Nominations and Campaigns

Chapter 9

Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Longman.

Edwards, Wattenberg, and LineberryGovernment in America: People, Politics, and

PolicyFourteenth Edition

The Nomination Game• Nomination

–A party’s official selection of a candidate to run for office.

• Campaign Strategy–The way in which candidates attempt to

manipulate money, the media, and momentum to achieve the nomination.

Key Elements of Campaign Strategies

• Media Attention• Momentum• Money

The Nomination Game

• Deciding to Run– Campaigns are more physically and emotionally

taxing than ever.– American campaigns are much longer.

• Barack Obama made clear his intention to run for president in January 2007.

• Other countries have short campaigns, generally less than two months.

The Nomination Game

• Competing for Delegates– Nomination game is an elimination contest– Goal is to win a majority of delegates’ votes in

order to win the party’s nomination at the national party convention.

• The convention meets every four years to nominate the party’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

• Conventions are but a formality today.

The Nomination Game• Competing for Delegates

– The Caucus Road• Caucus: meetings of state party leaders for selecting

delegates to the national convention• Organized like a pyramid from local precincts to the

state’s convention• Open to all registered party voters, or those who

claim party allegiance in states with no party registration.

• The Iowa caucus is first and most important.

The Nomination Game• Competing for Delegates

– The Primary Road• Primary: elections in which voters in a state vote for a nominee (or

delegates pledged to the nominee)– Began at turn of 20th century by progressive reformers– McGovern-Fraser Commission led to selection of delegates through

primary elections– Most delegates are chosen through primaries.– Superdelegates: democratic leaders who automatically get a

delegate slot• Frontloading is the recent tendency of states to hold primaries

early in the calendar year in order to capitalize on media attention. New Hampshire is first and therefore has disproportionate power.

• Generally primaries serve as elimination contests.

• For a candidate, the most important and desirable result of the early nomination contests is doing better than expected, thus winning an image as the party’s frontrunner and holder of momentum.

The Nomination Game• Competing for Delegates

– Evaluating the Primary and Caucus System• Disproportionate attention to early ones• Prominent politicians do not run.• Money plays too big a role.• Critics point to the fact that participation in primaries

and caucuses is unrepresentative of the public at large and that the media are now the presidential “kingmakers.”

The Nomination Game

The Nomination Game

• The Convention Send-off– National conventions once provided great drama, but now

are a formality, which means less TV time.– Significant rallying point for parties– Key note speaker on first day of Convention– Party platform: statement of a party’s goals and policies

for next four years• Debated on the second day of the Convention

– Formal nomination of president and vice-president candidates on third and fourth days

• Important functions of the national party convention– Get the campaign rolling– Develop a party’s policy positions– Vice presidential and presidential candidate are

formally nominated

• In most states, presidential primaries are held with the national convention delegates allocated to each candidate in rough proximity to their percentage of popular vote.

• Following the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, the party chose to open up its process of choosing delegates to the national convention in order to respond to demands for greater inclusion from women, minorities, youth, and other groups.

The Nomination Game

The Campaign Game

• The High-Tech Media Campaign– Direct Mail-A frequently used political technique

of providing select information and a request for money to lists of people who have supported candidates of similar views in the past.

The Campaign Game

– Get media attention through ad budget and “free” coverage

– Emphasis on “marketing” a candidate– News stories focus more on the “horse race” than

substantive policy issues

The Campaign Game

• Organizing the Campaign– Get a campaign manager– Get a fund-raiser and campaign counsel– Hire media and campaign consultants– Assemble staff and plan logistics– Get research staff, policy advisors, and pollsters– Get a good press secretary– Establish a website

The Campaign Game

Donation Restrictions

• Congress limited individual contributions to presidential and congressional candidates to $1,000 because of the discovery that some individuals had contributed $1M to the 1972 Nixon Campaign

Money and Campaigning

• The Maze of Campaign Finance Reforms– Federal Election Campaign Act (1974)

• Created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to administer campaign finance laws for federal elections

• Created the Presidential Election Campaign Fund• Provided partial public financing for presidential primaries

– Matching funds: Contributions of up to $250 are matched for candidates who meet conditions, such as limiting spending.

• Provided full public financing for major party candidates in the general election

• Required full disclosure and limited contributions

Money and Campaigning

• The Maze of Campaign Finance Reforms– Soft Money: political contributions (not subject to

contribution limits) earmarked for party-building expenses or generic party advertising

– It’s appearance and increase was an unintended result of an amendment in 1979 to the Original Campaign Reform Act, which allows parties to raise and spend money on voter registration and other campaign materials without limits on spending or the size of contributions they can accept

– The McCain-Feingold Act (2002) banned soft money, increased amount of individual contributions, and limited “issue ads.”

– 527s: independent groups that seek to influence political process but are not subject to contribution restricts because they do not directly seek election of particular candidates

Money and Campaigning• The Proliferation of PACs

– Political Action Committees (PACs): created by law in 1974 to allow corporations, labor unions and other interest groups to donate money to campaigns; PACs are registered with and monitored by the FEC.

– As of 2006 there were 4,217 PACs.– PACs contributed over $372.1 million to congressional

candidates in 2006.– PACs donate to candidates who support their issue.– PACs do not “buy” candidates, but give to candidates who

support them in the first place.

Money and Campaigning

Money and Campaigning

• Are Campaigns Too Expensive?– Fundraising takes a lot of time.– Incumbents do worse when they spend more

money because they need to spend to defeat quality challengers.

– The doctrine of sufficiency suggests that candidates need just “enough” money to win, not necessarily “more.”

The Impact of Campaigns

• Campaigns have three effects on voters:– Reinforcement, Activation, Conversion

• Several factors weaken campaigns’ impact on voters:– Selective perception: pay most attention to things we

agree with– Party identification still influence voting behavior– Incumbents begin with sizeable advantage

Understanding Nominationsand Campaigns

• Are Nominations and Campaigns Too Democratic?– Campaigns are open to almost everyone.– Campaigns consume much time and money.– Campaigns promote individualism in American politics.

• Do Big Campaigns Lead to an Increased Scope of Government?– Candidates make numerous promises, especially to

state and local interests.– Hard for politicians to promise to cut size of

government

Summary

• Campaigns are media-oriented and expensive.• Delegates are selected through caucuses and

primaries.• Money and contributions from PACs regulated by the

FEC are essential to campaigns. • Campaigns reinforce perceptions but do not change

minds.