...A presidential primary is a state-based election to choose a party’s candidate for the presidency. A presidential primary shows support for a candidate among ordinary voters and chooses delegates committed to vote for that candidate at the National party. In the USA presidential primaries are held every fourth year, the manoeuvrings in preparation for the elections begins months, if not years, beforehand. Due to the fact that there is normally very little to see this stage is said to be the ‘invisible stage’ and therefore known as the invisible primary. The invisible primary is the stage which runs up to the first formal primary in the USA; essentially it begins as soon as the last election ends. It is the period when party candidates position themselves to run for the presidency before the official series of primaries and caucuses start. During this period of time the candidates aim to gain media coverage, endorsements and funding. It is important that candidates gain significant support for their campaigns by establishing name recognition and a political identity in order for their campaigns to be successful. Endorsements establish candidates as credible, reliable ones, for example in 2007 Barrack Obama was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey which helped his public image before the Democratic primaries. Many candidates such as Al Gore in 2000 make specific efforts to boost their image in order to gain support from superdelegates. Firstly the ‘invisible primary’ can be used to assess...
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...A presidential primary is a state-based election to choose a party’s candidate for the presidency. A presidential primary shows support for a candidate among ordinary voters and chooses delegates committed to vote for that candidate at the National party. In the USA presidential primaries are held every fourth year, the manoeuvrings in preparation for the elections begins months, if not years, beforehand. Due to the fact that there is normally very little to see this stage is said to be the ‘invisible stage’ and therefore known as the invisible primary. The invisible primary is the stage which runs up to the first formal primary in the USA; essentially it begins as soon as the last election ends. It is the period when party candidates position themselves to run for the presidency before the official series of primaries and caucuses start. During this period of time the candidates aim to gain media coverage, endorsements and funding. It is important that candidates gain significant support for their campaigns by establishing name recognition and a political identity in order for their campaigns to be successful. Endorsements establish candidates as credible, reliable ones, for example in 2007 Barrack Obama was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey which helped his public image before the Democratic primaries. Many candidates such as Al Gore in 2000 make specific efforts to boost their image in order to gain support from superdelegates. Firstly the ‘invisible primary’ can be used to assess...
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...works claiming their demise. But following the popularisation of this opinion came party renewal theorists with strong claims to suggest political parties in the US were experiencing increasing support. By looking at a range of factors including Presidential primaries, party funding and other election based issues we can assess which of these claims is most accurate. One major example of the central party losing power and importance is the fall in influence they experienced in the selection of their Presidential candidates in 1968. With Primaries and Caucuses replacing ‘party bosses’ in ‘smoke filled rooms’ the parties have to a large extent lost the power of deciding the Presidential candidate to the party voters and general electorate, illustrating their decline. However the parties have fought somewhat to regain control; the introduction of unpledged/super delegates, especially for The Democrats, has reduced the electorate’s power in the Primaries. Democrat Super-Delegates make up around a fifth of the total delegates giving them sizable significance like when they ensured Obama’s victory over Clinton in 2008. The Republican ‘establishment’ has too seen a renewal in influence, seemingly swaying the outcome of the Presidential candidate nomination process. A strong example of this is when Bush, popular with the party establishment, beat McCain to the nomination despite the majority of core Republican voters favouring McCain. Similarly, the central Democrat party’s push for Kerry...
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...Assess the importance of the National Party Convention Meetings held once every 4 years by each party to select it’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates and finalize a party platform. Both major parties and some minor parties, hold them, and they usually last for 4 days in the summer of the election year, and are held in a large city, with the venue being decided by each party's National Committee. The National Party Convention is attended by the delegates (most of whom will have been chosen in the presidential primaries), and much of the national media. This function has also been lost. Not since 1956 has a National Convention actually chosen the vice-presidential candidate; nowadays, the running-mate is chosen by the presidential candidate. Indeed, in recent years, the announcement of the running-mate has been made before, rather than at, the National Convention. In 2008, both Barack Obama (Democrat) and John McCain (Republican) announced their running-mates - Joe Biden (Democrat) and Sarah Palin (Republican) respectively - just before their Conventions convened. It is therefore more accurate to state that the National Convention merely confirms rather than chooses the vice-presidential candidate. National Party Conventions are important because they promote party unity. The Convention is the only time in 4 years that the party actually meets together; at other times, the party exists merely as 50 state parties therefor any wounds created...
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...biased media and what effect it has on presidential candidates running for office in the United States of America. Being done so by looking at examples of media playing a factor on past presidential candidates. Through examination of past and current events of media effecting presidential candidates, the goal is to draw a connection making it clear that private interest creates a biased media effecting presidential candidates. Through showing what effect media has on presidential candidates, the research that will be conducted in this paper will emphasize and make aware the public that the media has its own...
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...Presidential nominating conventions take place in the summer of an election year. The main task is to select the party’s presidential nominee, even that in all recent contests one candidate has already emerged from the nomination process with a clear majority of delegates and wins the nomination on the first ballot. To get the nomination, a candidate needs the support of a majority of the delegates, and if no candidate receives a majority after the first round of voting at the convention, the voting has to continue until someone does. After the delegates nominate a presidential candidate, he chooses a vice-presidential nominee, who has to be ratified by the delegates. The normal performance of the nominations used to have a pattern, in which there is a frontrunner that is leader in the early public opinion polls and has raised a large amount of money, and goes on to win the nomination. In a less common scenario, the leader falters and is replaced by another candidate, and in third place it could happen that in the political party, there is no clear frontrunner but in fact, a number of more contenders vying for the nomination. In another variant, it happens that two strong candidates may battle it out over the entire course of the presidential primaries and caucuses. The final purpose of a convention is to attract public attention, to make it a...
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...College The Electoral College is a highly outdated system that needs to be removed from our presidential elections. Without the electoral college presidential candidates would be have to campaign nationwide instead of focusing on a few battleground states that hold key electoral votes. This scenario would ultimately lead to the best man standing as our next president. In today’s society the Electoral College is unnecessary and unwanted. This system was introduced in 1787 because delegates were unsure if the general public would have the knowledge to make an informed decision in a presidential election. 228 years later with the inventions of the television and the Internet it would be hard to argue that the public is no longer informed on the candidates and their positions. The Electoral College is discouraging to many and therefore causes countless people to not vote. For example, in Texas many democrats will not cast a vote because they deem it useless in a Republican dominated state. The removal of the Electoral College would encourage every voter to cast a ballot and those votes would actually mean something. The removal of the Electoral College will cause presidential candidates to take notice of the entire United States. “For example a full 99% of all advertising by the two major candidates were concentrated in only 17 of the states.” (Source D) Presidential candidates tend to focus all of their attention on those states considered battleground states, states in...
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...As the statement suggests, several attempts have been made over the last 50 years to regulate the financing of campaigns, which has been criticised for damaging the election process of democracy in the USA for being too expensive and dominant. Earliest reforms in the 1970s include the 1971 Federal Election Act, and famously, the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act, known by many now as FECA. These congressional acts limited the ability of candidates to spend their own money on campaigns, and limited PAC donations to $5,000 per candidate through the creation of the Federal Election Commission. They also introduced the ‘matching funds system’ to this effect. Far more recent reforms have also taken place to further restrict such donations to candidate campaigning, such as the 2002 Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as ‘McCain-Feingold’ capping the soft money spending by parties and welfare/charity organisations which had increased since the 1970s. This is when money is not directly donated to the candidate and cannot be used for self promotion. The 2002 Act ruled that such organisations can spend up to 49% of their income on parties and campaigns, yet this spending remains undisclosed, allowing anonymity. This highlights one of the main reasons why such reforms have failed to rectify the issues of campaign financing that remains in contemporary elections – many so-called ‘legal loopholes’ have been found in these congressional acts which have allowed soft money and independent...
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...worried that giving the authority to Congress could create corruption, political bargaining, and foreign influence on their choice. Plus this could upset the balance of power that the founding fathers were trying to create with the Constitution. Secondly was the idea of giving the authority to the state legislatures. This idea was swiftly rejected for the fact that many believed that the president could be controlled by the State Legislature and decrease the federal authority and undermine the founding fathers idea of separation of powers. The third idea was to let the president be chosen by a direct popular vote. This was also rejected because the founding fathers believed that because of the lack of information for a candidate a state would just vote for a candidate from that particular state or region. The framers saw the possibility of at worst that no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. They believed that for a best case scenario would be that the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones. Finally, the founding fathers decided during the Constitutional Convention an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors. The electors would be chosen based on the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party. (Kimberling, 2008)...
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...Minor Parties: Past and Present Throughout the history of American politics, there have been countless political parties that have formed, disbanded, and evolved, and nearly all of them have helped shape today’s American political structure in some way. These groups have made significant contributions to American politics and have both directly and indirectly impacted election outcomes. In both the 1912 and the 1968 presidential elections, minor party candidates not only secured a significant amount of support, but influenced drastic change in political views and processes in the United States. In addition to these historical examples, minor parties continue to have a significant role in American politics, and in the 2012 Presidential Election, the Libertarian and Green Parties both nominated candidates that had potential to make a significant impact. Many scholars today believe minor parties only to be “spoilers” in presidential elections; they say that they merely take enough votes away from one candidate to cause the other candidate to win the election (Trautman, 2014). While this does occur, minor parties have a much greater impact on American politics than as merely election spoilers. They often present issues that are important to the American populous that may be overlooked by the large political machines that are the Democratic and Republican parties. After the major parties study these issues, often they consider them in the presentation of their party platform to...
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...Renderring of the article “Latino voters take center stage in both presidential campaigns” The article under reading is headlined “Latino voters take center stage in both presidential campaigns”. The author of the article is Karen Tumulty. She is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post. Before joining the Post, Tumulty wrote for Time from October 1994 to April 2010. She was a Congressional correspondent as well as the National Political Correspondent based in Washington D.C. for the magazine. It was published in the Washington Post on December 26, 2011. The Washington Post is a leading American daily newspaper. It is the most widely circulated newspaper published in Washington, D.C., and oldest extant in the area, founded in 1877. Located in the capital city of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. Daily editions are printed for the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The article is devoted to the importance of the Hispanic voters for both the candidates in the upcoming elections in the USA. In the very beginning of the article the author tells us that Hispanic voters are important for both the candidates. Then the author tells us about the relations between as Latinos and Obama, and Latinos and Romney. The author provides information about Obama’s attitude towards them. There are special programs for the minorities both medical and educational, which are promoted by Obama volunteers. Then we see that 67%...
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...If college and the Electoral College have anything in common, it is that they both throw away the importance of what was once important. Grades have less value in college; popular votes, as in the public’s votes, have less value in the Electoral College. Nonetheless, both have a plethora of differences, a major one being that no one wants to terminate college whereas the fate of the Electoral College is hotly debated. Should the Electoral College be abolished? To conclude an answer, one should understand the functionalities of it. The Electoral College is a process, penned by the Founding Fathers hundreds of years ago, that is used to determine the United States’ President and vice-president indirectly. Each state will receive a certain amount...
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...News reporters should be focused on broadcasting Presidential Election current news to inform, not persuaded their viewers to support their biases political opinions and beliefs. Many of the news reporters have allowed biases thoughts overcome their task to bring the new reports to the general public; in many cases, opinionated ideology surpassed what their ultimate assignment is to accomplish. Even though there are still many voters undecided, it’s not the media outlet responsibility to help make their decisions. Even though news reporters should share unbiased reports concerning the Presidential Election Coverage because the biases reports will impact viewers voting decision-making. According to PBS.org, Sarah Childress, a senior digital reporter for Frontline Enterprises Journalism Group study on Election Coverage Skewed by Journalism Bias and she expresses, “An analysis of news coverage from the 2016 primary races found that mainstream media...
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...resources to gain popularity that no other presidential candidate had used before. This marketing tactic worked out for the presidential candidate who was sworn in as President of the United States in January 2009 (Keller & Kotler, 2011). Marketing is very important not only to candidate for every office but also to all corners of the business world. Marketing Marketing, mostly seen as selling and advertising, does not end there. Authors Keller and Kotler of Marketing Management state, “Formally of informally, people and organizations engage in a vast number of activities we could call marketing” (2011, p. 3). So not only is marketing stating information but activates are also involved. “Marketing is the performance of activities that seek to accomplish an organization’s objectives by anticipating customer or client needs and directing a flow of needs, satisfying goods and services from producer to customer or client” (Cannon & McCarthy, 2011, p. 6). Four authors form two different books agree that marketing is not just selling and advertising, but it is also studding and directing. My personal definition of marketing is somewhat the same as the authors of Marketing Management and Basic Marketing. I strongly believe that marketing is selling; whether it is yourself as a candidate, or a product for self improvement. Not everything as a price tag hanging from it, but there is always a price to what is being sold. When a candidate is selling them self, he or she as an...
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...Throughout the past year of presidential campaigning, one of the top issues for both candidates has been that of whether or not there should be a prescription-drug benefit added to Medicare. Both George W. Bush and Al Gore have proposed a plan to expand Medicare to include full prescription-drug coverage for senior citizens receiving Medicare, at the expense of taxpayers. It is obvious why this issue has been such a priority for both candidates. Senior citizens vote at a much higher rate than other age groups. Both candidates know the importance of these senior citizen votes and believe that the proposal of adding a prescription-drug benefit is something that will appeal to a vast number of senior citizens. Both candidates have portrayed the issue as being very critical and as a serious problem that needs to be addressed. The question, however, is whether or not such drug coverage is a worthwhile project to undertake. Is the problem indeed serious enough to call for the type of reform that the candidates are proposing? Medicare is already a very costly program to keep up, and adding prescription-drug coverage would increase these costs even more. In order to fund this project, there will need to be a tax hike. Should taxpayers subsidize this prescription-drug benefit? Is there a good reason why this redistribution should take place? What are the benefits and costs of this proposal? These and other questions will be addressed in this paper as we examine the following topics:...
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