Political Parties Hundreds of years ago the term politics was unheard of,the word layed
scrambled among the alphabet, and the power behind the undeveloped word lied still.
Today, politics is a wellknown word to us all and the power behind it has governed us for
many centuries. Differences of opinions in politics havecreated what we know as
political parties. The political parties of the United States are the oldest in the
world; amongDemocratic nations, they may also be the weakest. American voters attitudes
and traditions are big factors in what makesour parties weak. A Political Party is a
group that seeks to elect candidates to public office by giving them a party
identification. Although there are more than two political parties, the Democratic and
Republican Parties, they have dominated thepolitical system for hundreds of years. Other
parties that exist but, are not very familiar are the Whig Party, LibertarianParty,
Socialist Worker Party, Communist Party of the United States of America, National
Hamiltonian Party, NationalProhibition Party, Peace and Freedom Party, and the
Know-Nothing Party. In the United States, the labels of the two major political parties
have always had a relatively strong appeal for thevoters. Because of that, third parties
and independent candidates have rarely had much competitive success at thenational or
even the state level. There has hardly, maybe never, been a strong national party
organization in this country.Though there have, however, been long periods in which
certain state, city, and county components of the Democratic andRepublican Parties have
been organizationally powerful. Political Parties were developed because of differences
in opinions on subjects; each party was comprised of individuals with similar views. The
question that seems to come into mind often is, "How do the parties really differ?" The
answer isvery complex, much depending on what aspect of the party we are looking at:
their history, their policies and platforms,their leadership, their rank, and their level
of government--national, state, or local. A lot of it also dependson our own view of how
we see it from where we sit. During the New Deal, the difference between the Democrats
and Republicans was clear to everyone. At one time there wasa great difference between
all the Political Parties, but things have changed and the lines between the parties have
blurred. Political Parties went through many name changes beforeany were final. Thomas
Jefferson's party was known as the Democratic-Republican Party. By 1791, Jeffersonian
Republicanswere emerging as an opposition political party. Although its leaders
hesitated to use a name associated with the French Revolution, the party remained in
power until the election ofJohn Quincy Adams in 1824. It returned to power with the
election of Andrew Jackson, and soon after became known as theDemocratic Party (Bender
698). The Republican Party is the younger of the two major parties in the United States.
In 1854, the Republican Party wasorganized to oppose the extension of slavery into the
territories. Republicans first captured the presidency in 1860under the leadership of
Abraham Lincoln. His election was followed by the Civil War, during which the Republican
Partybecame the majority party (Reichley 433). The Republican Party was born in an
outburst of protest against the Kansas-NebraskaBill in 1852 (455). After the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, opponents of the measure held a series of conventions thatled to
the formation of the Republican Party. By 1860, Republicans were in a strong
position. The Whig Party had disappeared, the Know-Nothing Party had faded, andthe
Democratic Party was divided over the issue of slavery. (Linden 69-73). In 1860, a
four-way presidential race broughtvictory to the Republican candidate. It was Abraham
Lincoln who won a majority of the electoral votes. However, theRepublican victory was a
narrow sectional one. The RepublicanParty was the first, and thus far the only, third
party in American history to succeed in becoming one of the two majorparties (Binkley
173). Our major parties have been expected to take on many heavy tasks. At times in our
history, they have performed admirably and at times they have been found lacking. Since
early politicalparties lacked the tight organization of present-day parties, candidates
were chosen by a few congressional leaders. They were chosen at a party caucus. The
caucus system was successful until the 1820's when many Americans became resentful of
"KingCaucus." The Americans then called for a change. In the election of 1824, 3 of the
4 presidential candidates were chosen by state conventions or state legislatures
insteadof by caucuses (Nichols 217). Rather quickly, political parties began to hold
national conventions to choose presidentialcandidates. The delegates to these
conventions did give more party members a voice in choosing candidates. Parties serve as
unifying factors at times: drawingtogether the president, senators, representatives, and
sometimes even judges behind common programs. But political parties, have weakened by
having to work through a system of fragmented governmental power. This was so we would
never develop a strongparty. Since 1954, the electorate have chosen to put Democrats in
charge of congress and a Republican in charge of the WhiteHouse (Burns 32). Many
Americans have mixed feelings about parties. They think parties: evade the issues, fail
to deliver on theirpromises, have no new ideas, and they are sources of corruption and
misgovernment. Parties follow public opinion rather thanlead it. Other Americans favor
political parties and take part in it. Most Americans believe in voting for
individualcandidates, regardless of party label. There are many political parties that
enter candidates in national elections. The Democrats and Republicans seem tobe the most
common. Democrats and Republicans also hold sharply contrasting images of one another.
As we entered the 1990'sDemocrats consider the Republican party to be a John
Wayne/Rambo/tough-guy party that talks a hard line againstcommunists and terrorists in
foreign affairs. They are also against criminals and welfare cheats. Republicans
considerthe Democratic Party to be the party of "the losers, the lame and the lazy." The
party that will not meet the nation'sresponsibilities in the world arena. The party that
is too soft toward the communists abroad. They are too tolerant offringe groups at home:
the feminists, the gays, and "troublemakers" in general. Reagan's shift, late in
hispresidency, toward a friendlier stance toward Moscow, and Bush's mixed approach hardly
altered these contrasting images (Burns236). Our nation began without political parties;
today political parties, though far from extinct, are about as weak as at anytime in our
history. Some party experts fear the parties are so weak they are mortally ill--or at
least in a long decline. They point first to the long-run impact of the progressive
reforms early in this century. It was the reforms that robbedparty organizations of
their control. Their control of nomination process by allowing masses of independents and
"uniformed" votersto enter the primaries and vote for candidates who might not be
accepted the to party leaders. They also point to a long series of "reforms." The
nonpartisan elections in cities andtowns, the staggering of national, state, and local
elections. This made it harder for parties to influence the electionprocess. Some
parties suffer from further ills today. The rise of television and video cassette
campaigns, media, anddirect-mail consultants, have denied parties their historic role.
The role of educating, mobilizing, and channeling theelectorate. In addition, partly as
a result of media influence, the most powerful electoral forces today are officeseeker
oroffice holder organizations. Not the party organizations. Officeseekers are supported
by money and media. They organizetheir personal followings to win nominations while the
party leaders are supposed to stand by nuetrally. If they win office,they are far more
responsive to their personal followings than to the party leadership. The truth of
the matter is, the two-party system in the UnitedStates does not offer voters a
meaningful choice. Some politicians and scholars, both Republican and Democrat, aremore
intrested in party renewal than party reform. In their view or at least in the view, of
the "party pessimistes", theparty system needs to be strengthened, not reformed. Those
that fortify the party as an organization would nurse both theelephant and the donkey
back to health and vitality before they would teach either animal how to improve its
ways. Everyone has their own opinions about political parties and how they should be
run. There have been many changes over the years since political parties started to
develope. Althoughsome may agree with them and some may not, but this is how political
parties operateWorks Cited Bender, David. Amecican Elections. San Diego, CA:
Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1988. (pg. 698) Binkley, Wilfred. ۊAmerican Political
Parties. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945. (pg. 173) Burns, James. ۊGovernment
by the People. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1952. (pg. 32) Linden, Glenn.
Legacy of Freedom. Sacramento, California: Laidlaw Brothers, 1986. (pg. 69-73)
Nichols, Roy. The Invention of the American Political Parties. New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1967. (pg. 217) Reichley, James. ۊThe Life of the Parties. New York:
The Free Press, 1992. (pg. 433-445) Parties I. Introduction. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . 1 II. Different Types of Political Parties. . . . . . . 1 III.
Two-Party Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Democrats. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . B. Republics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. Choosing
Leaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Caucuses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . B. Conventions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V. Opinions of Political
Parties. . . . . . . . . . . VI. Political Parties Today. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A. Entering Elections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Nation without Political
Parties. . . . . . . C. Campaigns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII.
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6-7
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