PPA - Political Parties Lesson

Political Parties

Political Party

A political party is an organized group of people with a common interest that wish to affect public policy. Grassroots politics emerge at the local level before becoming a part of the national political scene. 

Conventions  

Political party conventions typically take place the summer before a presidential election. These conventions hold two important purposes:

  1. Nominate a presidential candidate. 
  2. Write the party's position on key issues, known as a platform. 

Why do we have two parties? -Many states have very tough requirements for a third-party candidate to get on the ballot. - As mentioned earlier, we have a majoritarian or winner take all system. This means that Congress is not divided into percentages based on how much of the vote a losing party got. -Most third parties do not get a lot of media attention. For example, during the Presidential debates of 2000, Ralph Nader was upset that he was kept from participating in the debates. The answer of the Commission on Presidential Debates was that Nader was not polling high enough to participate. Of course, Nader answered that maybe his poll numbers would rise if he was allowed to debate Bush and Gore! - Tradition also plays into this debate. As you may recall from US History, the tradition of two parties goes back to the political dispute between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. It would appear that, since those times, America has been comfortable with two parties. - Finally, we have to look at the parties themselves. In our country, the two major parties expand their platforms to try to appear as beneficial as possible to most people. This broad reach leaves most people to believe that both the Democratic-Republican party will serve their ideological needs and they do not need a third party.

Two-Party System

The United States currently has a two-party system. We have a winner take all system for elections and it is very difficult for third parties to get on the ballot in many states and they typically do not get a lot of media coverage. Americans also rely on tradition in the fact that the two major parties go back to the time of Jefferson and Hamilton. Also, the broad reach of the two political parties seems to cover all the ideological needs of the American citizens.

Third Parties

Third parties have held a place in US history and they continue to do so in modern American politics. There are a few basic types of third parties:

Ideological Parties: These parties tend to be a little more radical than Democrats and Republicans. Ideological parties also tend to last awhile. Some examples are Socialist, Communists and Libertarian parities.

Single-Issue Parties: These are parties that are basically concerned with one issue. For example, the Free-Soil Party and the Know Nothing Party were single-issue parties.

Factional Parties: There are some parties that split off from one of the major parties usually as a form of protest to a position of one of the major parties. Some examples are the  American Independent Party, which split with the mainstream party over the issue of segregation and civil rights.

Economic Protest: These are third parties that are usually concerned with an economic issue, such as taxes or tariffs. One example is the Populist Party.

 

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