2004 convention democratic essay political republican summer
As we approach the end of July , we Americans will discern the sound of the opening gavel of the 44th Democratic National Convention in Boston; a little over a month after that, the 38th Republican National Convention will open in New York City. By the end of that Republican Convention , a minimum of 1, delegates a majority will have voted for the Republican nominee for President; likewise, by the end of the earlier Democratic Convention , a minimum of around 2, delegates a majority will have voted for the Democratic nominee for President. But why 1, Republicans? Why some 2, Democrats? Where do these numbers come from? More to the point of this particular essay, just how were similar numbers determined at previous major party National Conventions?
Democratic Party (United States)
We have discussed the two major political parties in the United States, how they formed, and some of the smaller parties that have challenged their dominance over time. However, what exactly do political parties do? If the purpose of political parties is to work together to create and implement policies by winning elections, how do they accomplish this task, and who actually participates in the process?
The answer was fairly straightforward in the early days of the republic when parties were little more than electoral coalitions of like-minded, elite politicians. But improvements in strategy and changes in the electorate forced the parties to become far more complex organizations that operate on several levels in the U. Modern political parties consist of three components identified by political scientist V. Key: the party in the electorate the voters ; the party organization which helps to coordinate everything the party does in its quest for office ; and the party in office the office holders.
To understand how these various elements work together, we begin by thinking about a key first step in influencing policy in any democracy: winning elections. A key fact about the U. As we have seen, for much of their history, the two parties have been adapting to changes in the size, composition, and preferences of the U.
It only makes sense, then, that parties have found it in their interest to build a permanent and stable presence among the voters. By fostering a sense of loyalty, a party can insulate itself from changes in the system and improve its odds of winning elections. What it means to be part of a party depends on where a voter lives and how much he or she chooses to participate in politics.
At its most basic level, being a member of the party-in-the-electorate simply means a voter is more likely to voice support for a party. These voters are often called party identifiers , since they usually represent themselves in public as being members of a party, and they may attend some party events or functions.
Party identifiers are also more likely to provide financial support for the candidates of their party during election season. Party identifiers make up the majority of the voting public. Gallup, the polling agency, has been collecting data on voter preferences for the past several decades. Even among self-proclaimed independents, the overwhelming majority claim to lean in the direction of one party or the other, suggesting they behave as if they identified with a party during elections even if they preferred not to publicly pick a side.
Partisan support is so strong that, in a poll conducted from August 5 to August 9, , about 88 percent of respondents said they either identified with or, if they were independents, at least leaned toward one of the major political parties. Strictly speaking, party identification is not quite the same thing as party membership. People may call themselves Republicans or Democrats without being registered as a member of the party, and the Republican and Democratic parties do not require individuals to join their formal organization in the same way that parties in some other countries do.
Many states require voters to declare a party affiliation before participating in primaries, but primary participation is irregular and infrequent, and a voter may change his or her identity long before changing party registration.
For most voters, party identification is informal at best and often matters only in the weeks before an election. It does matter, however, because party identification guides some voters, who may know little about a particular issue or candidate, in casting their ballots. If, for example, someone thinks of him- or herself as a Republican and always votes Republican, he or she will not be confused when faced with a candidate, perhaps in a local or county election, whose name is unfamiliar.
If the candidate is a Republican, the voter will likely cast a ballot for him or her. Party ties can manifest in other ways as well. The actual act of registering to vote and selecting a party reinforces party loyalty.
Moreover, while pundits and scholars often deride voters who blindly vote their party, the selection of a party in the first place can be based on issue positions and ideology. In that regard, voting your party on Election Day is not a blind act—it is a shortcut based on issue positions. A significant subset of American voters views their party identification as something far beyond simply a shortcut to voting. These individuals get more energized by the political process and have chosen to become more active in the life of political parties.
They are part of what is known as the party organization. The party organization is the formal structure of the political party, and its active members are responsible for coordinating party behavior and supporting party candidates. Since winning elections is the first goal of the political party, it makes sense that the formal party organization mirrors the local-state-federal structure of the U.
While the lowest level of party organization is technically the precinct , many of the operational responsibilities for local elections fall upon the county-level organization. The county-level organization is in many ways the workhorse of the party system, especially around election time.
This level of organization frequently takes on many of the most basic responsibilities of a democratic system, including identifying and mobilizing potential voters and donors, identifying and training potential candidates for public office, and recruiting new members for the party.
County organizations are also often responsible for finding rank and file members to serve as volunteers on Election Day, either as officials responsible for operating the polls or as monitors responsible for ensuring that elections are conducted honestly and fairly. They may also hold regular meetings to provide members the opportunity to meet potential candidates and coordinate strategy Figure 9.
Of course, all this is voluntary and relies on dedicated party members being willing to pitch in to run the party.
But a fair amount of political power is held by individuals in statewide office or in state-level legislative or judicial bodies. While the county-level offices may be active in these local competitions, most of the coordination for them will take place in the state-level organizations.
Like their more local counterparts, state-level organizations are responsible for key party functions, such as statewide candidate recruitment and campaign mobilization.
Most of their efforts focus on electing high-ranking officials such as the governor or occupants of other statewide offices e. Senate and the U. House of Representatives.
The greater value of state- and national-level offices requires state organizations to take on several key responsibilities in the life of the party. Visit the following Republican and Democratic sites to see what party organizations look like on the local level. Although these sites are for different parties in different parts of the country, they both inform visitors of local party events, help people volunteer to work for the party, and provide a convenient means of contributing to the party.
First, state-level organizations usually accept greater fundraising responsibilities than do their local counterparts. Statewide races and races for national office have become increasingly expensive in recent years. State organizations are also responsible for creating a sense of unity among members of the state party. Building unity can be very important as the party transitions from sometimes-contentious nomination battles to the all-important general election.
The state organization uses several key tools to get its members working together towards a common goal. Caucuses are a form of town hall meeting at which voters in a precinct get together to voice their preferences, rather than voting individually throughout the day Figure 9.
Second, the state organization is also responsible for drafting a state platform that serves as a policy guide for partisans who are eventually selected to public office. These platforms are usually the result of a negotiation between the various coalitions within the party and are designed to ensure that everyone in the party will receive some benefits if their candidates win the election.
Finally, state organizations hold a statewide convention at which delegates from the various county organizations come together to discuss the needs of their areas.
The state conventions are also responsible for selecting delegates to the national convention. The local and state-level party organizations are the workhorses of the political process. They take on most of the responsibility for party activities and are easily the most active participants in the party formation and electoral processes.
They are also largely invisible to most voters. The same is largely true of the activities of the state-level party. Typically, the only people who notice are those who are already actively engaged in politics or are being targeted for donations.
But most people are aware of the presence and activity of the national party organizations for several reasons. First, many Americans, especially young people, are more interested in the topics discussed at the national level than at the state or local level. According to John Green of the Ray C. Congress are also far more likely to make the news broadcasts than the activities of county commissioners, and the national-level party organization is mostly responsible for coordinating the activities of participants at this level.
The national party is a fundraising army for presidential candidates and also serves a key role in trying to coordinate and direct the efforts of the House and Senate. For this reason, its leadership is far more likely to become visible to media consumers, whether they intend to vote or not. A second reason for the prominence of the national organization is that it usually coordinates the grandest spectacles in the life of a political party.
Most voters are never aware of the numerous county-level meetings or coordinating activities. Primary elections, one of the most important events to take place at the state level, have a much lower turnout than the nationwide general election.
But the national convention s, organized and sponsored by the national-level party, can dominate the national discussion for several weeks in late summer, a time when the major media outlets are often searching for news. In the past, national conventions were often the sites of high drama and political intrigue. It was also common for groups protesting key events and issues of the day to try to raise their profile by using the conventions to gain the media spotlight.
Much has changed since the s, however, and between and , viewership of both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention had declined by half. National conventions are not the spectacles they once were, and this fact is almost certainly having an impact on the profile of the national party organization. Both parties have come to recognize the value of the convention as a medium through which they can communicate to the average viewer.
To ensure that they are viewed in the best possible light, the parties have worked hard to turn the public face of the convention into a highly sanitized, highly orchestrated media event. Speakers are often required to have their speeches prescreened to ensure that they do not deviate from the party line or run the risk of embarrassing the eventual nominee—whose name has often been known by all for several months. And while protests still happen, party organizations have becoming increasingly adept at keeping protesters away from the convention sites, arguing that safety and security are more important than First Amendment rights to speech and peaceable assembly.
For example, protestors were kept behind concrete barriers and fences at the Democratic National Convention in With the advent of cable TV news and the growth of internet blogging, the major news outlets have found it unnecessary to provide the same level of coverage they once did. Between and , ABC and CBS cut their coverage of the nominating conventions from more than fifty hours to only five. NBC cut its coverage to fewer than five hours. This is not to say the national conventions are no longer important, or that the national party organizations are becoming less relevant.
The conventions, and the organizations that run them, still contribute heavily to a wide range of key decisions in the life of both parties. The national party platform is formally adopted at the convention, as are the key elements of the strategy for contesting the national campaign. And even though the media is paying less attention, key insiders and major donors often use the convention as a way of gauging the strength of the party and its ability to effectively organize and coordinate its members.
While both political parties use conventions to help win the current elections, they also use them as a way of elevating local politicians to the national spotlight. This has been particularly true for the Democratic Party. In , the Democrats tapped Arkansas governor Bill Clinton to introduce their nominee Michael Dukakis at the convention. Four years later, Clinton was able to leverage this national exposure to help his own presidential campaign.
The pattern was repeated when Illinois state senator Barack Obama gave the keynote address at the convention Figure 9. Although he was only a candidate for the U. Senate at the time, his address caught the attention of the Democratic establishment and ultimately led to his emergence as a viable presidential candidate just four years later.
By the end of that Republican Convention, a minimum of 1, delegates (a majority) More to the point of this particular essay, just how were similar numbers of Democratic National Conventions to this day (although it is, in the year , far as the Republican Party was concerned- contained two intersecting political. Finally, the DNC made a number of moves to use the power of the Web. They are rejecting the Democrats' political hate speech for President Bush's positive message In the summer of , the RNC did not plan to host a lot of events to twenty-four-year-olds submit an essay to win a trip to the national convention.
During the 20th and 21st centuries the party came to be associated with laissez-faire capitalism , low taxes, and conservative social policies. The term Republican was adopted in by supporters of Thomas Jefferson , who favoured a decentralized government with limited powers. The Republican Party traces its roots to the s, when antislavery leaders including former members of the Democratic, Whig , and Free-Soil parties joined forces to oppose the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories by the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act. At meetings in Ripon , Wisconsin May , and Jackson , Michigan July , they recommended forming a new party, which was duly established at the political convention in Jackson.
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Republicans may have placed the feel-good legacy of Ronald Reagan center stage, but the Democrats just stole the best actor in a supporting role. Ron Reagan, younger son of the late Republican president, said on Monday that he would speak at the Democratic National Convention this month in Boston. The speech will deal exclusively with loosening restrictions on stem cell research, and Mr.
THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION; Ron Reagan Will Address Democratic Convention
We have discussed the two major political parties in the United States, how they formed, and some of the smaller parties that have challenged their dominance over time. However, what exactly do political parties do? If the purpose of political parties is to work together to create and implement policies by winning elections, how do they accomplish this task, and who actually participates in the process? The answer was fairly straightforward in the early days of the republic when parties were little more than electoral coalitions of like-minded, elite politicians. But improvements in strategy and changes in the electorate forced the parties to become far more complex organizations that operate on several levels in the U. Modern political parties consist of three components identified by political scientist V.
Republican Party
E arlier this year, it seemed like this summer might be the most exciting political-convention season in decades. Reality-television celebrity and real-estate magnate Donald Trump was up against the strongest Republican bench in a generation, and for several months during the primary race, everyone was talking about the possibility of an open GOP convention. If no candidate had secured 1, delegates a majority of the 2, total delegates by the end of the primary season, the Cleveland convention in July would have marked the first time in 40 years that the choice of GOP nominee was not more or less decided by the start of the convention. It would have meant that the delegates would have determined the outcome of the contest at the convention itself. Instead of the typical multi-day political advertisement, participants would have been forced to hash through the convention rules and bylaws to find their standard-bearer for the fall. The pundits were breathless in their excitement. As political consultant and commentator Rick Wilson put it, the media world has long viewed the prospect of an open convention as the equivalent of "a naked leprechaun riding on a unicorn. In his indispensable Safire's Political Dictionary , he noted that, in recent generations, a contested convention "has been a vain dream of the media.
NEW YORK — A handful of scribes publishing in a newer medium will join the thousands of newspaper, magazine and broadcast journalists at this summer's political conventions.
In order to submit your essay, you will also need to register for this class and will need the following information:. The essays convention democratic essay political republican summer have a target legnth of 2, to 3, words in the body of the essay about 10 pages. Since this assignment is intended to introduce you to researching political topics, you must use 6 or more different sources as the base for your essay; note that six sources represent a MINIMUM. These sources should be referred to directly and fairly frequently in your essay.
The Evolution of Party Conventions
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States , along with its main rival, the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison 's Democratic-Republican Party , the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around by supporters of Andrew Jackson , making it the world's oldest active political party. In its early years, the Party supported limited government , state sovereignty, and slavery , while opposing banks. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the s, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform. The New Deal coalition of — attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller after the s, although the working class remains an important component of the Democratic base. People living in urban areas , women , college graduates , and millennials , as well as sexual , religious , and racial minorities , also tend to support the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party's philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality , along with the welfare state. Fifteen Democrats have served as President of the United States. The first was Andrew Jackson , who was the seventh president and served from to The most recent was Barack Obama , who was the 44th and held office from to As of , the Democrats hold a majority in the House of Representatives , 15 state government trifectas governorship and both legislative chambers , [30] the mayoralty of most major American cities, [31] and 19 total state legislatures. Four of the nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court were appointed by Democratic presidents. Democratic Party officials often trace its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party , founded by Thomas Jefferson , James Madison and other influential opponents of the Federalists in
Blogs Welcome at Dems' Convention
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