parties and what they do. what is a political party political party: a group of people who seek to...
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Parties and What They Do
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What Is a Political Party
• Political Party: a group of people who seek to control government through the winning of elections and the holding of public office.
• This describes the two major parties in American politics.
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Republicans
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Democrats
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• A political party is a group of persons, joining together on the basis of common principles, who seek to control government in order to affect certain public policies.
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What Do Parties Do?• In American History, it is clean that political
parties are essential to democratic government.
• Parties are the major mechanisms behind the development of broad policy and leadership choices.
• They are the medium through which those options are presented to the people.
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• Political parties are the vital link between the people and their government.
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• Parties serve the democratic ideal in another important way.
• They bring conflicting groups together, as well as modify and encourage compromise among the contending views of different interest groups.
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Nominating Candidates
• The major function of a political party is to nominate candidates for public offices.
• The party selects a candidate and then presents them to the voters.
• Then the parties help their candidates win elections.
• To have a function democracy, there must be a procedure for finding candidates for office.
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• The nominating function is almost exclusively a party function in the United States.
• It is the one activity that most clearly sets political parties apart from all of the other groups in politics.
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Informing and Activating Supporters
• Parties inform the people, and inspire and activate their interest and participation in public affairs.
• Parties try to inform and inspire voters in several ways.
• Primarily, they campaign for their candidates, take stands on issues, and criticize the candidates and the positions of their opponents.
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• Remember, both parties want to win elections, and that consideration has much to do with the stands they take on most issues.
• Both parties try to shape positions that will attract as many voters as possible.
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Government
• Congress and state legislatures are organized on party lines, and they conduct much of their business on the basis of partisanship.
– Which is the strong support of their party and its policy stands.
• Parties provide a basis for the conduct of government.
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• In the complicated separation of powers arrangement, the executive and legislative branches must cooperate with one another if government is to accomplish anything.
• It is political parties that regularly provide the channels through which these two branches are able to work together.
• Political parties have played a significant role in the process of constitutional change.
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Watchdogs• Parties act as watchdogs over the
conduct of the public’s business.
• This is particularly true of the party out of power.
• It plays this role as it criticizes the policies and behavior of the party in power.
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• In American politics the party in power is the party that controls the executive branch of government – the presidency at the national level or the governorship at the state level.
• In effect, the party out of power attempts to convince the voters that they should throw them out.
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• In short, the party out of power plays the important role of “the loyal opposition”
– Those opposed to the party in power but loyal to the people and the nation.