflect more conservative versions of their national counterparts.

-In practice, these ideological underpinnings result in a national Republican Party that opposes most governmental regulations on economic activity, taxes on individuals and businesses, and large social programs that expand the role of government, while supporting policies that enforce traditional conceptions of morality and personal responsibility. -The Democratic Party, in turn, supports much of the opposite: governmental regulations on business, large social programs to help the poor and elderly, and a hands-off approach to social issues that leaves many of those decisions to individuals. -Looking at the biggest social program of the 21st century, the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. "Obamacare"), an October 2013 UT/TT poll found that 85 percent of Texas Republicans held an unfavorable opinion of the law.

Railroad Reform

-In response to growing calls for reform, the Texas Legislature worked with Governor James Stephen Hogg to create the Texas Railroad Commission as a regulatory body in 1891. -Hogg thus embodied another division at the core of the Democratic Party that would drive repeated conflicts and eventually cause the party to come apart in the short term: business interests opposed cutthroat business practices if used against the state by outsiders, but were not against using those same practices themselves as a means of gaining a key economic or political advantage.

Demographics and Partisanship

-Incredibly, despite Hispanic population growth in Texas between 2008 and 2010, Latino registration actually declined during that period, illustrating just how difficult engaging Latinos in politics has been. -In addition, Hispanic voters are largely Catholic and socially conservative, so they could conceivably become more attracted to the Republican Party if it more successfully addresses the state's growing diversity.

Interest Groups

-Interest groups can be broadly categorized as public interest groups or private interest groups, with the latter often derogatorily referred to as "special interests." -Interest groups perform many functions, including organizing people with similar interests, informing the public and elected officials, organizing electoral competition, organizing sub-governments, and linking the state and national political systems. -Interest groups have many tools at their disposal for influencing the political process.

Lobbying

-Interest groups, both public and private, enlist paid professionals to represent their interests before government officials on an ongoing basis. These professionals are called lobbyists. Collectively, they constitute "the lobby." -The lobby is made up mainly of three types of professionals: in-house lobbyists, contract lobbyists, and public advocacy firm lobbyists. -In-house lobbyists are employed directly by the interest groups themselves, or by businesses and organizations that are large enough to constitute their own interest groups. They lobby exclusively for their employer -Contract lobbyists (sometimes called "hired guns") are independent professionals who are hired to represent the interests of a particular group, usually for a fixed period of time. -Contract lobbyists often represent several interest groups during the same legislative session, so they and their clients have to be careful to avoid conflicts of interest. -The third type of lobbyist is a sort of hybrid of the first two. This kind of lobbyist works for a law firm or a public advocacy firm. These businesses may employ professionals who specialize in lobbying along with professionals who specialize in issue advocacy communications.

How to Identify Voters

-It begins with publicly available information from your voting record, as in previous eras, but now includes additional information from data brokers, the companies that collect huge volumes of detailed information about consumers. -Data brokers get this information from the services you use, biographical information and activities from your Facebook page, your tweets, your geographic location, public opinion polls, and many other sources.

Interest groups have many tools at their disposal for influencing the political process.

-Lobbying -Influencing political campaigns -Organizing public demonstrations -Orchestrating media campaigns -Attending public meetings -Taking legal action -Taking illegal action

Getting on the Ballot:

-Major Parties: To be listed on the Republican or Democratic primary ballot in Texas, a candidate must either collect signatures on a nominating petition or pay a filing fee to the appropriate party's county or state chair. -Minor Parties and Independent and Write-In Candidates: Minor parties—those whose gubernatorial candidate received less than 20 percent of the vote in the previous general election—do not hold primaries. Instead, minor-party candidates must be selected at the party's nominating convention. -Parties that received at least 5 percent of all votes cast in the previous general election are automatically listed on the ballot for the next general election, while minor parties that are new or received less than 5 percent of the vote must collect signatures equal to 1 percent of the previous general election's votes to make it onto the ballot. -Independent and write-in candidates can also get on the general election ballot by collecting signatures on a nominating petition.

Types of Elections: general

-Many Southern and border states, including Texas, require that a primary winner receive at least 50 percent of the vote. -If no candidate wins a majority—which often happens when more than two candidates run for an office—a runoff election is held between the two candidates with the most votes.

Recruiting Political Leaders

-Most candidates are selected by partisans in what are known as primary elections. In Texas, voters can vote in either party's primary (but not both in the same election) -endorsements (or lack thereof) are choices made by individual politicians to try to get favorable candidates elected or to protect their own unique political brand.

Structuring Political Conflict

-Parties do much to reduce this tension by tempering the discord between groups within their own coalition, and in turn, by simplifying the conflict as one between the two major parties.

Communicating Preferences

-Parties, by nature, aggregate broad and divergent preferences. As such, they serve as one of several channels that individuals, communities, and organized interest groups can use to communicate their wishes to the policymaking apparatus that is the government.

There are numerous ways to get involved in party politics, from simply talking with friends and neighbors to running for office yourself.

-Register and vote -Run for party nomination to public office -Run for party office -Organize a precinct -Serve as an election judge -Talk politics

Name Recognition

-People are unlikely to vote for a candidate whose name they don't know, and often, when they know little else, knowing a candidate's name (even vaguely) might be all it takes for them to select him for office.

Structuring Public Debate

-Political parties collect, frame, and disseminate data and other information related to public policy issues to persuade voters and other influential individuals to take a specific approach to a policy problem.

The Pre-Party Era (1836-1845)

-Populism came with the pioneers associated with the Jacksonian Democrats, who were following the frontier west from Tennessee to Texas. Characterized by mistrust of excessive private power (especially if the ones holding that power were large banks and corporations), the Jacksonian vision was of a functioning democracy where government served to restrain the accumulated power of large private interests. -Classical liberalism came to Texas with independent-minded citizens of Mexican descent like Lorenzo de Zavala. -Social conservatism was brought to Texas by many of the Southerners who migrated to the state in the time between its independence and the Civil War. A distinctive blend of tradition, Christian social identity, racial hierarchy, and romantic individualism (the belief in the natural goodness of man, who might still be brought down by the evils of civilization), social conservatism was also a dominant force in the other states of the future Confederacy.

Extralegal and Illegal Action

-Probably the most infamous illegal technique for exerting political influence is bribery, which involves secretly paying a government official for favorable treatment. -The Texas Ethics Commission performs an important function. But unethical deals and arrangements are often implicit, making them difficult to monitor or prevent. -In the modern era, some grassroots organizations in the United States have revived the use of violence and property destruction to shape political and economic systems. -Although such actions sometimes intentionally break the law to draw attention to perceived injustices, participants generally try to avoid damaging property or injuring others. At other times, sit-ins and occupations break not laws but extralegal social norms such as segregation

Tenant Farmers

-Rather, the only significant opposition to the Democrats was mounted by the Farmers' Alliance, a third party that grew out of a group of farmer and rancher cooperatives who, like groups of industry and manufacturing workers, hungered for reform. -By the 1880s, Texas farmers were "in debt and farming someone else's land," with their pleas for aid ignored by conservative Democrats. -By 1890, 42 percent of the farmers in Texas were tenants who did not own their land. As farming and supply grew, cotton prices fell. -Its political platform in 1890 included railroad regulation, indicative of the way a small but growing body of Democrats in Texas and nationally supported an expanded role for government. In 1891, the Farmers' Alliance joined with other reform groups to become the People's Party, or Populists, and went on to win elective public offices in Texas and other states in 1892.

The relative positions of the parties along with their differing constituencies make up the party system, which changes over time in major shifts known as realignments.

-Shifts in the makeup and power of political parties, called realignments, are often marked by a critical election in which voters and interest groups make long-term changes to their party preferences. -After realignment, the relative positions of the major parties and their supporters (known as constituencies) together form a party system.

Types of Elections: special

-Special elections are elections that are not regularly scheduled, but are instead called in response to certain events. -To fill unexpected vacancies in the state legislature or the U.S. Congress. -To vote on proposed amendments to the state constitution. -To select city council members.

Linking State and National Government

-State parties, for instance, play a prominent role in helping select candidates for president and vice president through state-level primaries. Members of the U.S. Congress run as party candidates at the state level, and U.S. senators often recommend party loyalists from their state as nominees to the state's federal district courts.

Causes of Rising Campaign Costs

-Technological change -Candidates' expanding use of media -Increased competition between the two major parties -TV advertising (even in state legislative and local races) -Purchasing, developing, and updating websites in addition to planning, testing, and executing Internet-based videos, emails, and other outreach tools have added to already rising costs. Time, energy, and staff resources invested in web-based campaigning represents another significant but necessary investment. -Campaigns have to spend money on the same kinds of things businesses do, including computer hardware and software, cell phones and land lines, copiers, fax machines, televisions, and other machinery needed to operate any modern enterprise. -Also expensive are the tools of modern campaigning such as voter databases, direct mail, public-opinion polling, statistical analysis, focus groups, advertising spots, media consultants, image consultants, phone banks, and candidate websites. -the costs of advertising on established media such as television, newspaper, and radio have also gone up.

Elections, Voting, and Campaigns

-Texas has primary elections, general elections, and special elections, and makes it easier for candidates to get on the general election ballot if they represent one of the two major parties. -Despite few formal requirements for voting, Texas's voter-turnout rates are lower than in most other states, particularly during off-year elections. -Campaigns spend most of their limited resources on television advertising, but are increasingly employing sophisticated uses of data to identify, contact, and mobilize sympathetic voters. -Political campaigns, the news media, and the electorate each consume polls in unique ways. -Rising campaign costs have coincided with periodic alterations to campaign finance laws, sparking fierce debate over the role of money in politics.

The Ongoing Debate over Money in Politics

-The Center for Responsive Politics reported that the total amount of money raised in 2012 by all candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives was $1.11 billion. In the same period, candidates for the Senate raised over $699 million. -In Texas alone, Governor Rick Perry, facing former Houston Mayor Bill White, spent nearly double what White invested, with campaign finance reports indicating that Perry spent $41.7 million to keep his job while White spent $24.8 million to fail to take it. -Prior to 2010, individuals or companies who paid to advertise for or against a candidate would have had to attach their name to the ad. -However, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United vs. FEC made it much easier for people and organizations to donate anonymously to campaigns.

Regulating Contributions

-The Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulates campaign financing in federal elections, which include contests for the presidency as well as for seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. -The Texas Ethics Commission enforces state regulations—which are generally much less stringent than federal regulations—for all state races in Texas.

Statehood and War (1845-1865)

-The Lone Star State finally joined the Union in 1845, after Democrat James K. Polk (a protégé of Andrew Jackson and a strong advocate of Texas statehood) won the U.S. presidency in the previous year's election. -The most obvious of these was over slavery: many Texans viewed slaves as essential to the state's economy, while others were Unionists who desired continued ties to the United States and in many cases favored abolition. -Also, though not a direct precipitating factor, Texas would no longer receive border protection from the U.S. military should it secede from the Union (not to mention that the focus of military attention would be diverted elsewhere), removing for Texans a key benefit of annexation.

Campaign Finance Regulation in Texas

-The Sharpstown stock fraud scandal, the Texas counterpart to Watergate, gripped the state in 1971 and 1972, entangling officials at the highest levels of state government. A Houston banker and insurance company executive, Frank Sharp, used his companies to grant $600,000 in loans to state officials with the understanding that they would purchase stock in one of those companies to be resold later at a huge profit. Loan recipients helped produce the profits by pushing passage of legislation sought by Sharp to benefit his insurance company and inflate its value. The scheme succeeded, generating about a quarter-million dollars in profits for investors. -But in 1971, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed criminal and civil charges against key participants in the fraud. -In the aftermath of the scandal, the Texas Legislature passed the Campaign Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1973. As its name indicates, the law was oriented toward reporting -Every candidate and political committee in Texas must appoint a campaign treasurer before accepting contributions or incurring expenditures. -Candidates and campaign committees must file financial reports which include all contributions and expenditures over $50. -Out-of-state committees could make contributions in excess of $500, but only if individual contributors of $100 or more were reported. -The 1991 ethics scandal involving five-term Speaker of the Texas House Gib Lewis led to legislation creating the Texas Ethics Commission (TEC). In creating the Ethics Commission, the 1991 law established means of enforcing the reporting requirements specified in the 1973 law.

Organizing Government

-The bicameral legislature, the plural executive, and other checks and balances within the institutions that make up the government of Texas limit the ability of parties to easily organize the government; so does the loose organization of the parties themselves. But party officials and officeholders do try to use party allegiance as an organizing tool. -In the state legislature, party caucuses (meetings of members of the party) organize government by coming together to select priorities and develop a legislative strategy.

The Civil Rights Movement

-The civil rights era featured a diverse array of legal actions, grassroots organizations, and protests as agents of change. The movement widened the existing division between the tense allies that had managed to coexist in the national Democratic Party up to this point. On one side of the rift were white conservative Democrats mostly from the South, who had been the mainstay of traditional Democratic power in the region since the Civil War. On the other were liberal Democrats mostly from the North, as well as African Americans and other ethnic minorities from around the country. -When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, dissatisfaction among conservative Southern whites reached a critical mass. -Convinced that their party was pandering to blacks, many Southern Democrats crossed over and voted for opposition candidates in the 1968 presidential election (either Republican Richard Nixon or third-party candidate George Wallace) rather than support Democrat Hubert Humphrey, who in their eyes no longer represented their views.

Parties perform multiple functions in our democracy and consist of three semi-distinct groups: the party in the electorate, the party in government, and the party organization.

-The party in the electorate, or the PIE, is made up of citizens like you. -The party in government, or the PIG, is made up of elected officials who ran under a party's banner. -Finally, there's the party organization, or the PO. While candidates and their campaigns may come and go with each election cycle, party organizations manage party affairs on an ongoing basis.

Targeting

-The professional campaign services that developed in the mid-20th century made up of advertisers, direct mailers, pollsters, and organizers has now been reshaped by the influence of academics, including psychologists, political scientists, and economists. -A central component of enabling campaigns to target more effectively is the collection and analysis of massive amounts of data, known as data mining. Data mining is a means of discovering patterns and associations in voter habits that are not readily apparent. In campaigns, data mining is used to identify the types of voters who spend, vote, or volunteer. -Microtargeting takes the patterns found from the data mining process and then makes use of predictive models to find segments of a population likely to support a candidate.

The New Deal Alliance

-The progressive movement within the Republican Party decried the excesses of the Gilded Age and advocated regulation of the large public trusts emerging from industrialization, prohibition of alcohol, and a host of laws focusing on election reform. -Elected to the presidency in 1932, Roosevelt powered a newly unified national Democratic Party that united traditionally Republican constituencies (union members and working-class voters) with Southern Democrats (both populists as well as conservative elites), who were still unable to support a Republican as a consequence of the Civil War.

Political Parties

-The relative positions of the parties along with their differing constituencies make up the party system, which changes over time in major shifts known as realignments. -Parties perform multiple functions in our democracy and consist of three semi-distinct groups: the party in the electorate, the party in government, and the party organization. -The unique political character of Texas has fostered one-party rule for much of the state's history after the Civil War. -Internal divisions within the dominant Democratic Party eventually weakened its hold on Texas government and led to the rise of the Republican Party in the late 20th century. -Both parties in Texas today reflect more conservative versions of their national counterparts. -There are numerous ways to get involved in party politics, from simply talking with friends and neighbors to running for office yourself.

Organize Your Precinct

-The smallest administrative political unit is a precinct, made up of 50 to 3,000 registered voters. Organizing a precinct involves grassroots, face-to-face contact with individual voters. -Election judges, officials appointed from nominees submitted by party officials whose job it is to oversee polling places at the precinct level and ensure fair elections, preside over polling places to ensure ballot security.

Other Types of Influence

-They can also create political action committees (PACs) to raise and spend money in support of individual candidates or a slate of candidates. -They can create "candidate scorecards" that show how two candidates compare in their support for issues that matter to the interest group. Disseminating these scorecards to voters through their mailing lists is an indirect way for the interest group to convey "vote for Candidate A, not Candidate B" without actually saying it. -Interest groups may also seek to influence campaigns through old-fashioned canvassing, going door-to-door and making personal appeals to voters one household at a time.

Legal Action

-They can file lawsuits against other groups and individuals, demanding that they either take a certain action or desist from a certain action. Governmental organizations at all levels can be sued for noncompliance with the law or their own charters—and they often are.

Public Interest Groups

-They promote policies that produce widely distributed benefits that anyone can enjoy—cleaner air, safer food, better roads, and so on.

Events and Speeches

-Though modern campaigns can use digital media and sophisticated techniques to identify and track voters, political rallies and speeches remain staple events of a campaign. -As you can probably imagine, one consequence of campaign appearances being designed for news coverage is that encounters between candidates and the public are no longer the spontaneous interactions they once were.

Registration

-To register you must fill out a registration card, which you can request on the secretary of state's website or anywhere where you apply for or renew your driver's license, such as the post office or the department of motor vehicles. -After filling out your card, mail it to the voter registrar in your county

Campaigns spend most of their limited resources on television advertising, but are increasingly employing sophisticated uses of data to identify, contact, and mobilize sympathetic voters.

-Using technology to gather and apply data to craft and deliver messages now competes with, and in some instances is replacing, the traditional practices used by campaigns in the past. -Candidates and their campaigns need to accomplish two distinct tasks. First, they must motivate citizens to show up. Second, candidates must also inspire voters with carefully crafted messages to secure their support and get voters to cast their ballots for them.

Requirements for Voting

-a citizen of the United States -a resident of Texas for at least 30 days -at least 18 years old -registered to vote for at least 30 days before the election -To vote in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives, state legislature (house or senate), and county or municipal government, you must be a resident of those districts or jurisdictions for at least 30 days. You may not vote if you have been declared mentally incompetent or are a convicted felon whose sentence, probation, or parole has not been completed.

Federal Campaign Finance Regulation

-modern campaign finance regulation in the United States is a relatively recent development, beginning in 1972 with the adoption of the Federal Election Campaign Act, or FECA. -This time the law set limits on campaign contributions from individuals, political parties, and political action committees (PACs). To enforce these limits as well as the original law's reporting requirements, the 1974 amendment created an independent agency, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) -The updated FECA law also prohibited contributions directly from corporations, labor unions, or foreign nationals. A similar ban on corporate and union contributions to state candidates is in place in Texas as well, as designated by the Texas Ethics Commission

Temperance

-the nonpartisan temperance movement appeared, advocating the prohibition of alcohol and loosening party loyalties within the core political constituencies (also known as bases) of both parties. -Democratic political leaders faced difficulties in deciding whether to make the moral arguments against the sins of alcohol, or to follow the pro-business, anti-regulatory tendencies that would have them look the other way when liquor distillers and vendors met a legitimate market demand of the people.