Unit 4 Notes

What is the Political Ideology Spectrum?

-social conservatives -conservatives -moderates -liberals

How do campaigns take a personal toll?

- Grueling schedule ➢ Fundraising ➢ Glad-handing travel - Sleep is a luxury...Exhaustion leads to gaffes

Why do candidates run?

- Personal ambition - Ideological objectives - Think they can do a better job than their opponents.

When was the polling to predict winner of elections?

-1800s -As early as 1824, one Pennsylvania newspaper tried to predict the winner of that years presidential contest showing Andrew Jackson leading over John Quincy Adams

When was the poling to discover public opinions?

-1930s -public opinion research didn't really emerge as a science until the 1930s -Walter Lippmann's book Public Opinion -Different methods to capture it were tried. The survey was the primary method

What was the Rise of the polling business?

-1940s -founded by Gallup in 1935 ~company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. It provides research and strategic consulting to large organizations in many countries -marketing products and candidates -Gallup Org. continues to predict winners of elections today

What is a national party platform?

-Every four years, each party writes a lengthy platform explaining its positions on key issues. -Most visible instrument to promote public policy -About two-thirds of winning party's platform tends to be enacted. -About one-half of the losing party's platform tends to be enacted

What are the role of debates?

-First presidential debate: 1960 (Kennedy/Nixon) -Important to both nominating process and general election campaign -Media spin influences impact. ❏ While candidates have complete control over what they say in debates, they cannot control what the news media will highlight and focus on after the debates. ❏ Media coverage can benefit some candidates more than others, as it did for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in during the nominating contest debates

What are the activities of American Political Parties?

-For over 200 years, the two-party system has served as the mechanism American society uses to organize and resolve social and political conflict. -Political parties often are the chief agents of change in our political system. -They provide vital services to society, and it would be difficult to envision political life without them. -They are mainly involved: •Running Candidates for Office •Formulating and Promoting Policy •Organizing Government •Furthering Unity, Linkage, and Accountability

What are National Party Conventions?

-Formally nominate presidential and vice presidential candidates -Seek to energize party faithful and influence voters ▪Convention "bounce"

What are the 2 ideologies that exist in the US?

-Liberals (Left) -Conservatives (Right)

How do parties hold elements o government and political structures together?

-Link branches and levels of government that are divided and subdivided -Creates a smoother process by linking different branches of government -One more means of accountability. -Does it still holds true today??? Political polarization!

How are political parties organized?

-National party -state and local parties ~american political parties are national in scope but their real roots and power lie here -informal groups

What do candidates running or office do?

-Political parties play a crucial role in elections -Raising Money ~Well-developed networks of donors ~Historically, Republicans have been better fundraisers than Democrats due to a larger number of wealthier donors. -Mobilizing Support and Getting Out the Vote ~Public opinion polls ~TV advertisements ~"Get out the vote" (GOTV) activities on Election Day

Why do incumbents lose?

-Redistricting ▪occurs every ten years when state lawmakers redraw the districts following the census. ▪Can punish incumbents in the minority party ▪Gerrymandering -Scandals -Presidential coattails ▪Incumbent presidential election loss can trickle down. -Mid-term elections ▪Can threaten incumbents of the president's party, if the president is not pop

What are sampling techiques?

-Representative sampling ~most important principle in sampling is randomness -margin of error

What are push polls?

-sometimes intent of poll is to skew results by negatively phrasing a question -intend to sway votes -reputable pollsters avoid push polls/

How do you determine the content and phrasing of the question?

-Wording is crucial -Before pollsters can ask anyone anything, they must ask themselves critical questions -carefully construct the question; differently phrased questions can result in diff. answers

Margin of error:

-a statistical device that provides a numerical calculation for how close the results of a poll are to the truth -the range of percentage points in which the sample accurately reflects the population (3% is the standard).

What are exit polls?

-as voters leave polling places on election day (ask every tenth person) -used to predict outcomes -generally, large news organizations send pollsters to selected precincts to sample every tenth voter as he/she leaves polling site

What is the American National Election Studies (ANES)?

-began in 1952 -efforts to measure public opinion have benefited fro social science surveys, like ANES -funded largely by the US govt through National Science Foundation -is academically-run national surveys of voters in US, conducted before and after every presidential electrion

What are party-building activities?

-state and local parties recruit candidates, conduct voter registration drives, and provide funds to candidates

What are liberals?

-believe that govt should protect individuals from economic disadvantage and correct past injustices -oppose regulation of private behavior -oppose infringement on civil rights and and liberties

State and Local Parties: What are the roots of the party?

-central committees in each state -majority of party positions at subnatl lvl -regulation of parties handled at state lvl

What goes into analyzing data?

-data gathered from the poll must be analyzed for meaning -special attention to subgroups -reporting of data

How to conduct and analyze public opinion polls?

-designing the survey -selecting the sample -contacting respondents -analyzing the date -shortcomings of pollings

How do you design the survey?

-determine the content and phrasing of the question -push polls

What is the national committe?

-each natl. party has governing body in for of natl committee. It coordinated the convention and the subsequent presidential campaign -Dem. Natl Convention (DNC) -Rep. Natl Convention (RNC)

What is a national convention?

-every 4 yrs, each major party holds its convention to formally nominate a candidate for office of president -bc a nominee is known ahead of time, real purpose of convention is to present positive image of the candidate to the country -delegates and superdelegates

What are tracking polls?

-involve small samples (usually of registered voters contacted at certain times of the day) and takes every 24 hrs -pollsters then combine results into moving 3 to 4 day averages

What is the problem with political ideological labels?

-many people don't fit into one ideology (positions may switch depending on the issue) -left right spectrum is inadequate ~it can't capture the full complexity of most citizens' ideologies -ideologies of most people are better represented by a spectrum measuring individuals' view points on govt interference in both economic and personal liberties.

What makes up survey of error?

-margin of error -sampling error -lack of info -difficulty measuring intensity -lack of interest in political issues

What are the special subgroups within data?

-men vs women -age groups -political ideology

What is the Political Ideology: Nature vs Nurture?

-political socialization: nurture -nature: are we born w/our political identity already hardwired into our psychological system

What happened in the Literary Digest?

-popular magazine that was a pioneer in the use of the straw poll, an unscientific survey used to gauge public opinion, w/initial success -problem w/sample over represents upper middle class vote in 1936 election, FDR wins selection bias

What goes into selecting the sample?

-population -random sampling -stratified sampling -sampling techniques

What were the forms of the earliest public opinion research?

-predict winner of elections -discover public opinions

What are conservatives?

-prefer limited govt -favor state and local control -believe that private sector should handle social problems

What are internet polls?

-scientific vs unscientific polls -some polling companies have devised scientific strategies to ensure that the results of internet polling are legitimate, but are not to be confused w/so-called web polls that allow anyone to weigh in on a topic.

What is the National Chairperson?

-selected by president or newly nominated presidential candidate -fills many roles. he/she primarily acts as chief fundraiser and spokesperson for party -must keep peace w/in party and find common ground among diff. factors

What is the precinct?

-state parties are organized into precincts -smallest voting unit- building block of party -precinct committe members are foot soldier of part, and they're supported by state executive committee, plus party committees at city, country, and other lvls

Who was George Gallup?

-studied (dissertation) how to measure the readership of newspapers -expanded research to study public opinion about politics

What are the shortcomings of polling?

-survey error -limited response options

How is data analyzed for meaning?

-this step reveals implications of data for public policy or for political campaigns -data are crunched by computers, which may further break down info by subgroups -this allows campaigns to see how their candidate is faring among women vs men, or in a certain age group

What does the ANES ask citizens?

-vote choice party affiliation -opinions on parties and candidates

What are some forms of limited response options?

-yes/no (approve/disapprove) questions ~"feeling thermometer"

political ideology-

A coherent set of values and beliefs people hold about the purpose and scope of govt. -concerns itself w/how to allocate power and to what ends it should be used -ex Communism based on ideas/writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

What is political socialization?

A lifelong process by which people form their ideas about political values -family -educational system -peer groups -mass media -social environments (religious organizations, clubs, etc.) or Civil Society (political socialization-> political attitudes-> political ideology)

What are libertarians?

Against governmental interference

delegates-

Attend the convention to select the nominee. They used to be picked by party leaders, but now generally are elected in local primary elections.

Wha does the ANES focus on?

Attitudes of the electorate

What is margin of error?

Bc polls are based on a sample that's intended for general public, the results are close but not exact. Polls allow for margin of error -typically margin of error in a sample of 1000 people plus or minus 3%

What are social conservatives?

Believe govt should regulate sexual and social behavior

How are citizens' opinions determined?

By their political ideology.

What are moderates?

Centrist views on most issues

What is random digit dialing?

Computer generated -selection bias: although 47% of Americans use cellphones, most polls done for newspapers and new magazines target those w/landlines

Why should it be random?

Every person should have a known chance, and especially an equal chance, of being sampled

superdelegates-

Democratic party official whose vote at the convention is unpledged to a candidate.

How is lack of info a polling shorcoming?

Depending on issue, respondents may not have enough background info on an issue to accurately answer poll questions.

What are statists?

For governmental interference

What is random sampling?

If it's simply the population a large, pollsters might use a random sampling.

What is stratified sampling?

If they're looking at specifics in income, family, size, or ethnicity, they might use stratified sampling which is based on US Census data that provide the # of residences in an area and their location.

What happens in Congressional Elections?

Incumbency- candidates who are already in office, incumbents, have a huge advantage in congressional elections. •Staff Support: 18 permanent, 4 non-permanent in Washington, D.C. and home district. -Constituent service - i.e. tracking a lost Social Security check or helping a veteran receive his or her benefits. •Visibility -Access to local media -Generous travel allowances •Scare-off Effect: incumbents also enjoy the so-called "scare-off" effect, in which potential challengers decide not to subject themselves to the incumbent's institutional advantages

How is the government organized?

Just as they do in elections, political parties play a key role in organizing the operations of government. This is especially true in Congress., where the -Parties in Congress ~political parties arrange for the selection of the leaders, such as Speaker of the House and the Majority and Minority leaders and whips. ~Congressional leadership positions carry an enormous amount of power; legislators in these positions may determine which bills are considered for a vote and who gets money to take home to the district. ~Increase of party-line voting (party whips) -The Presidential Party ~President is the public face of the party. -Parties in the Federal Courts ~Party is a factor in appointments by a partisan president. ~Party a factor in approval by a partisan Senate. -Parties in State Government ~Same thing at state level ~Organize state governments (legislature and governors) along partisan structure.

Why is lack of interest in political issues a shortcoming?

Many people have a difficult time forming an opinion that don't appear to affect them directly or aren't connected to a moral value question -foreign affairs vs domestic issues ~ex. health cares, crime, taxes, etc.

What makes up informal groups?

Numerous official and semi-official groups that seek to influence the formal party organization -official and semi-official groups ~state and local party women ~college campus organizations -labor unions and other interest groups -think tanks ~sources o policy ideas

What is sampling error?

Occurs when pollsters fail to sample all elements of a population. -ex. poor and homeless are underrepresented in polls

How is data reported?

Once data is analyzed, the results are generally reported. This could be done by news organizations, university research centers, or campaigns.

What does population do have to do with sample?

Pollsters must determine the population whose attitudes they want to gauge.

Why are yes/no (approve/disapprove) questions shortcomings?

Respondents who feel very strongly about an issue or somewhat neutral about it may not be able to adequately (or accurately) respond to a poll that offers only yes/no or approve/disapprove options.

McCutcheon v. FEC (2014):

SCOTUS struck down the aggregate limits on the amount of money individuals may contribute to all federal candidates, parties, and political action committees combined. Although the ruling maintained the federal campaign limits that restrict how much a donor can give to any one candidate or to any one party committee, it paved the way for increased influence of individual donors in campaigns and elections. It has also allowed candidates and parties to create huge joint fundraising committees.

What is a "feeling thermometer"?

Style of question, in which respondents rate from 0 to 10 their feeling on a given prompt.

How do you contact respondents?

Telephone polls -random digit dialing -tracking polls -exit and internet polls

What are public opinion polls?

They are are generally used based on a set of interviews and/or written questions, polls are used to determine/predict: -what people believe -how they feel about comething -what way they will act

How is difficultly measuring intensity a shortcoming?

They can't measure the intensity of a respondent's feelings. -a person can say yes to a question about absentee ballot laws but not care that much -on the other hand, a person who responds to a question about war on terror may have very strong feelings

What are the types of elections?

•American electoral process has two stages: ■ the primary election stage ■ the general election stage. •Primary Elections: voters decide which candidate from within a specific party will go on to challenge a candidate of an opposing party. -Closed primaries - only voters registered with a particular party can cast a ballot -Open primaries - independent voters and sometimes even voters registered with the opposing party can vote. ▪Cross-over voting- Closed primaries are better, because guard against crossover voting, which can be problematic - some crossover voter have bad intentions. -Runoff primary - top-two voters run against each other when regular primary doesn't produce a winner. •Primary elections were a Progressive-era reform intended to reduce the potential for mischief in a nomination system controlled by the parties, but they were not widely embraced by states until after the 1968 election

What public funds are used?

•Available to Presidential Candidates -Public campaign funds are donations from general tax revenues to candidates for public office. -Must raise at least $5,000 from individual donations in twenty states -Must accept restrictions on fund-raising and spending -Few candidates accept matching funds. •Presidential Election Campaign Fund -$3 from each taxpayer who ticks box -20 percent of taxpayers participate.

Campaign Finance Reform:

❖ Modern political campaigns are staggeringly expensive. ❖ The Democratic and Republican parties raised over $2.6 billion for the 2012 presidential election campaign and 2.3 billion. ❖ Congress has made some half-hearted attempts to regulate campaign finance, but these efforts have been unsuccessful in curbing the growing role of money in political campaigns •Regulating Campaign Finance •Sources of Campaign Funding •Public Funds

What is the role of the media?

•Campaigns Employ Vast Array of Communications Weapons ❏ faster printing technologies, ❏ reliable databases, ❏ instantaneous Internet publishing and mass email, ❏ social media sites, ❏ autodialed pre-recorded messages, ❏ and enhanced telecommunications and teleconferencing. •News Media Reporting -Report on candidates' speeches and other campaign activities, as well as any unflattering personal details that may emerge. -Horse-race coverage - focus on who is ahead. -Problem because reports of even tiny fluctuations in public opinion can have a major influence on the financial and practical support a candidate receives. It can even influence how people vote. •Strategies to Shape News Coverage -Obtain favorable media coverage -Staged events - to portray their candidate in the way they want him to be perceived. Candidates also appear on talk shows, comedy shows, and other non-news programs to present themselves in a more informal and appealing way to voters. -Social media - They also circumvent traditional media by communicating directly to voters via social media..Twitter, Facebook, etc. •Campaign Advertisements -Positive ads: stress the candidate's qualifications. attempt to anticipate attacks and deflect them. -Negative ads: Focus on attacking the opponent's qualifications, character, or policy views. -Contrast ads: Compare the candidates, with an obvious bias for the candidate sponsoring the ad. -Inoculation ads: Attempt to anticipate attacks and deflect them.

Regulation Campaign Finance:

•Early Attempts -Prohibition on soliciting funds from federal workers (1883) -Tillman Act (1907): prohibited corporations from making direct contributions to candidates for federal office. •Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA): The first serious legislation came in the 1970s, created a program to provide public funding for presidential candidates, and the Federal Election Commission was created to enforce election laws. Buckley v. Valeo (1976), is a U.S. constitutional law Supreme Court case on campaign finance. ❖ Majority held that limits on election spending in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 are unconstitutional. ❖ Ruled that expenditure limits contravene the First Amendment provision on freedom of speech because a restriction on spending for political communication necessarily reduces the quantity of expression. •Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA): In 2002, a bipartisan law was passed that set new limits on contributions and advertising. Particularly, using corporate funds for "electioneering communications". ● Opponents quickly challenged the law on free speech grounds. ● Supreme Court has ruled that certain parts of BCRA are unconstitutional, such as limits on when advocacy ads can run, and limiting the amount of a candidate's own money that can be spent on his campaign

Sources of Campaign Funding:

•Individuals -$2,700 per election, primary and general elections. •Political Parties -As a result of the 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC decision and an expansion of party fundraising slipped into an appropriations bill later that year, the parties have been able to vastly increase their top donor levels by pooling numerous accounts and affiliates together into joint fundraising committees. -For example, Republicans launched a partnership called the Trump Victory Fund that took donations of up to $449,400 to be split between the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and 11 state parties. •Personal Savings -No limits on what an individual candidate can contribute to his/her own campaign. •Political Action Committees (PACs) -Officially recognized fund-raising organizations, created by economic and ideologically driven groups allowed by federal law to make contributions directly to candidates' campaigns. -A wide variety of groups, including labor unions, corporations, trade unions, ideological issue groups, and even members of Congress seeking to build their party's membership in Congress, may create them. -Under current rules, a multicandidate PAC can give no more than $5,000 per candidate per election, and $15,000 each year to each of the national party committees. Sources of Campaign Funding •527 Political Committees: 527s are named for the section of the tax code that covers them. ● They do not contribute directly to candidates but conduct electioneering activities on behalf of their interests. (e.g. Citizens United) ● In 2012, 527s spent $343 million on electoral activities. •501 (c) Groups -Not primarily political & may not spend more than half of their funds on campaign politics. •Super PACs -fasting growing actor in electoral politics. -They are a special type of PAC that spends money independently of individual campaigns. They do not give money directly to candidates and they are not subject to expenditure limits. In 2012, Super PACs spent over $600 million.

What happens during the Presidential Election process?

•The Constitution leaves it up to the states to run elections. •The Nominating Process- State political party organizations use several different methods to pick the delegates who will attend the national convention. -Winner-take-all primary: candidate who wins the most votes in a states secures all of that state's delegates. Democrats no longer use this process, but it is favored by Republicans. -Proportional representation primary: (Democrats) candidates who reach at least a minimum percentage of votes secure that same percentage of delegates. -Caucus: open in recent years but historically were closed-door sessions of party activists •Selecting a President: The Electoral College -a uniquely American institution comprised of representatives from each state who cast the final ballots that actually elect the president. -Each state has electors. ▪Number of electors = the number of senators and representatives from that state ▪Reapportionment can change the allocation of electors. -Number of electoral votes needed to win presidency = 270 -Historical challenges ▪Elections decided by the House (1800, 1824) ▪Popular vote winner may lose in the Electoral College (2000, 2016).

American Elections:

•Types of Elections •Presidential Elections •Congressional Elections ➢ Americans hold more elections at all levels of government than any other nation on earth. ➢ The number of Americans eligible to vote has grown over time. And yet, for all the blood shed to give all citizens the right to influence their government in this way, only about half of all eligible voters bother to cast a ballot

The Campaign Staff:

➢ Both paid staff and an army of volunteers work on political campaigns. ➢ Obviously, the size of the staff varies depending upon the level of the campaign. •Campaign Manager ❏ Most state and national campaigns have a campaign manager. ❏ The campaign manager works closely with the candidate, traveling with him and making most of the day-to-day decisions related to campaign logistics and strategy. •Finance Chair ❏ handles the financial and accounting aspects of the campaign, spearheading fundraising, filing required paperwork, and tracking income and expenditures. ❏ As campaigns have gotten more expensive, this role has become significantly more critical and prestigious. •Communications Staff -Communications director: a crucial role, developing the media strategy for the campaign, including supervision of advertisements. -Press secretary: interacts with journalists, acting as primary spokesperson for the campaign. This job includes responding to attacks and delivering bad news. -Digital team: The Internet plays an increasingly large role in political campaigns, and some staff are devoted just to managing the candidate's online presence. •Campaign Consultants -Pollsters: give them up-to-the-minute information on where they stand with voters and to gauge the potential reaction to various positions and advertisements. •Volunteers: lifeblood of political campaigns. -Voter canvass - door-to-door soliciting funds and votes -Get-out-the-vote (GOTV) - e.g. providing transportation to the polls.