Free elections are the cornerstone of the American political system. Voters choose one candidate over another to hold political office by casting ballots in local, state, and federal elections. In 2012, the voters chose Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden to be president and vice president of the United States for the following four years. In 2012, voters also elected all of the members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the members of the Senate. The campaigns were bitter, long, and expensive.
Voters and candidates frequently criticize the American electoral process. It is said to favor wealthier candidates, to further the aims of special interest groups, and to be dominated by older voters and those with better education and higher incomes. Campaign fund-raising has grown by leaps and bounds as the United States Supreme Court has progressively reduced limits on the fund-raising process.
The media play a major role in the political process and in election campaigns. Even though newspapers have become less important, new forms of media have taken their place.
THE TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CAMPAIGN
There are thousands of elective offices in the United States. Although the major political parties strive to provide a slate of candidates for every election, recruiting candidates is easier for some offices than for others. Political parties may have difficulty finding candidates for the board of the local water control district, for example, but they generally find a sufficient number of candidates for county commissioner or sheriff. The "higher" the office and the more prestige attached to it, the more candidates are likely to want to run. In many areas of the country, however, one major party may be considerably stronger than the other is. In those situations, the minority party may have difficulty finding nominees for elections in which victory is unlikely.
The presidential campaign provides the most colorful and exciting look at candidates and how they prepare to compete for office - in this instance, the highest office in the land. The men and women who wanted to be the Republican candidate in the 2012 presidential campaign faced a long and obstacle-filled path. First, they needed to raise sufficient funds to tour the nation, particularly the states with early presidential primaries, to see if they had enough local supporters. They needed funds to create an organization and win primary votes. Finally, when nominated as the party's candidate, the winner required funds to finance a successful campaign for president. Always, at every turn, there was the question of whether there were enough funds to effectively compete against their opponents, and eventually against President Barack Obama.
Who Is Eligible?
There are few constitutional restrictions on who can be elected to national office in the United States. As detailed in the Constitution, the formal requirements are as follows:
1. President. Must be a natural-born citizen, have attained the age of thirty-five years, and be a resident of the country for fourteen years by the time of inauguration.
2. Vice president. Must meet the same requirements as the president and also not be a resident of the same state as the president.
3. Senator. Must be a citizen for at least nine years, have attained the age of thirty by the time of taking office, and be a resident of the state from which elected.
4. Representative. Must be a citizen for at least seven years, have attained the age of twenty-five by the time of taking office, and be a resident of the state from which elected.
The qualifications for state legislators are set by the state constitutions and likewise include age, place of residence, and citizenship. (Usually, the requirements for the upper chamber of a legislature are somewhat higher than those for the lower chamber.) The legal qualifications for serving as governor or other state office are similar.
Who Runs?
In spite of these minimal legal qualifications for office at both the national and the state levels, a quick look at the state of candidates in any election - or at the current members of Congress - will reveal that not all segments of the population enjoy these opportunities equally. Holders of political office in the United States are predominantly white and male. Until the twentieth century, presidential candidates were exclusively of northern European origin and of Protestant heritage. Laws that effectively denied voting rights made it impossible to elect African American public officials in many areas in which African Americans constituted a significant portion of the population. As the result of the passage of major civil rights legislation in the 1960s, however, the number of African American public officials has increased throughout the United States, and in a groundbreaking vote, the nation elected an African American president in 2008.
Women as Candidates. Until recently, women generally were considered to be appropriate candidates only for lower-level offices, such as state legislator or school board member. The past twenty years have seen a tremendous increase in the number of women who run for office, not only at the state level but for the U.S. Congress as well. In 2012, 181 women ran for the House or Senate on major-party tickets, and 88 were elected. Today, a majority of Americans say they would vote for a qualified woman for president of the United States. Indeed, Hillary Clinton came close to winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, a year in which the eventual Democratic nominee was favored to win the general election.
Professional Status. Candidates are likely to be professionals, particularly lawyers. Political campaigning and officeholding are simply easier for some occupational groups than for others, and political involvement can make a valuable contribution to certain careers. Lawyers, for example, have more flexible schedules than do many other professionals, can take time off for campaigning, and can leave their jobs to hold public office full-time. Furthermore, holding political office is good publicity for their professional practice. Perhaps most important, many jobs that lawyers aspire to - federal or state judgeships, state's attorney offices, or work in a federal agency - can be attained by political appointment.
Managing the Campaign
After the candidates have been nominated, typically through a primary election, the most exhausting and expensive part of the election process begins - the general election campaign, which actually fills the offices at stake. Political campaigns are becoming more complex and more sophisticated with every election. Even with the most appealing of candidates, today's campaigns require a strong organization with (1) expertise in political polling and marketing, (2) professional assistance in fund-raising, accounting, and financial management, and (3) technological capabilities in every aspect of the campaign.
The Changing Campaign. The goal is the same for all campaigns - to convince voters to choose a candidate or a slate of candidates for office. Part of the reason for the increased intensity of campaigns in the last decade is that they are now centered on the candidate, not on the party. The candidate-centered campaign emerged in response to changes in the electoral system, the increased importance of television in campaigns, technological innovations such as the Internet, and the increased cost of campaigning.
To run a successful and persuasive campaign, the candidate's organization must be able to raise funds for the effort, obtain coverage from the media, and produce and pay for political commercials and advertising. In addition, the organization needs to schedule the candidate's time effectively, convey the candidate's position on the issues to the voters, and conduct research on the opposing candidate. Finally, the campaign must get the voters to go to the polls.
When party identification was stronger among voters and before the advent of television campaigning, a strong party organization at the local, state, or national level could furnish most of the services and expertise that the candidate needed. Parties used their precinct organizations to distribute literature, register voters, and get out the vote on election day. Less effort was spent on advertising each candidate's positions and character, because the party label presumably communicated that information to many voters.
One of the reasons that campaigns no longer depend on parties is that fewer people identify with them, as is evidenced from the increased number of independent voters. In 1954, fewer than 20 percent of adults identified themselves as independents, whereas today that number is about 40 percent.
The Professional Campaign. Whether the candidate is running for the state legislature, for the governor's office, for the U.S. Congress, or for the presidency, every campaign has some fundamental tasks to accomplish. Today, in national elections, most of these tasks are handled by paid professionals rather than volunteers or amateur politicians.
The most sought-after and possibly the most criticized campaign expert is the political consultant, who, for a large fee, takes charge of the candidate's campaign. Political consultants began to displace volunteer campaign managers in the 1960s, about the same time that television became a force in campaigns. The paid consultant devises a strategy and theme, oversees advertising, and plans media appearances. The consultants and the firms they represent are not politically neutral. Most will work only for candidate's from one party.
The Strategy of Winning. In the United States, unlike some European countries, there are no rewards for a candidate who comes in second. The winner takes all. Candidates seek to capture all the votes of their party's supporters, to convince a majority of the independent voters to vote for them, and to gain some votes from supporters of the other party. To accomplish these goals, candidates must consider their visibility, their message, and their campaign strategy.
Candidate Visibility and Appeal. One of the most important concerns is how well known the candidate is. If he or she is a highly visible incumbent, there may be little need for campaigning except to remind voters of the officeholder's good deeds. If, however, the candidate is an unknown challenger or a largely unfamiliar character attacking a well-known public figure, the campaign requires a strategy to get the candidate before the public.
The Use of Opinion Polls. One of the major sources of information for both the media and the candidates is opinion polls. Poll taking is widespread during the primaries. Presidential hopefuls have private polls taken to make sure that there is at least some chance they could be nominated and, if nominated, elected. During the presidential campaign itself, polling is even more frequent. Polls are taken not only by the regular pollsters - Gallup, Pew Research, and others - but also privately by each candidate's campaign organization. These private polls are for the exclusive and secret use of the candidate and his or her campaign organization. As the election approaches, many candidates use tracking polls, which are polls taken almost every day, to find out how well they are competing for votes. Tracking polls enable consultants to fine-tune the advertising and the candidate's speeches in the last days of the campaign.
Focus Groups. Another tactic used by campaign organizations to gain insights into public perceptions of the candidates is a focus group. Professional consultants organize a discussion of the candidate or of certain political issues among ten to fifteen ordinary citizens. The citizens are selected from specific target groups in the population - for example, working women, blue-collar men, senior citizens, or young voters.
Recent campaigns have tried to reach groups such as "soccer moms," "Walmart shoppers," or "NASCAR dads." The groups discusses personality traits of the candidate, political advertising, and other candidate-related issues. Focus groups can reveal more emotional responses to candidates or the deeper anxieties of voters - feelings that consultants believe often are not tapped by more impersonal telephone surveys. The campaign then can shape its messages to respond to those feelings and perceptions.
FINANCING THE CAMPAIGN
The connection between money and elections is a sensitive issue in American politics. The belief is widespread that large campaign contributions by special interests corrupt the political system. Indeed, spending reached unprecedented heights during the 2011-2012 election cycle. In 2012, total spending for the presidential races alone reached $2.5 billion. All of these funds had to be provided by the candidates and their families, borrowed, or raised by contributions from individuals, organizations, or political action committees (PACs). PACs are committees set up under federal or state law for the express purpose of making political donations.
The way campaigns are financed has changed dramatically in the past several years. For decades, candidates and political parties had to operate within the constraints imposed by complicated laws regulating campaign financing. Many of these constraints still exist, but recent developments have opened up the process to a striking degree. Today, there are no limits on how much any person or institution can invest in the political process, and only modest limits on how this spending can take place.
The Evolution of the Campaign Finance System
Throughout much of early American history, campaign financing was unregulated. No limits existed on contributions, and no data were collected on campaign funding. During the twentieth century, however, a variety of federal corrupt practices acts were adopted to regulate campaign financing. The first, passed in 1925, contained many loopholes and proved to be ineffective. The Hatch Act (Political Activities Act) of 1939 is best known for restricting the political activities of civil servants. The act also made it unlawful for a political group to spend more than $3 million in any campaign and limited individual contributions to a campaign committee to $5,000. Of course, such restrictions were easily circumvented by creating additional political organizations.
The Federal Election Campaign Act. The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971, which became effective in 1972, replaced all past laws. The act restricted the amount that could be spent on campaign advertising. It also limited the amounts that candidates could contribute to their own campaigns and required disclosure of all contributions and expenditures over $100. In principle, the FECA limited the role of labor unions and corporations in political campaigns.
Amendments to the FECA passed in 1974 created the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This commission consists of six bipartisan administrators whose duty is to enforce compliance with the requirements of the act. The 1974 amendments also placed limits on the sums that individuals and committees could contribute to candidates.
The principal role of the FEC today is to collect data on campaign contributions. Candidate committees must file periodic reports with the FEC listing who contributed, how much was spent, and for what it was spent. As an enforcement body, however, the FEC is conspicuously ineffective and typically does not determine that a campaign has violated the rules until the elections are over, if then.
The original FECA of 1971 limited the amount that each individual could spend on his or her own behalf. The Supreme Court overturned the provision in 1976, in Buckley v. Valeo, stating that it was unconstitutional to restrict in any way the amount congressional candidates could spend on their own behalf. The Court later extended this principle to state elections as well.
Political Action Committees. Changes to the FECA in 1974 and 1976 allowed corporations, labor unions, and other interest groups to set up political action committees (PACs) to raise funds for candidates. PACs can contribute up to $5,000 to each candidate in each election. Each corporation or each union is limited to one PAC. The number of PACs grew significantly after 1976, as did the amounts that they spent on elections. Since the 1990s, however, the number of traditional PACs has leveled off because interest groups and activists have found alternative mechanisms for funneling resources into campaigns.
Issue Advocacy Advertising. Business corporations, labor unions, and other interest groups have also developed ways of making independent expenditures that are not coordinated with those of a candidate or political party. A common tactic is issue advocacy advertising, which promotes positions on issues rather than candidates. Although promoting issue positions aligns very closely with promoting candidates who support those positions, the courts repeatedly have held that interest groups have a First Amendment right to advocate their positions. Political parties may also make independent expenditures on behalf of candidates.
Soft Money. Interest groups and PACs hit upon the additional strategy of generating soft money - that is, campaign contributions to political parties that escaped the limits of federal or state election law. No limits existed on contributions to political parties for activities such as voter education and voter-registration drives. This loophole enabled the parties to raise millions of dollars from corporations and individuals.
The Rise and Fall of the McCain-Feingold Act. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act after its chief sponsors in the Senate, took effect on the day after the midterm elections of 2002. The law sought to regulate the new campaign finance practices developed since the passage of the FECA. It banned soft money at the federal level, but it did not ban such contributions to state and local parties. It attempted to curb issue advocacy advertising, but also increased the sums that individuals could contribute directly to candidates.
The constitutionality of the 2002 act was immediately challenged. In December 2003, the Supreme Court upheld almost all of the clauses of the act. In 2007, however, the Court eased the act's restrictions on issue advocacy ads when it ruled that only those ads "susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate" could be restricted prior to an election. Finally, in 2010, Citizens United v. FEC swept away almost all remaining restrictions on independent expenditures, leading to the system we have today.
The Current Campaign Finance Environment
As of 2012, political campaigns are financed in two distinct ways. One of these is spending by the candidate's own committee. Contributions made directly to candidates are subject to limitations: An individual can donate no more than $2,500 to a candidate in a single election, and contributions by committees are limited as well. In exchange for these limits, candidates have almost complete control over how their own campaign money is spent.
Another way in which campaigns are financed is through independent expenditures. These funds may be spent on advertising and other political activities, but in theory the expenditures cannot be coordinated with those of a candidate. No limits exist on how much can be spent in this fashion. This two-part system is the direct result of a 2010 ruling by the United States Supreme Court.
Citizens United v. FEC. In January 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations, unions, and nonprofits may spend freely to support or oppose candidates, so long as the expenditures are made independently and are not coordinated with candidate campaigns. The ruling overturned campaign-finance laws dating back decades. Democrats, plus many journalists and bloggers, accused the Court of granting corporations rights that ought to be exercised only by flesh-and-blood humans. Republicans and others defended the ruling as protecting freedom of speech.
Super PACs. Citizens United led directly to a new type of political organization: the super PAC. Traditional PACs, which continue to exist, are set up to represent a corporation, labor union, or special interest group. The super PAC, in contrast, is established to aggregate unlimited contributions by individuals and organizations and then funnel these sums into independent expenditures. By 2011, every major presidential candidate had a super PAC. It soon became clear that the supposed independence of these organizations is a fiction. Presidential super PACs are usually chaired by individuals who are closely associated with the candidate. Frequently, the chair is a former top member of the candidate's campaign.
A variety of other super PACs were established as well. These groups were often oriented toward a party, rather than a candidate. Such super PACs might seek, for example, to support Republican or Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate, or to intervene within a particular party. The super PAC founded by the Club for Growth, for example, devotes its considerable resources to supporting strong conservatives in Republican primaries and to running negative advertisements against more moderate Republicans.
One interesting development in 2011-2012 was the tendency for super PACs to be supported primarily by very wealthy individuals, rather than by corporations or other organizations. The funding was still provided by business interests but came from individuals who owned corporations, not from the corporations themselves. A striking example of this phenomenon was a $10 million contribution in January 2012 to the super PAC of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House. The contribution, supplied by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, amounted to almost half of all the funds that Gingrich raised throughout the entire primary season. Without this contribution, Gingrich would have been forced to end his campaign much earlier than he actually did.
The 527 Organization. Well before Citizens United, interests groups realized that they could set up new organizations outside the parties to encourage voter registration and to run issue ads aimed at energizing supporters. So long as these committees did not endorse candidates, they faced no limits on fund-raising. These tax-exempt groups, called 527 organizations after the section of the tax code that provides for them, first made a major impact during the 2003-2004 election cycle. Since then, they have largely been replaced by super PACs, but a number continue to be active to the present day.
The 501(c)4 Organization. In the 2007-2008 election cycle, campaign-finance lawyers began recommending a new type of independent group - the 501(c)4 organization, which, like the 527 organization, is named after the relevant position of the tax code. A 501(c)4 is ostensibly a "social welfare" group and, unlike a 527, is not required to disclose the identity of its donors or to report spending to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Lawyers then began suggesting that 501(c)4 organizations claim special exemption that would allow the organization to ask people to vote for or against specific candidates as long as a majority of the group's effort was devoted to issues. Only those funds spent directly to support candidates had to be reported to the FEC, and the 501(c)4 could continue to conceal its donors.
One result was to make it all but impossible to determine exactly how much was spent by independent groups on the 2008 and 2010 elections. Critics claimed that 501(c)4s were being used illegally. The FEC has never ruled on their validity, however. Like the 527 organizations, 501(c)4 groups were eclipsed by super PACs in 2011-2012, but they continue to be a valuable tool for those donors who prefer to conceal their political contributions.
Presidential Candidate Committees. Despite the limits on contributions to candidate committees, these organizations continued to collect large sums. The committees of major-party nominees, such as Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, were able to amass hundreds of millions of dollars, often from relatively small contributions.
Candidate committees are much more generously funded than in the past. From 1976 through 2004, most presidential candidates relied on a system of public funding financed by a checkoff on federal income tax forms. This system provided funds to match what a candidate could raise during the primary season. During the general election campaign, the system would pay for a candidate's entire campaign. Publicly funded candidates, however, could not raise funds independently for the general election or exceed the program's overall spending limits.
The system began to break down after 2000, when many candidates rejected public support during the primaries in the belief that they could raise larger sums privately. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first candidate since the program was founded to opt out of federal funding for the general elections as well. By 2012, the public financing system was essentially out of business. None of the major candidates in either party was willing to use it. Public funds continued to be available to support the parties' national conventions, but in 2012 Congress revoked funding for conventions in future election years.
During 2011 and 2012, a division of effort developed between candidate committees and outside organizations such as super PACs. Candidate committees would run positive advertisements that portrayed the candidate to best advantage. Independent organizations would run negative ads aimed at tearing down the candidate's opponents. The belief was that because super PACs and other groups were technically independent, a candidate could deny responsibility for the negative campaign. Over time, however, such denials grew less and less credible.
RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT: THE LONGEST CAMPAIGN
The American presidential election is the culmination of two different campaigns: the presidential primary campaign and the general election campaign following the party's national convention. Traditionally, both the primary campaigns and the final campaigns take place during the first ten months of an election year. Increasingly, though, the states are holding their primaries earlier in the year, which has motivated the candidates to begin their campaigns earlier as well. Indeed, candidates in the 2012 presidential races began campaigning in early 2011, thus launching one of the longest presidential campaigns to date in U.S. history.
Primary elections were first mandated in 1904 in Wisconsin for state officials. The purpose of the primary was to open the nomination process to ordinary party members and to weaken the influence of party bosses. Until 1968, however, there were fewer than twenty primary elections for the presidency. They were often "beauty contests," in which the candidates competed for popular votes but the results did not control the selection of delegates to the national convention. National conventions were meetings of the party elite - legislators, mayors, county chairpersons, and loyal party workers - who were mostly appointed to their delegations. The leaders of large blocs of delegates could direct their delegates to support a favorite candidate.
Reforming the Primaries
In recent decades, the character of the primary process and the makeup of the national convention have changed dramatically. The public, rather than party elites, now generally controls the nomination process. After the disruptive riots outside the doors of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, many party leaders pushed for serious reforms of the convention system.
The Democratic National Committee appointed a special commission to study the problems of the primary system. During the next several years, the group - called the McGovern-Fraser Commission - formulated new rules for delegates selection that had to be followed by state Democratic parties beginning in 1972.
The reforms instituted by the Democratic Party, which were mostly imitated by the Republicans, revolutionized the nomination process for the presidency. The most important changes require that a majority of the convention delegates be elected by the voters in primary elections, in caucuses held by local parties, or at state conventions. Delegates are normally pledged to a particular candidate, although the pledge is not always formally binding at the convention. The delegation from each state must also include a proportion of women, younger party members, and representatives of the minority groups within the party. At first, almost no special privileges were given to party leaders and elected party officials, such as senators and governors. In 1984, however, many of these individuals returned to the Democratic convention as superdelegates.
Primaries and Caucuses
Various types of primaries are used by the states. One notable difference is between proportional and winner-take-all primaries. Another important consideration is whether independent voters can take part in a primary. Some states also use caucuses and conventions to choose candidates for various offices.
Direct and Indirect Primaries. A direct primary is one in which the voters decide party nominations by voting directly for candidates. In an indirect primary, voters instead choose convention delegates, and the delegates determine the party's candidate in the general election. Delegates may be pledged to a particular candidate. Indirect primaries are used almost exclusively in presidential elections. Most candidates in state a local elections are chosen by direct primaries.
Proportional and Winner-Take-All Primaries. Most primaries are winner-take-all. Proportional primaries are used mostly to elect delegates to the national conventions of the two major parties - delegates who are pledged to one or another candidate for president. Under the proportional system, if one candidate for president wins 40 percent of the vote in a primary, that candidate receives about 40 percent of the pledged delegates.
In recent years, the Democrats have used the proportional system for all of their presidential primaries and caucuses. For the most part, the Republicans have relied on the winner-take-all principle. In 2012, however, the Republican National Committee ruled that any state choosing national convention delegates before April 1 would be required to use the proportional system. States voting later would adopt whatever method they preferred. A number of early-voting states, such as Arizona and Florida, refused to follow the rules and used winner-take-all systems. Still, a majority of the states now allocate Republican National Convention delegates on a proportional basis.
Closed Primary. A closed primary is one of several types of primaries distinguished by how independent voters are handled. In a closed primary, only declared members of a party can vote in that party's primary. In other words, voters must declare their party affiliation, either when they register to vote or at the primary election. In a closed-primary system, voters cannot cross over into the other party's primary in order to nominate the weakest candidate of the opposing party or to affect the ideological direction of that party.
Open Primary. In an open primary, any voter can vote in either party's primary without declaring a party affiliation. Basically, the voter makes the choice in the privacy of the voting booth. The voter must, however, choose one party's list from which to select candidates.
Blanket Primary. A blanket primary is one in which the voter can vote for candidates of more than one party. Until 2000, a few states, including Alaska, California, and Washington, had blanket primaries. In 2000, however, the United States Supreme Court abolished the system. The Court ruled that the blanket primary violated political parties' First Amendment right of association. Because the nominees represent the party, party members - not the general electorate - should have the right to choose the party's nominee.
Run-Off Primary. Some states have a two-primary system. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes in the first primary, the top two candidates must compete in another primary, called a run-off primary.
The "Top Two" Primary. Louisiana has long used a special type of primary for filling some offices. Under the system, all candidates appear on a single ballot. A party cannot prevent a candidate from appearing on the primary ballot - an insurgent Republican, for example, could appear on the ballot alongside the party-supported Republican. The two candidates receiving the most votes, regardless of party, then move on to the general election. Following the abolition of the blanket primary, the state of Washington adopted this system. In 2008, the United States Supreme Court upheld the new plan. In 2010, Californians voted to use this type of primary, beginning in 2012.
Conventions. While primary elections are the most common way in which a party's candidates are selected, there are other procedures to use. State party conventions may nominate candidates for various offices. Those who attend meetings below the statewide level may participate in nominating candidates as well. The most famous of such meetings are the caucuses that help nominate a party's candidate for president of the United States.
Caucuses. In 2012, sixteen states relied at least in part on caucuses for choosing delegates to the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Some of these states used a combined system. Strictly speaking, that caucus system is actually a caucus/convention system. In North Dakota, for example, local citizens, who need not be registered as party members, gather in party meetings, called caucuses, at the precinct level. They choose delegates to district conventions. The district conventions elect delegates to the state convention, and the state convention actually chooses the delegates to the national convention. The national delegates, however, are pledged to reflect the presidential preferences that voters expressed at the caucus level.
Front-Loading the Primaries
When politicians and potential presidential candidates realized that winning as many primary elections as possible guaranteed them the party's nomination for president, their tactics changed dramatically. Candidates began to concentrate on building organizations in states that held early, important primary elections. By the 1970s, candidates recognized that winning early contests, such as the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary election (both now held in January), meant that the media would instantly label the winner as the front-runner, thus increasing the candidate's media exposure and escalating the pace of contributions to his or her campaign.
The Rush to Be First. The state political parties began to see that early primaries had a much greater effect on the outcome of the presidential contest than did later ones. Accordingly, in successive presidential elections, more and more states moved their primaries into the first months of the year, a process known as front-loading the primaries. One result was a series of "Super Tuesdays," when multiple states held simultaneous primaries. In 2008, twenty-four states held their primaries or caucuses on February 5, making it the largest Super Tuesday ever. So many states were in play on February 5 that it was impossible for the candidates to campaign strongly in all of them. Rather than winning more attention, many Super Tuesday states found that they were ignored. Because the Democratic race was not decided until the very end of the process in June, the later Democratic primaries, such as those in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, were hotly contested.
Front-loading, in short, had become counterproductive. As a result, the 2012 Super Tuesday was held on March 6, a month later than 2008. Ten states participated instead of twenty-four.
The National Parties Seek to Regain Control. The process of front-loading the primaries alarmed many observers, who feared that a front-runner might wrap up the nomination before voters were able to make a thorough assessment of the candidates. In the many months between the early primaries and the general election, the voters might come to regret their decision.
In response, the national Democratic, and Republican parties took steps to regain control of the primary schedule. Such steps included a ban on primaries or caucuses held before a specified date. States would need special permission to choose delegates before that date. Traditional lead-off states such as Iowa and New Hampshire were allowed to go first, and a limited number of other states also received such permission.
Not all states were willing to follow the official schedule, however. In principle, the national parties had all the power they needed to enforce the rules - they could cut the number of delegates a state was authorized to send to the national convention, or even refuse to seat a state delegation altogether. The two national committees found it politically difficult to impose tough punishments, however. In both 2008 and 2012, several states succeeded in breaking the rules without penalty.
On to the National Convention
Presidential candidates have been nominated by the convention method in every election since 1832. Extra delegates are allowed from states that had voting majorities for the party in the preceding elections. Parties also accept delegates from the District of Columbia, the territories, and U.S. citizens living abroad.
Seating the Delegates. At the convention, each political party uses a credentials committee to determine which delegates may participate. Controversy may arise when rival groups claim to be the official party organization. For example, the Mississippi Democratic Party split in 1964 at the height of the civil rights movement, and two sets of delegates were selected. After much debate, the credentials committee seated the mixed-race, pro-civil rights delegation and excluded those who represented the traditional "white" party.
Convention Activities. Most delegates arrive at the convention committed to a presidential candidate. No convention since 1952 has required more than one ballot to choose a nominee. Conventions normally last four days. On each night, featured speakers seek to rally the party faithful and to draw in uncommitted voters who are watching on television. On day three, the vice-presidential nominee is featured. On day four, the presidential candidate gives an acceptance speech. The national networks limit their coverage to the major speeches, but several cable networks and Internet sites provide gavel-to-gavel coverage.
At the 2012 Republican convention, Mitt Romney attempted to present himself as compassionate, in contrast to descriptions offered by Democrats. Judging from the polls, he was not entirely successful. Barack Obama, in contrast, received an unexpected lift from his convention. In a speech, former president Bill Clinton made a better case for Obama than the president was able to make for himself.
The Electoral College
Some people who vote for the president and vice president think that they are voting directly for a candidate. In actuality, they are voting for electors who will cast their ballots in the electoral college. Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution outlines in detail the method of choosing electors for president and vice president. The framers of the Constitution did not want the president and vice president to be selected by the "excitable masses." Rather, they wished the choice to be made by a few supposedly dispassionate, reasonable men (but not women).
The Choice of Electors. Electors are selected during each presidential election year. The selection is governed by state laws. After the national party convention, the electors are pledged to the candidates chosen. Each state's number of electors equals that state's number of senators (two) plus its number of representatives. The total number of electors today is 538, equal to 100 senators, 435 members of the House, and 3 electors for the District of Columbia. (The Twenty-third Amendment, ratified in 1961, added electors for the District of Columbia.)
The Electors' Commitment. A plurality of voters in a state chooses a slate of electors (except in Maine and Nebraska, where electoral votes are partly based on congressional districts). Those electors are pledged to cast their ballots on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December in the state capital for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of their party. The Constitution does not, however, require the electors to cast their ballots for the candidates of their own party, and on rare occasions so-called faithless electors have voted for a candidate to whom they were not pledged.
The ballots are counted and certified before a joint session of Congress early in January. The candidates who receive a majority (270) of the electoral votes are certified as president-elect and vice president-elect. According to the Constitution, if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, the election of the president is decided in the House from among the candidates with the three highest numbers of votes, with each state having one vote (decided by a plurality of each state delegation). The selection of the vice president is determined by the Senate in a choice between the two candidates with the most votes, each senator having one vote. The House was required to choose the president in 1801 (Thomas Jefferson) and again in 1825 (John Quincy Adams).
Problems with the Electoral College System. It is possible for a candidate to become president without obtaining a majority of the popular vote. There have been many presidents in our history who did not win a majority of the popular vote, including Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon (in 1968), Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (in 2000). Such an event becomes more likely when there are important third party candidates.
Perhaps more distressing is the possibility of a candidate's being elected when an opposing candidate receives a plurality of the popular vote. This has occurred on four occasions - in the elections of John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and George W. Bush in 2000. All of these candidates won elections in which an opponent received more popular votes than they did. Such results have led to calls for replacing the electoral college with a popular-vote system.
HOW ARE ELECTIONS CONDUCTED?
The United States uses the Australian ballot - a secret ballot that is prepared, distributed, and counted by government officials at public expense. Since 1888, all states have used the Australian ballot. Before that, many states used the alternatives of oral voting or differently colored ballots prepared by the parties. Obviously, knowing which way a person was voting made it easy to apply pressure on the person to change his or her vote, and vote buying was common.
Office-Block and Party-Column Ballots
Two types of Australian ballots are used in the United States in general elections. The first, called an office-block ballot, or sometimes a Massachusetts ballot, groups all the candidates for a particular elective office under the title of that office. Parties dislike the office-block ballot because it places more emphasis on the office than on the party. It discourages straight-ticket voting and encourages split-ticket voting. Most states now use this type of ballot.
A party-column ballot is a form of general election ballot in which all of a party's candidates are arranged in one column under the party's label and symbol. It is also called an Indiana ballot. In some state, it allows voters to vote for all of a party's candidates for local, state, and national offices by simply marking a single "X" or by pulling a single lever. Because it encourages straight-ticket voting, the two major parties favor this form. When a party has an exceptionally strong presidential or gubernatorial candidate to head the ticket, the use of the party-column ballot increases the coattail effect (the influence of a popular candidate on the success of other candidates on the same party ticket).
Voting by Mail
Voting by mail has been accepted for absentee ballots for many decades (for example, for individuals who are doing business away from home or for members of the armed forces). Recently, several states have offered mail ballots to all of their voters. The rationale for using the mail ballot is to make voting easier for the voters and increase turnout. Oregon has gone one step further: since 1998, that state has employed postal ballots exclusively, and there are no polling places. (Voters who do not prepare their ballot in time for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver it can drop off their ballots at drop boxes on Election Day.) In addition, most counties in Washington State now use mail ballots exclusively. By national standards, voter turnout in these two states has been high, but not exceptionally so.
Voting Fraud and Mistakes
Voting fraud is something regularly suspected but seldom proved. Voting in the 1800s, when secret ballots were rare and people had a cavalier attitude toward the open buying of votes, was probably much more conducive to fraud than modern elections are. Still, some observers claim that the potential for voting fraud is high in many states, particularly through the use of phony voter registrations and absentee ballots. Other observers claim, however, that errors due to fraud are trivial in number and that a few mistake are inevitable in a system involving millions of voters. These people argue that an excessive concern with voting fraud makes it harder for minorities and poor people to vote.
Voter ID Requirements. In recent years, many states have adopted laws requiring enhanced proof of identity before voters can cast their ballots. Indiana imposed the nation's toughest voter identification (ID) law in 2005. Indiana legislators claimed that they were motivated by a desire to prevent voting fraud, but critics argued that they were really trying to suppress voter turnout among minority group members and the poor - the individuals least likely to possess adequate identification. In 2008, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Indiana voter ID law.
In the wake of the Court's ruling, dozens of states moved to tighten voter ID requirements. By the spring of 2012, thirty-two states had enacted voter ID requirements, and sixteen of these states mandated photo IDs. Not all of these laws were actually in effect, however. In Wisconsin, a state court held that the new law violated the state constitution. Also, most southern states with a history of racial discrimination must obtain pre-clearance from the federal government for any significant change to their voting laws and procedures. The Department of Justice has refused to pre-clear voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas on the ground that the laws impose a greater burden on minority voters than on whites.
Republicans provided almost all of the support for the new ID laws, which were often based on model legislation from the American Legislative Council. More than 239,000 registered voters in South Carolina lacked the identification needed to vote under the state's proposed law. While a state-issued photo ID card is technically free, getting it requires a birth certificate, passport, or other documentation, which can be troublesome to obtain.
Reforming the Voting Process. In Florida in 2000, serious problems with the punch-card voting system may have determined the outcome of the presidential election. In response, Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. The act provided funds to the states to help them implement a number of reforms. Among other things, the states were asked to replace outdated voting equipment with newer electronic voting systems. Critics of HAVA pointed out that by urging the adoption of electronic voting equipment, the act may have traded old problems for newer, more complicated ones.
These problems became particularly apparent during the 2006 midterm elections, when more than twenty-five states reported trouble at the polls on Election Day. Many of the problems involved failures in the new voting machines. In one Florida county, it was estimated that nearly eighteen thousand votes may have gone unrecorded by electronic voting machines, thus changing the outcome of a congressional election.
In 2008, therefore, many localities - including almost the entire state of California - retreated to using old-fashioned paper ballots. These ballots slowed the vote count, but they largely eliminated the problems with voting system errors that had plagued recent elections.
In 2010 and 2012, voters reported isolated problems with voting systems, but the issue was not as serious as in earlier years. A growing problem that may require attention was voter intimidation and misinformation. Voters in some minority neighborhoods, for example, purportedly were told by "shadowy" groups that they would face legal trouble if they tried to vote.
TURNING OUT TO VOTE
In 2010, the number of Americans eligible to vote was about 218.05 million people. Of that number, about 90.5 million, or 41.7 percent of the eligible population, actually cast a ballot. When voter turnout is this low, it means, among other things, that the winner of a close election may be voted in by only about one-fifth of those eligible to vote.
Voter turnout for congressional elections is influenced greatly by whether there is a presidential election in the same year. Whereas voter turnout during the presidential elections of 2012 was 60 percent, it was, as noted, only 41.7 percent in the midterm elections of 2012.
Now consider local elections. In races for mayor, city council, county auditor, and the like, it is fairly common for only 25 percent or less of the electorate to vote. Is something amiss here? It would seem that people should be more likely to vote in elections that directly affect them. At the local level, each person's vote counts more (because there are fewer voters). Furthermore, the issues - crime control, school bonds, sewer bonds, and the like - touch the immediate interests of the voters. In reality, however, potential voters are most interested in national elections when a presidential choice is involved. Otherwise, voter participation in our representative government is very low (and, as we have seen, is not overwhelmingly high even in presidential elections).
The Effect of Low Voter Turnout
There are two schools of thought concerning low voter turnout. Some view low voter participation as a threat to representative democratic government. Too few individuals are deciding who wields political power in society. In addition, low voter participation presumably signals apathy about the political system in general. It also may signal that potential voters simply do not want to take the time to learn about the issues.
Others are less concerned about low voter participation. They contend that low voter participation simply indicates more satisfaction with the status quo. Also, they believe that representative democracy is a reality even if a very small percentage of eligible voters vote. If everyone who does not vote thinks that the outcome of the election will accord with his or her own desires, then representative democracy is working. The nonvoters are obtaining the type of government - with the type of people running it - that they want to have anyway.
Is Voter Turnout Declining?
During the last decades of the twentieth century, the media regularly voiced concern that voter turnout was declining. Indeed, statistics show relatively low voter turnout from 1972 through 2002 - though turnout has gone back up in the past few elections. Pundits have blamed the low turnout on negative campaigning and broad public cynicism about the political process. But is voter turnout actually as low as it seems?
One problem with widely used measurements of voter turnout is that they compare the number of people who actually vote with the voting-age population, not the population of eligible voters. These figures are not the same. The figure for the voting age population includes felons and former felons who have lost the right to vote. Above all, it includes new immigrants who are not yet citizens. Finally, it does not include Americans living abroad, who can cast absentee ballots.
In 2010, the measured voting-age population included 3.1 million ineligible felons and former felons, and an estimated 19.6 million noncitizens. It did not include 5.0 million Americans living abroad. The voting-age population in 2010 was 235.8 million people. The vote-eligible population, however, was only 218.05 million. Using the voting-age population to calculate national turnout would reduce the turnout percentage from 41.7 to 38.2 percent - a substantial error.
The United States has experienced high rates of immigration in recent decades. The very low voter turnout reported in many sources after 1972 may have been a function of the increasing size of the ineligible population, chiefly due to immigration.
Factors Influencing Who Votes
A clear association exists between voter participation and the following characteristics: age, educational attainment, income level, minority status, and ideology.
Age. Age is a strong factor in determining voter turnout on Election Day. The reported turnout increases with older age groups. Older voters are more settled in their lives, are already registered, and have had more time to experience voting as an expected activity.
Educational attainment. Education also influences voter turnout. In general, the more education you have, the more likely you are to vote. This pattern is clearly evident in the 2010 election results.
Income level. Differences in income also correlate with differences in voter turnout. Wealthier people tend to be overrepresented among voters who turn out on Election Day. In recent presidential elections, voter turnout for those with the highest annual family incomes has approached three times the turnout of those with the lowest annual family incomes.
Minority status. African Americans and Hispanics traditionally have not turned out to vote at the same rate as non-Hispanic whites. Minority group members, however, tend to have less education and lower incomes than non-Hispanic whites. On average, minority group members are younger. Many Latinos are immigrants who have not yet obtained citizenship. If, however, we correct for such factors as socioeconomic status, age, citizenship, and loss of the right to vote due to a felony conviction, the difference in turnout due to minority status largely disappears.
Ideology. Depending on the issues at stake in a particular election year, political ideology may have a large impact on turnout. Either Republicans or Democrats may be discouraged from voting in a year that looks especially good for the other party. In 2008, for example, turnout among conservatives was relatively low for a presidential election year. In contrast, conservatives voted in very large numbers in 2010, while more liberal voters, especially young people, often stayed home.
Legal Restrictions on Voting
Legal restrictions on voter registration have existed since the founding of our nation. Most groups in the United States have been concerned with the suffrage (the right to vote, also called the franchise) issue at one time or another. In colonial times, only white males who owned property with a certain minimum value were eligible to vote, leaving more Americans ineligible to take part in elections than were eligible.
Property Requirements. Many government functions concern property rights and the distribution of income and wealth, and some of the founders of our nation believed it was appropriate that only people who had an interest in property should vote on these issues. The idea of extending the vote to all citizens was, according to Charles Pinckney, a South Carolina delegate to the Constitutional Convention, merely "theoretical nonsense."
The writers of the Constitution allowed the states to decide who should vote. Thus, women were allowed to vote in Wyoming in 1870 but not in the entire nation until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920. By about 1850, most white adult males in nearly all the states could vote without any property qualification. North Carolina was the last state to eliminate its property test for voting - in 1856.
Further Extensions of the Franchise. Extension of the franchise to black males occurred with the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. This enfranchisement was short lived, however, as the "redemption" of the South by white racists had rolled back those gains by the end of the century. It was not until the 1960s that African Americans, both male and female, were able to participate in the electoral process in all states. Women received full national voting rights with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. The most recent extension of the franchise occurred when the voting age was reduced to eighteen by the Twenty-sixth Amendment in 1971. One result of lowering the voting age was to depress voter turnout beginning in 1972. Young people are less likely to vote than older people.
Is the Franchise Still Too Restrictive? There continue to be certain classes of people who do not have the right to vote. These include noncitizens and, in most states, convicted felons who have been released from prison. They also include current prison inmates, election law violators, and people who are mentally incompetent. Also, no one under the age of eighteen can vote. A number of political activists have argued that some of these groups should be allowed to vote. Most other democracies do not prevent convicts from voting after they have completed their sentences. In the 1800s, many states let noncitizen immigrants vote.
One discussion concerns the voting rights of convicted felons who are no longer in prison or on parole. Those who oppose letting these people vote contend that voting should be a privilege, not a right, and we should not want the types of people who commit felonies participating in decision making. Others believe that it is wrong to further penalize those who have paid their debt to society. These people argue that barring felons from the polls injures minority groups, because minorities make up a disproportionately large share of former prison inmates.
Current Eligibility and Registration Requirements. Voting generally requires registration, and to register, a person must satisfy the following voter qualifications, or legal requirements: (1) citizenship, (2) age (eighteen or older), and (3) residency - the duration varies widely from state to state and with types of elections. Since 1972, states cannot impose residency requirements of more than thirty days.
Each state has different qualifications for voting and registration. In 1993, Congress passed the "motor voter" bill, which requires that states provide voter-registration materials when people receive or renew driver's licenses, that all states allow voters to register by mail, and that voter-registration forms be made available at a wider variety of public places and agencies. In general, a person must register well in advance of an election, although voters in the District of Columbia, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming are allowed to register up to, or even on, Election Day. North Dakota has no voter registration at all.
Some argue that registration requirements are responsible for much of the nonparticipation in our political process. There also is a partisan dimension to the debate over registration and nonvoting. Republicans generally fear that an expanded electorate would help to elect more Democrats - because more Democrats than Republicans are the kinds of persons who have trouble registering.
Voter-Registration Drives. Given the registration system, voter-registration drives are a familiar part of the political landscape. In the year leading up to any presidential or midterm election, public-interest groups and political organizations fan out across the land to register new voters. Registration drives are particularly common on college campuses and in low-income neighborhoods, where large numbers of unregistered voters may be found.
Long seen as noncontroversial, voter-registration drives suddenly became a political issue in 2010, when Acorn, a community-organizing group, was accused of violating election laws in its campaigns. Conservatives claimed that Acorn posed a major threat to the integrity of the voting process. Liberals contended that the controversy was overblown. Still, Acorn was forced to dissolve in 2010. Many former members later organized new groups.
In 2011 and 2012, Republican-controlled legislatures in a number of states tightened the laws governing voter-registration drives. Florida adopted the most stringent of these laws. In that state, organizations conducting registration drives were required to hand in all new registrations within forty-eight hours on penalty of a $50 fine for each late form. No allowance was made for days when state offices are closed - thus effectively banning voter registration on Fridays and any Saturday falling in a three-day weekend. Early voting days were also drastically curtailed. As a result, the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote, major sponsors of voter-registration drives, suspended activities in Florida and sued to block the new law. The political parties, however, vowed to press on. In May 2012, a federal district judge suspended most of the voter registration requirements.
The Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965 to ensure that African Americans had equal access to the polls. Any new voting practices or procedures in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination in voting have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice or the federal district court in Washington, D.C., before being implemented. The federal government has recently used its powers under the act to reject voter ID laws in several states.
A provision of the Voting Rights Act permits jurisdictions to "bail out" of coverage if they can demonstrate a clean record on discrimination during the previous ten years. By 2009, however, seventeen Virginia counties were the only jurisdictions in the country to successfully bail out. In June 2009, the United States Supreme Court permitted a Texas utility district to file for a bailout and strongly indicated that relief from the requirements of the act should be granted more freely. Indeed, several justices speculated on whether the act was still constitutional under modern circumstances, but the Court drew back from resolving that issue. NOTE: In the summer of 2013, the Supreme Court ruled the state requirement provision of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.
THE MEDIA AND POLITICS
The study of people and politics must take into account the role played by the media. Historically, the print media played the most important role in informing public debate. The print media developed, for the most part, our understanding of how news is to be reported. Today, however, 69 percent of Americans use television news as their primary source of information. In addition, the Internet has become a major source for news, political communication, and fund-raising. The Internet is now the second most widely used source of information - 34 percent of all persons consider it their primary source of news.
Only 22 percent of the public now relies on newspapers as a primary news source. As Internet use grows, the system of gathering and sharing news and information is changing from one in which the media have a primary role to one in which the individual citizen may play a greater part.
The Roles of the Media
The mass media perform a number of different functions in any country. In the United States, we can list at least six media functions. Almost all of them can have political implications, and some are essential to the democratic process. These functions are: (1) entertainment, (2) reporting the news, (3) identifying public problems, (4) socializing new generations, (5) providing a political forum, and (6) making profits.
Entertainment. By far the greatest number of radio and television hours are dedicated to entertaining the public. The battle for prime-time ratings indicates how important successful entertainment is to the survival of networks and individual stations. A number of network shows have a highly political content. Many younger people report that they get much of their political information from two programs on the Comedy Central network, hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Both are liberal, although as part of his routine, Colbert pretends to be a conservative.
For many Americans, especially younger ones, the Internet is replacing television as a source of entertainment. While much time on the Internet may be spent chatting with friends on Skype or even watching television programs online, politics is often a topic. YouTube, in particular, offers a large number of politically oriented videos, many of which are satirical. Talk radio and television shows that feature talk-radio personalities are another form of politically oriented entertainment - one that is dominated by the political right.
Reporting the News. A primary function of the mass media in all their forms is the reporting of news. The media provide words and pictures about events, facts, personalities, and ideas. The protections of the First Amendment are intended to keep the flow of news as free as possible, because it is an essential part of the democratic process. If citizens cannot obtain unbiased information about the state of their communities and their leaders' actions, how can they make voting decisions? One of the most incisive comments about the importance of the media was made by James Madison, who said, "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both."
Identifying Public Problems. The power of the media is important not only in revealing what the government is doing but also in determining what the government ought to do - in other words, in setting the public agenda. The mass media identify public issues. An example is the release of convicted sex offenders into residential neighborhoods after the end of their prison terms. The media have influenced the passage of legislation, such as "Megan's Law," which requires police to notify neighbors about the release and/or resettlement of certain sex offenders. American journalists also work in a long tradition of uncovering public wrongdoing, corruption, and bribery and of bringing such wrongdoing to the public's attention.
Closely related to this investigative function is that of presenting policy alternatives. Public policy is often complex and difficult to make entertaining, but programs devoted to public policy are often scheduled for prime-time television, especially on cable networks. For its part, the Web offers an enormous collection of political sites, with policy proposals representing every point of view.
Socializing New Generations. As mentioned in Chapter 6, the media strongly influence the beliefs and opinions of Americans. Because of this influence, the media play a significant role in the political socialization of the younger generation and of immigrants to this country. Through the transmission of historical information (sometimes fictionalized), the presentation of American culture, and the portrayal of the diverse regions and groups in the United States, the media teach young people and immigrants about what it means to be an American. Many children's television shows are designed not only to entertain young viewers but also to instruct them in the moral values of American society.
As more young Americans turn to the Internet, they participate in political forums, obtain information for writing assignments, and, in general, obtain much of their socialization from this new medium.
Providing a Political Forum. As part of their news function, the media also provide a political forum for leaders and the public. Candidates for office use news reporting to sustain interest in their campaigns, while officeholders use the media to gain support for their policies or to represent an image of leadership. Presidential trips abroad are one way for the chief executive to get colorful, positive, and exciting news coverage that makes the president look "presidential." The media also offer ways for citizens to participate in public debate, through letters to the editor, blog posts, and other channels.
Making Profits. Most of the news media in the United States are private, for-profit corporate enterprises. In general, profits are made as a result of charging for advertising. Advertising revenues usually are related directly to circulation or to listener/viewer ratings.
Several well-known media outlets, in contrast, are publicly owned - public television stations in many communities and National Public Radio. These operate without extensive commercials, are locally supported, and are often subsidized by the government and corporations.
Pressure by Advertisers. For the most part, however, the media depend on advertisers to obtain revenues to make profits. Consequently, reporters may feel pressure from media owners and from advertisers. If an important advertiser does not like a political bent of a particular newspaper, for example, the reporter could be asked to alter his or her "style" of writing. According to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, 38 percent of local print and broadcast journalists know of instances in which their newsrooms were encouraged to do a story because it related to an owner, advertiser, or sponsor.
Newspapers in Crisis. Lately, newspapers have found it increasingly difficult to make a profit. Newspaper revenues have fallen because online services such as Craigslist have taken over a greater share of classified advertising. The recent economic crisis, which depressed advertising spending, pushed many large daily newspapers over the edge. Newspapers in Chicago, Denver, and Seattle went out of business. Even some famous papers, such as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe, were in serious financial trouble.
Although all major newspapers are now online, they have found it difficult to turn a profit on their Web editions. News sites typically cannot sell enough advertising to meet their costs. One problem is that most online advertising revenue is collected by sites that provide search and aggregation services but do not create original content. Google, for example, collects a full 41 percent of all online ad revenue but provides almost no original material. In response to this problem, major newspapers have begun charging for online access, a process dubbed retreating behind a paywall. Access charges, however, reduce the number of users who are willing to view a site.
Television versus the New Media
As we explained earlier, new forms of media are displacing older ones as sources of information on politics and society in general. Although it is only recently that newspapers have experienced severe economic difficulties, they were losing ground to television as early as the 1950s. Today, the Internet has begun to displace television.
New Patterns of Media Consumption. Not everyone, however, migrates to new media at the same rate. Among Americans older than sixty-five years of age, only 11 percent obtain information about political campaigns by going online, up from 5 percent in 2000. In this older generation, 31 percent still rely on a daily newspaper, although that is down from 58 percent in 2000.
The media consumption patterns of "early adopters" of new technology are different. Many older high-income persons are among the early adopters, but the new media are most popular among youth. Indeed, many younger people have abandoned e-mail, relying on Facebook, texting, and other systems for messages. Many have moved on from Facebook to newer, more innovative social-networking platforms. Television becomes something to watch only if you cannot find online the program you want to see.
Young early adopters may find much of the older media irrelevant to their lives. It does not matter whether national television news shows are willing to pay personalities such as Diane Sawyer or Matt Lauer millions of dollars if you never watch these shows. Yet television news, cable networks, talk radio, and other older forms of media are not irrelevant to American politics. Older voters outnumber younger ones by a wide margin. As of the 2010 census, about 99 million Americans were age fifty or older. U.S. residents age eighteen through twenty-nine numbered about 52 million. Older voters are more likely to make it to the polls - and many early adopters of new media technology are too young to vote. It follows that television remains essential to American politics.
The Continuing Influence of Television. Television's continuing influence on the political process today is recognized by all who engage in that process. Television news is often criticized for being superficial, particularly compared with the detailed coverage available in newspapers and magazines. In fact, television news is constrained by its technical characteristics, the most important being the limitations of time - stories must be reported in only a few minutes.
The most interesting aspect of television - and of online videos - is that it relies on pictures rather than words to attract the viewer's attention. Therefore, a video that is chosen for a particular political story has exaggerated importance. Viewers do not know what other photos may have been taken or what other events may have been recorded - they see only those appearing on their screens. Television news can also use well-constructed stories to exploit the potential for drama. Some critics suggest that there is pressure to produce television news that has a story line, like a novel or movie. The story should be short, with exciting pictures and a clear plot. In extreme cases, the news media are satisfied with a sound bite, a several-second comment selected or crafted for its immediate impact on the viewer.
It has been suggested that these formatting characteristics of television increase its influence on political events. As you are aware, real life is usually not dramatic, nor do all events have a plot that is neat or easily understood. Political campaigns are continuing events, lasting perhaps as long as two years. The significance of their daily turns and twists is only apparent later. The "drama" of Congress, with its 535 players and dozens of important committees and meetings, is also difficult for the media to present. Television requires, instead, dozens of daily three-minute stories.
THE MEDIA AND POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
All forms of the media - television, newspapers, radio, magazines, online services - have a significant political impact on American society. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that almost all national public figures, starting with the president, plan every public appearance and statement to attract media coverage.
Television Coverage
Although younger voters get a relatively small share of their news from television, it remains the primary news source for older voters. Therefore, candidates and their consultants spend much of their time devising strategies that use television to their benefit. Three types of TV coverage are generally employed in campaigns for the presidency and other offices: political advertising (including negative ads), management of news coverage, and campaign debates.
Political Advertising. Political advertising has become increasingly important for the profitability of television station owners. Hearst Television, for example, obtains more than 10 percent of its revenues from political ads during an election year. During 2012, total spending on the media by candidates at all levels totaled close to $7 billion.
Negative Advertising. Perhaps one of the most effective political ads of all time was a thirty-second spot created by President Lyndon Johnson's media adviser in 1964. Johnson's opponent in the campaign was Barry Goldwater, a conservative Republican candidate known for his expansive views on the role of the U.S. military. In this ad, a little girl stood in a field of daisies. As she held a daisy, she pulled the petals off and quietly counted to herself. Suddenly, when she reached number ten, a deep bass voice cut in and began to countdown: "10, 9, 8, 7, 6..." When the voice intoned "zero," the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb began to fill the screen. Then President Johnson's voice was heard: "These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die." At the end of the commercial, the message read, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3."
Since the daisy girl advertisement, negative advertising has come into its own. In recent elections, an ever-increasing percentage of political ads have been negative in nature.
The public claims not to like negative advertising, but as one consultant put it, "Negative advertising works." Negative ads can backfire, however, when there are three or more candidates in the race, a typical state of affairs in the early presidential primaries. If one candidate attacks another, the attacker as well as the candidate who is attacked may come to be viewed negatively by the public. A candidate who "goes negative" may thus unintentionally boost the chances of a third candidate who is not part of the exchange. As an example of this effect, negative advertising by Newt Gingrich in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries may have temporarily injured Mitt Romney, but the eventual leader of the anti-Romney forces turned out to be Rick Santorum, not Gingrich. Santorum ran very few negative ads.
Management of News Coverage. Using political advertising to get a message across to the public is a very expensive tactic. Coverage by the news media, however, is free. The campaign simply needs to ensure that coverage takes place. In recent years, campaign managers have shown increasing sophistication in creating newsworthy events for journalists to cover.
The campaign staff uses several methods to try to influence the quantity and type of coverage the campaign receives. First, the staff understands the technical aspects of media coverage - camera angles, necessary equipment, timing, and deadlines - and plans political events to accommodate the press. Second, the campaign organization is aware that political reporters and their sponsors - networks, newspapers, or blogs - are in competition for the best stories and can be manipulated through the granting of favors, such as a personal interview with the candidate. Third, the scheduler in the campaign has the important task of planning events that will be photogenic and interesting enough for the evening news.
A related goal, although one that is more difficult to attain, is to convince reporters that a particular interpretation of an event is true. Today, the art of putting the appropriate spin on a story or event is highly developed. Press advisers, often referred to as spin doctors, try to convince journalists that the advisers' interpretations of the political events are correct. For example, the Obama administration and the Republicans engaged in a major spinning duel over the health-care reforms passed by Congress in March 2010. The administration called the legislation essential to provide insurance for everyone and to control the growth in health-care spending. The Republicans described it as a dangerous increase in the size of government. Journalists have begun to report on the different spins placed on events and on how candidates and officeholders try to manipulate news coverage.
Going for the Knockout Punch - Televised Presidential Debates. In presidential elections, perhaps just as important as political advertisements and general news coverage is the performance of the candidate in televised presidential debates. After the first such debate in 1960, in which John Kennedy, the young senator from Massachusetts, took on the vice president of the United States, Richard Nixon, candidates became aware of the great potential of television for changing the momentum of a campaign. In general, challengers have much more to gain from debating than do incumbents. Challengers hope that the incumbent will make a mistake in the debate and undermine the "presidential" image. Incumbent presidents are loath to debate their challengers because it puts their opponents on an equal footing with them, but the debates have become so widely anticipated that it is difficult for an incumbent to refuse to participate.
The 2011-2012 Republican Primary Debates. Presidential candidates have often debated during primary election campaigns, but traditionally such debates have not attracted much interest. The Republican presidential primary race in 2011 and 2012 was a dramatic exception. Between May 2011 and March 2012, the Republicans held twenty-seven debates, shown on such networks as ABC, CNN, Fox News, and NBC. The number of viewers frequently exceeded 5 million, and many more watched the debates in reruns and online.
The debates shaped the course of the Republican campaigns in 2011. The political context was the belief of many strong conservatives that Mitt Romney, the eventual winner, was not really one of them. To be sure, Romney's positions during the primaries were as conservative as anyone might wish, but his earlier record, especially as governor of Massachusetts, was moderate. Romney, therefore, was challenged by a series of anti-Romney candidates.
The first successful anti-Romney contender was Texas governor Rick Perry. His genial style and impressive resume propelled him into first place in September 2011. Perry, however, was a disastrously poor debater, and by October he was out of the running. He was replaced by Herman Cain, an African American and the former head of Godfather's Pizza, who had almost no experience relevant to the presidency. Still, Cain's brilliant performance in the debates lifted him to first place in October. A series of scandals then destroyed his campaign. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's debating skills elevated him to the top of the field twice, in December 2011 and again in January 2012.
By the end of January, however, campaign finance began to reclaim its normal role. In the Florida primary on January 31, Romney buried Gingrich beneath $10 million of negative campaign ads. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum became the ultimate anti-Romney candidate, but Romney triumphed in the end.
Obama-Romney Debates. The 2012 presidential debates in October turned out to be among the more consequential debates in years. As noted earlier, Obama's team had tried to present Romney as a rich financier who cared only for the interests of other wealthy Americans. Through September, this characterization appeared to be damaging Romney's campaign considerably. In the first of three debates, however, Romney was successful in presenting himself as compassionate, reasonable, and above all, moderate. Obama, meanwhile, gave the appearance of being half asleep. Obama did much better in the next two debates, and polls suggested that he won them on points. The effect of the last two debates, however, was not enough to counteract the impact of the first one. Romney's debate performance tightened up the elections substantially, but not by enough to grant him victory in November.
The Internet, Blogging, and Podcasting
Today, the campaign staff of every candidate running for a significant political office includes an Internet campaign strategist - a professional hired to create and maintain the campaign Web site, social media, blogs, and podcasts (blogs and podcasts will be discussed shortly). The work of this strategist includes designing a user-friendly and attractive Web site for the candidate, managing the candidate's e-mail communications, tracking campaign contributions made through the site, hiring bloggers to push the candidate's agenda on the Web, and monitoring Web sites for favorable or unfavorable comments or video clips about the candidate. Additionally, all major interest groups in the United States now use the Internet to promote their causes. Prior to elections, various groups engage in issue advocacy from their Web sites. At little or no cost, they can promote positions taken by favored candidates and solicit contributions.
Online Fundraising. Two politicians stand out as pioneers of online fundraising. The first of these is Ron Paul, a Republican member of Congress from Texas, who has run for president several times on a strongly libertarian platform. Paul's support has been especially strong among heavy Internet users, and these supporters introduced the idea of the moneybomb. The San Jose Mercury News described a moneybomb as "a one-day fund-raising frenzy." Two moneybomb events in late 2007 raised more than $10 million for the Paul campaign.
Paul's fundraising success was overshadowed in 2008, however, by Barack Obama's online fund-raising machine. In that year, Obama obliterated every political fund-raising and spending record in history. In total, his campaign raised more than $650 million, much of it in small donations solicited through the Internet. A key characteristic of successful Internet campaigns has been decentralization. The nature of the Internet has allowed candidates to assemble thousands of individual activists who serve as fund-raisers.
Obama was even more dependent on small Internet donations in 2012 than he had been in 2008, in part because his campaign rhetoric aimed at the wealthy led to a precipitous drop in donations from high-income individuals. One successful tactic was a "dinner with Barack" contest that supporters could enter with a relatively modest donation.
Romney's campaign, in contrast, found it easy to collect large donations but initially had difficulties with smaller donors. The campaign developed a number of innovative techniques to improve its small-donor performance, including iPhone and Android apps to collect donations using a card reader. Romney also encouraged supporters to create individualized "MyMitt" donation pages using a template supplied by the campaign.
Blogging. Within the past few years, politicians have also felt obligated to post regular blogs on their Web sites. The word blog comes from the Web log, a regular updating of one's ideas at a specific Web site. Of course, many people besides politicians are also posting blogs. Not all of the millions of blogs posted daily are political in nature. Many are, though, and they can have a dramatic influence on events, giving rise to the term blogosphere politics.
Blogs are clearly threatening to the mainstream media. They can be highly specialized, highly political, and highly entertaining. And they are cheap. The Washington Post requires thousands of employees, paper, and ink to generate its offline product and incurs delivery costs to get it to readers. A blogging organization such as RealClearPolitics can generate its political commentary with fewer than ten employees.
Podcasting. Once blogs - written words - became well established, it was only a matter of time before they ended up as spoken words. Enter podcasting, so called because the first Internet-communicated spoken blogs were downloaded onto Apple's iPods. Podcasts, though, can be heard on a computer or downloaded onto any portable listening device. Podcasting can also include videos. Hundreds of thousands of podcasts are now generated every day. Basically, anyone who has an idea can easily create a podcast and make it available for downloading. Like blogs, podcasting threatens traditional media sources. Publications that sponsor podcasts find it hard to make them profitable.
Although politicians have been slower to adopt this form of communication, many now are using podcasts to keep in touch with their constituents, and there are currently thousands, if not tens of thousands, of political podcasts.
MEDIA PROBLEMS
Journalists and other members of the media community are well known for devoting considerable energy to self-analysis. Numerous Web sites, social media, blogs, and other platforms continually review the performance of the various media outlets. Several issues rank high when the media contemplates itself - these include the effects of concentrated ownership, government interference, and bias by reporters.
Concentrated Ownership of the Media
Many media outlets are now owned by corporate conglomerates. A single entity may own a television network; the studios that produce the shows, news, and movies; and the means to deliver that content to the home via cable, satellite, or the Internet. The question to be faced in the future is how to ensure competition in the delivery of news so that citizens have access to multiple points of view from the media.
Today, all of the prime-time television networks are owned by major American corporations and are part of corporate conglomerates. The Turner Broadcasting/CNN network was purchased by a major corporation, Time Warner. Fox Broadcasting Company has always been a part of Rupert Murdoch's publishing and media empire. Many of these companies have also formed partnerships with computer software makers, such as Microsoft, for joint electronic-publishing ventures.
The greatest concern advanced by observers of concentrated media ownership is that it could lead to a decline in democratic debate. Also, media owners might use their power to steer the national agenda in a direction that they prefer. Indeed, several news organizations have clear conservative or liberal viewpoints. Among the most famous and successful of these is Fox News, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Murdoch's U.S. newspapers and networks have not been shy about promoting conservative politics. Some observers, however, believe that the emergence of independent news Web sites, blogs, and podcasts provides an ample counterweight to the advocacy of the media moguls.
Murdoch's dominance has been more of an issue in Britain, where newspapers, radio networks, and television networks owned by his News International enjoy a very large share of the total market. For years, politicians in all major British parties believed that it was potentially fatal to get on the wrong side of the Murdoch empire. In 2011, however, Murdoch's position was seriously undercut by a major scandal. Apparently, staff at Murdoch's News of the World, Britain's best-selling Sunday paper, illegally hacked into the cell phones of hundreds of people, including crime victims, celebrities, and members of the royal family. Bribery of police officers was also alleged. The News of the World was forced to close as a result of these revelations, and several News International executives faced criminal charges.
Government Control of Content
The United States has one of the freest presses in the world. Nonetheless, regulation of the media, particularly of the electronic media, does exist. Some of these aspects of regulation were discussed in Chapter 4.
The First Amendment does not mention electronic media, which did not exist when the Bill of Rights was written. For many reasons, the government has much greater control over electronic media than it does over print media. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates communications by radio, television, wire, and cable. For many years, the FCC has controlled the number of radio stations, even though technologically we could have many more radio stations than now exist. Also, the FCC created the environment in which for many decades the three major TV networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC) dominated broadcasting.
On the face of it, the First Amendment would seem to apply to all media. In fact, the United States Supreme Court has often been slow to extend free speech and free press guarantees to new media. For example, in 1915 the Court held that "as a matter of common sense," free speech protections did not apply to movies. Only in 1952 did the Court find that motion pictures were covered by the First Amendment. In contrast, the Court extended full protection to the Internet almost immediately by striking down provisions of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Cable TV also received broad protection in 2000.
While the Court has held that the First Amendment is relevant to radio and television, it has never extended full protection to these media. The Court has used a number of arguments to justify this stand - initially, the scarcity of broadcast frequencies. The Court later held that the government could restrict "indecent" programming based on the "pervasive" presence of broadcasting in the home. On this basis, the FCC has the authority to fine broadcasters for indecency or profanity. In June 2012, the Court ruled that the FCC's ban on momentary nudity and "fleeting expletives" - unscripted expletives uttered in live broadcasts - was unconstitutionally vague. The Court did not, however, address the underlying issue of the FCC's authority in this area.
Bias in the Media
For decades, the contention that the mainstream media have a liberal bias has been repeated time and again. Bernard Goldberg, formerly a CBS broadcaster and now a commentator for Fox News, is among the most prominent of these critics. Goldberg argues that liberal bias, which "comes naturally to most reporters," has given viewers reason to distrust the big news networks. Some progressives, however, believe that conservatives find liberal bias even in reporting that is scrupulously accurate. In the words of humorist Stephen Colbert: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Other observers claim that, on the whole, the media actually have a conservative bias, especially in their coverage of economic issues. In an analysis of visual images on television news, political scientist Maria Elizabeth Grabe concluded that "image bites" (as opposed to sound bites) more often favor the Republicans. Certainly, the almost complete dominance of talk radio by conservatives has given the political right an outlet that the political left cannot counter. The rise of the blogosphere and other online outlets has complicated the picture of media bias considerably. Neither the left nor the right clearly dominates in this arena.
Other Theories of Media Bias. Some writers have concluded that the mainstream media are really biased toward stories that involve conflict and drama - the better to attract viewers. Still others contend the media are biased against "losers," and when a candidate falls behind in a race, his or her press quickly becomes negative. The Republican primary campaigns in 2011 and 2012 provided many opportunities for candidates to complain about such bias, as one candidate after another shot up in the polls, only to be rejected by respondents a month or two later.
A Scientific Test for Bias? Communications professor Tim Groeling has devised a test for media bias that may provide accurate results regardless of whether political events favor the Democrats or the Republicans. He has examined how ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News reported public opinion polls that assessed the job performances of Democratic president Bill Clinton and Republican president George W. Bush. Confirming what many suspect, Groeling found that ABC, CBS, and NBC gave Clinton more favorable coverage than Bush - and that Fox gave Bush more favorable coverage than Clinton.
DID YOU KNOW?
~Five women received votes for vice president at the Democratic convention in 1924, the first held after women received the right to vote in 1920.
~Since 1945, the stock market (the Dow Jones Industrial Average) has gone up an average of 6.6 percent in years when a Republican was president - and 9.4 percent when the president was a Democrat.
~A candidate can buy lists of all the voters in a precinct, county, or state for a few cents per name.
~Abraham Lincoln sold pieces of fence rail that he had split as political souvenirs to finance his campaign.
~In 1910, Oregon established the first presidential primary in which elected delegates were pledged to vote for specific candidates, and although New Hampshire began using primary elections in 1916, it elected only unpledged delegates until 1952.
~When David Leroy Gatchell changed his middle name to None of the Above and ran for the U.S. Senate representing Tennessee, a court ruled that he could not use his middle name on the ballot.
~The 1976 Republican National Convention, where incumbent president Gerald Ford narrowly defeated California governor Ronald Reagan, was the last major-party convention at which the party's nominee was not decided before the convention began.
~When President Grover Cleveland lost the election of 1888, his wife told the White House staff to change nothing because the couple would be back in four years - and she was right.
~Computer software now exists that can identify likely voters and likely campaign donors by town, neighborhood, and street.
~Noncitizens were allowed to vote in some states until the early 1920s.
~The first "wire" story transmitted by telegraph was sent in 1846.
~The number of people watching the television networks during prime time has declined by almost 25 percent in the past ten years.
~The average length of a quote, or sound bite, by a candidate decreased from forty-nine seconds in 1968 to less than nine seconds today.
~A thirty-second television advertisement shown during the Super Bowl costs more than $2.6 million.
~The average age of CNN viewers is forty-four, and most people who watch the evening network news programs are over age fifty.