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CHAPTER TWELVE Voting, Campaigns, and Elections Study Chapter
Summary with Key Terms
Voting enhances the quality of democratic life
by legitimizing the outcomes of elections. However, American voter turnout
levels are typically among the lowest in the world and may endanger American
democracy. Factors such as age, income, education, and race affect whether a
person is likely to vote, as do legal obstacles (though measures like the Motor Voter Bill try to overcome
these), varying levels of voter
mobilization, and attitudinal changes. Candidates and the media often blur issue
positions, and voters realistically cannot investigate policy proposals on
their own. Therefore, voters make a decision by considering party
identification and peer viewpoints, prominent issues, employing elements of
both prospective voting and retrospective voting and candidate
image. The “road to the White House” is long,
expensive, and grueling. It begins with planning and early fundraising and
develops into more active campaigning during the presidential primary--where primaries may be open or closed--and party caucus phase, a period
considerably shortened these days due to the practice of front-loading. Candidates want to be perceived to have momentum in the race, but being
considered the front-runner has both
advantages and disadvantages. Each party's choice of a candidate is officially
announced at the party conventions, and the general election campaign is
launched after Labor Day. The general election campaign is shaped by the
battle for large states with significant votes in the electoral college and the quest
to find and convert swing voters.
Professional staff run the campaign--coordinating
activities, engaging in oppo research, managing the media and
running ads, including negative
advertising. An essential part of campaign strategy is the consideration of
issues--valence issues on which most
candidates agree; position issues on
which they differ; wedge issues,
which can be used against the other side; and issue ownership, which can give one party or the other an edge.
Raising and spending money is also a key part of campaigns. Campaign money can
be in the form of government matching
funds given to candidates of the major parties and to candidates of the
minor parties who performed well in the previous election, hard money donations collected by the candidates, or soft money collected by parties and
interest groups. Soft money, used for get-out-the-vote efforts and the funding
of issue advocacy ads, was supposed
to be regulated by campaign finance legislation in 2002, but loopholes have
allowed it to flourish in a different form. All this campaign activity is geared
toward winning the election, so the victorious candidate can claim an electoral mandate and pressure Congress
into enacting his preferred policies. Learning
Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should
understand
Materials developed by Matthew J. Streb,
Northern Illinois University |
