POLI 2051 Chapter : We The People Chapter 8 Summary
Document Summary
Political parties, candidates, & campaigns: defining the voter"s choice. Political party = an ongoing coalition of interests joined together in an effort to get its candidates for public office elected under a common label. U. s. campaigns are party centered in the sense that the republican & democratic parties compete across the country election after election. Minor parties exist in the u. s. but have been unable to compete successfully for governing power: to win an electoral majority, candidates of the 2 major parties must appeal to a diverse set of interests. This necessity has typically led them to advocate moderate & somewhat overlapping policies, although this tendency has weakened in recent years: u. s. party organizations are decentralized & fragmented. The national organization is a loose collection of state organizations, which in turn are loose associations of local organizations. This was the first split: hamilton federalist party.
