Government Test 2 (ch. 11-15)

secures them a small army of campaign workers

A major advantage of the patronage system for machine politicians is that it ______.

reduce obstacles to voting

A major purpose of the "Motor Voter" legislation was to ______.

journalists might otherwise report on objectionable measures

A major reason why the president's media staffers try to orchestrate a daily theme for presidential press coverage is that ______.

self-selection

A measure of public opinion on a current events web site like foxnews.com that asks users to record their views on a particular policy issue is an example of a(n) ______ poll.

editors and writers hold much political power

A reasonable implication of Barbour and Wright's explication of political narratives is that ______.

lose credibility and access to legislators

According to Barbour and Wright, lobbyists provide important information to members of Congress and their staffs. As a result, a lobbyist who knowingly provided false information would likely ______.

factions

According to James Madison in Federalist No. 10, groups of citizens who are united by some passion and are opposed to the interests of the whole community are known as ______.

groups

According to the pluralists, politicians are most interested in dealing with ______.

be highly educated

All else being equal, the most politically tolerant individuals tend to ______.

true

American political parties have become more ideologically distinct in recent decades.

decentralized

American political party organization can best be described as ______.

worked as it should bc citizens can choose between competing media

An elitist would examine the traditional media landscape and likely conclude that it ______.

send volunteers to voter's home to take them to vote

An example of a get-out-the-vote drive in action would be when parties ______.

states enact laws on early voting

An example of regulating the electorate would be when ______.

statewide candidates will probably be more moderate than in small districts

An implication of Barbour and Wright's discussion of the forces that drive apart and push together American political parties ideologically is that ______.

politicians and lobbyists are frequently well known to each other

An important consequence of the revolving door in American politics is that ______.

advertisers can strongly influence news content

An important implication of the corporate, commercial nature of the American media is that ______.

Washington DC

Apart from New York, the city where most journalists want to work is ___

national committee

At the top tier of each party's organization lies the ______.

governing and electioneering

Barbour and Wright argue that modern political parties have two fundamental activities, ______.

generally accurate, with the glaring exception of the 2000 contest

Barbour and Wright assert that major polls in recent American presidential elections have been ______.

skew results by answering based on context clues

Barbour and Wright aver that it is important for pollsters to ask respondents questions they can answer (or give them a "don't know" option). One likely consequence of not taking this step is that survey participants might ______.

true

Barbour and Wright believe that a demagogue can manipulate citizens into voting for him using appeals to fear and anger as motivation.

argues the voters should behave differently than they actually do

Barbour and Wright claim that the participatory model of voter behavior is the most "prescriptive" of the three that they examine because it ______.

hired professional staffers

Barbour and Wright conclude that the real work of presidential campaigns is done by ______.

is more related to momentum and expectations than coming in first

Barbour and Wright contend that "winning" in the presidential primaries and caucuses ______.

parties facilitate opposition to the party in charge

Barbour and Wright imply that a true one-party democracy would be difficult to imagine because ______.

far more powerful in politics than their tiny percentage of the workforce would imply

Barbour and Wright imply that agricultural interest groups are ______.

are not politically sophisticated

Barbour and Wright imply that in terms of political ideology and tolerance most American voters ______.

the media

Barbour and Wright imply that voters obtain the most information about political parties' contending platforms from ______.

poor people who lack internet will become second-class citizens

Barbour and Wright intimate that a possible outcome of the shift toward digital media and Internet journalism is that ______.

they make it easier to hold parties accountable for behavior in office

Barbour and Wright recommend that voters cast straight-ticket ballots because ______.

profit trumps originality in this media universe.

Barbour and Wright seem to imply that the fact that most major American news and information outlets are owned by a handful of conglomerates indicates that ______.

business owners

Barbour and Wright would contend that which of the following groups should find it easiest to band together to pursue common goals?

keeping up with politics is too costly in terms of time and effort

Barbour and Wright would likely argue that many voters choose to remain rationally ignorant because ______.

it would not be able to hire the staff needed to accomplish its goals

Based on what Barbour and Wright argue about the importance of money to interest groups, a chronic lack of financial resources almost certainly guarantees an interest group's failure because ______.

image

Because television news is part of a visual entertainment medium, Barbour and Wright conclude that it tends to focus on ______.

false

Because there is so little difference between America's political parties, the winners of American elections should make no difference to voters.

being a free rider

Billy is interested in lowering the speed limit on a major road near his house. A citizens' group has formed to lobby the city council to take this step, but Billy decides not to join it because he knows he can benefit from the group's work if it is successful without contributing to its effort. In this instance, Billy is ______.

lighthouse

By its very nature, a reasonable example of a collective good is a ______.

soft money

Campaign contributions unregulated by federal or state law, usually given to parties and party committees to help fund general party activities.

true

Careful studies of American journalism demonstrate no significant ideological bias in the American media universe overall.

true

Citizen journalism can hold American political institutions accountable for their actions.

legitimated by the public but also protected from its worst elements

Concerning the impact of the public in American national decision-making, Barbour and Wright imply that the founders wanted a system ______.

are protected by first ammendment

Congress has been reluctant to regulate issue advocacy advertisements because they _____

compromises between competing factions of the same party

Despite what the responsible party model states that they should be, American party platforms are often ______.

Sixth Party Era

Divided government and incremental realignment are both characteristics of ______.

John f. Kennedy

Due to his telegenic personality, the first president to make extensive use of television was _____

run and finance their own campaigns

Elitist democrats would aver that, in contrast to what the responsible party model states should happen, American political candidates ______.

members of the elite should be charged with protecting the democracy

Elitists might argue that because political tolerance tends to increase with education level, ______.

Collectively, Americans seem to know less about politics than do individual Americans.

FALSE

an elite segment of the population

For most of American history, control of the media has been in the hands of ______.

true

From Barbour and Wright's point of view, it seems that Americans often forget that a lot of what we call "politics" is really about "bickering" between political parties.

false

Front-loading makes it easier for underdog and dark-horse candidates to win presidential nominations.

have the opportunity to immediately answer questions

Given how Congress operates, most lobbyists likely consider personal (face-to-face) contact to be one of the most effective ways to lobby its members because lobbyists______.

moderate decline in voter turnout

Given that party identification creates a mental connection between parties and voters, the decline in party identification over the past fifty years could be linked to a ______ during that period.

revolving door

High-powered lobbying groups would probably take advantage of ______ to ensure that they maintain an elevated level of access to Congress.

are essential to a healthy democracy

In contrast to James Madison in Federalist No. 10, Barbour and Wright maintain that political parties ______.

movement of conservative southern democrats to the Republican Party

In recent decades, the Democratic Party has become more liberal and the Republican Party more conservative. This fact can best be attributed to the ______.

engaging in voter mobilization

Jill is very excited about Senator Longman's campaign, so she volunteers for it by spreading the word about the senator on her campus, leafletting the cars in her college's parking lots, and even driving her like-minded friends to the polls on Election Day. From Barbour and Wright's perspective, Jill is ______.

link citizens and the government

Just as pluralists would predict, parties are important in democracies because they ______.

activists

Members of the party base who are especially committed to the values and policies of their party and who devote large portions of their time and money to it are known as party ______.

true

Most PAC campaign spending goes to support incumbents of both parties.

true

Most lobbyists know that influencing the bureaucracy is as important as influencing Congress because bureaucrats are the individuals who implement laws.

fighting terrorism

One example of a valence issue that Barbour and Wright mention is ______.

are thinly veiled campaign ads

Opponents of issue advocacy advertisements criticize them because they ______.

false

Over the past several decades, party identification has tended to become stronger and more widespread in American politics.

voting

Participatory democrats would argue that ______ is the best way to improve a person's political efficacy.

ideal citizen

Participatory democrats would be most likely to support the ______ model.

coordinate activities across branches and levels of govt

Parties are especially useful in the American political system because they can ______.

participation

Pluralists would likely argue that the most important role of interest groups is ______.

revealing opponent's drunk driving arrest in the middle of a debate

Pretend for a moment that you are running for president. An example of where you might employ oppo research in your campaign would be ______.

participatory

Public opinion polls are generally considered to be most useful to ______ democratic theory.

likely primary winner will be more liberal than the average voter

Since party activists are more likely to participate in primaries than the average party identifier, ______.

they have more members than money

Social protest tactics are frequently used by interest groups when ______.

southern democrats

Starting in the 1960s, a group that abandoned the New Deal coalition for the Republican Party were ______.

Americans are often willing to silence opinions with which they disagree

Studies of political tolerance have demonstrated that ______.

interest group entrepreneur

Suzanne, a traditional first-year student at Erehwon University, starts a campus organization advocating for a lowered drinking age. She is clearly behaving here as a(n) ______.

FALSE

The 1936 Literary Digest poll featured a representative sample.

false

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) ended the controversy over abortion in American politics.

soft money loophole

The Supreme Court's interpretation of campaign finance law that enabled political parties to raise unlimited funds for party-building activities such as voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts.

FALSE

The United States enjoys one of the highest voter turnout rates in the industrialized world.

false

The United States is about average in terms of voter turnout when compared to other advanced industrialized democracies.

politically intolerant and poorly informed

The apolitical and self-interested view of citizenship claims that average voters are

they regularly vote

The disproportionate attention that politicians pay to older white upper-class voters can be best attributed to the fact that ______.

incumbency advantage

The fact that no sitting president trying for reelection has been seriously challenged for his party's nomination in the primaries since 1976 is an excellent example of ______.

biased sample

The failure of the 1936 Literary Digest poll was due to its ______.

false

The federal government has decided to stop subsidizing American farmers because it is a waste of taxpayer money.

false

The founders believed that average Americans could be trusted to vote wisely and make good decisions about politics for themselves.

more cash intensive than labor intensive

The impact of mass communication methods on campaigns has been to make them ______.

true

The major broadcast networks have, in recent decades, cut back on the amount of live coverage that they give to the major political party conventions.

that more potential respondents decline to participate

The most likely cause of sample bias in opinion polls today is ______.

consumption and creating of news has become more democratic

The old media gatekeepers have lost much of their editorial power in recent years. An implication of this trend is that the ______.

FALSE

The passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, which permitted the direct election of senators, represented an increase in the ability of Americans to influence their political system.

are more engaged in the media they consume than most critics would agreed

The phenomenon of selective perception demonstrates that viewers ______.

imit the ability of reporters to put their own interpretation on events

The purpose of news management is to

agenda setting

The sudden increase in American foreign aid to counteract the 1984-1985 Ethiopian famine once the American media started to report on it is a classic example of the effect of ______.

astroturf lobbying

Tobacco industry efforts to artificially generate letters to members of Congress in support of subsidies to their farmers would generally be thought of as ______.

true

Unions have become a weaker, but not insubstantial, force in American politics in recent decades.

straw

Unscientific polls that are often conducted by newspapers and politicians to see which way the political winds are blowing are generally called ______ polls.

bias the results

Using a term like mob rather than crowd in designing a poll question would be most likely to ______.

false

Virtually no attention is paid to politics on cable television news.

front loading

When California moved its presidential primary from June to March, the state was engaging in ______.

education

When a group like Mothers Against Drunk Driving attempts to increase politicians' understanding of the problems related to impaired driving, the organization is engaging in ______.

there are good normative and empirical reasons for believing that public opinion affects politics

When discussing the impact that public opinion has on the politics of democratic systems, Barbour and Wright aver that ______.

routinely do not trust the government to tackle legitimate problems

When it comes to Americans' trust in their government, Barbour and Wright state that many of them ______.

The revolving door

When someone like William Safire serves as a speechwriter to President Nixon and then returns to being a syndicated newspaper columnist, he is taking part in ______.

elections would serve only a limited role in determining public policy

When the founders wrote the Constitution, they anticipated that ______.

an NPR coffee mug with a logo

Which of the following is an example of a material selective incentive (benefit)?

One must collect demographic data at the end of surveys to ascertain how representative they are.

Which of the following statements about public opinion polling is true?

voter participation is highest in presidential elections

Which of the following statements about voter turnout is true?

agenda setting

Which political function of the media is evident in the following sentence: "The news media constantly emphasize crime, and politicians are evaluated on how they deal with this issue"?

elitist

______ democrats would be most likely to be in favor of tougher voter registration laws.

participatory

______ democrats would probably be most worried about the likely effects of widespread voter nonparticipation in elections.

Equal Opprotunity

______ interest groups organize to promote the rights of underrepresented or disadvantaged groups.

cynicism about American political parties

has been a major feature of American politics since the founding

engage in news management

hen a campaign limits the media's access to a candidate to a short time and the candidate makes only brief statements to the press, the campaign's spin doctors are trying to ______.

when news media engage in agenda setting and framing, they are

informing the public about what events are newsworthy and telling them how to think about those events

Elitists

interest groups system is biased toward the wealthy

been at a historical low

n recent years, American newspaper readership has ______.

TRUE

n the abstract, most Americans support free speech.

two-step flow of information

permits the public to appear collectively rational even when it is individually ignorant

the telecommunications act of 1996

permitted ownership of multiple television stations as long as they do not reach 35 percent of the market