Drill 12/19/2011

1.List five factors that have caused the power of political parties (within the electorate) to decrease.

2.As political parties have become less able to attract supporters, what has taken their place?

Pull out the sheet from Thursday

Wednesday October 30, 2013• OBJ: SWBAT understand

how the goals of third parties, and why they have been ineffective.

• Drill: what does this say about the feeling of politicians toward third parties?

• HW: 212-216, read article, summarize author’s main argument, do you agree? Why? Be prepared to discuss in class tomorrow.

Party Platforms

• In groups of three– Split up the parties, Republican, Democrat, and

Green– Explain the planks, goals, potential problems– Get back together and share your answers

• What similarities do you see between all three parties?• What differences do you see?• Based on what you read in the platforms why might

the big two parties appeal to the masses more than a third party?

Smaller Parties

• Now look up 2 of the smaller parties– What are their major party goals– How are they similar to the larger parties– How are they different

Wrap Up

Are they able to ever gain significant power? Why or why not?

Leads to a 2-Party System Leads to a Multi-Party System

Leads to a 2-Party System Leads to a Multi-Party System

3, 5, 6, 8-20 1, 2, 4, 7

• Single Member District-Plurality System (Winner Takes All): Electoral districts in which only one candidate can be elected to office. The candidate that receives the most votes (does not have to be a majority) wins the district.

• Proportional Representation: Elective offices are distributed based on the proportion of the vote cast. For example, if a party wins 40% of the vote, then they would receive 40% of the available seats.

"It was third parties who FIRST introduced ideas like restricting slavery, granting

suffrage to women, establishing minimum wages and controlling child labor... The

difficulty of getting on the ballot state-by-state is surely a barrier deliberately

erected by the major parties to keep third parties out of the field of play."

American University Professor Allan Lichtman on The Jim Lehrer Newshour,

Oct. 22, 1996

"...when the variety and number of political parties increases, the

chance for oppression, factionalism, and nonskeptical

acceptance of ideas decreases."

James Madison

"Look at the tyranny of party--at what is called party allegiance, party

loyalty--a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes--and which turns voters into chattles,

slaves, rabbits..."

The Character of Man, Mark Twain's Autobiography

"The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and

privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and

neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be

said on the vital issues of the day."

Theodore Roosevelt

"Third parties are very effective vehicles for forcing issues that neither party wants to address because of their controversy. They are very influential as

incubators of ideas.''

Prof. Jeffrey Sedgwick, University of Massachusetts-Amherst in The Boston

Herald, Sept. 17, 2000

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men

whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an

addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to

Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Francis Hopkinson, Paris, Mar. 13, 1789

"If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within

the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond

that they become destructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist

to that of liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror."

William Henry Harrison, Inaugural, March 4, 1841

• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/on2/elections/ventura.html

• http://www.northwoodsadvertising.com/politicalwork4.html

• http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199807/24_newsroom_election98/adwatch.shtml#ventura

• http://www.northwoodsadvertising.com/politicalworkaudio.html