Carville makes painful predictions

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/30/carville.2009/index.html?iref=newssearch

This article talk about predictions for the Democraric party and the hurdles that the GOP faces in the coming year. Check it out!

Sorting

The topic I’m choosing this week is whether the 2006 and 2008 elections strengthen or weaken Fiorina’s argument for sorting. I feel that in the 2006-2008 elections Fiorina’s argument is strengthened. Fiorina speaks of sorting in an example using and urn with marbles. One urn has 33 red (R), 33 BLUE (D), and 34 gray (I). The other urn has 50 red marbles (R) and 50 blue marbles (D). Fiorina says this is “what we think most people understand by polarization” (p. 61). The point here is that the gray (independents) have disappeared and that there are only two distinct parties. It seems now that there are no liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats.
Looking at the elections from 2006 the exit polls show that the numbers were very close with differences by only a few percentage points. There was also no other categories except for Republicans and Democrats. This illustrates polarization as well as the parties sorting themselves to either Democrats or Republicans.
CNN.com-Elections2006
As for the 2008 elections there seems to be more polarization. It seems that more people voted for either Democrats or Republicans than anything else. There is a spot for other, but just as Fiorina says with the marble example it is virtually non-existent.
CNN. Com/election/2008/results/polls
Also to talk about Fiorina’s argument a bit more, even if you look at the map of blue and red states we see that some states actually changed color from red to blue. Does this mean that there is even more polarization? I think this does because I feel that proves that the people that were once in the middle or moderates chose a side in the 2008 election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/us/politics/29decide.html?_r=1&hpw

This article is called "Early Resolve- Obama Stand in Auto Crisis

This article talks about what Obama plans to do if the Auto industries can't get their act together. Will Obama let any of the three Big Car Companies go under? It is a real possibility!!!

Frank and Bartels

Both Frank and Bartels have good arguments against one another, but I'm going to hve to go with Frank and with his views. In 2008 the big issue had to deal with the economy and people voted accordingly with the Democrats to give them a chance. Bartels seems to use the poor get poorer and the rich get richer argument here. He talks about the Republican party creating the gap and making equality something that will never happen because Republicans have in the past seem to favor the rich.
Also in comparison to the working class that Frank talks about, what he says is th working class is much broader than what Bartels says is the working class. Franks describes working class as those without degrees. Also the conservatives were able to persuade white workers to vote in favor of them even though it didn't necessarily benefit them. This was to be blamed for Kerry's loss. You can't blame the conservatives for winning. Maybe they ran a better campaign and that seeing Bush in a cowboy hat and jeans made them realize that he was more like them than Kerry who's wife may not have known what chili was and the snobby attitude that Kerry seemed to be known for.
As for the 2008 election the economic issues dominated the election and the Democrats took office. Every election is different and will continue to be. It all depends on the issues that are important at the time of races that will determine who will win. Also another factor that will be of importance will be if the candidates and parties can persuade people from the other side as did Obama in 2008.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/mayor-bloomberg-quits-the-gop/?scp=3&sq=political%20parties&st=Search

This article is called "Mayor Bloomberg Quits the G.O.P."
This article talks abou how Myor Bloomberg is now considring himself as an independent and planned to run as such or as a third-party candidate. He says he wants to put partisanship aside and focus on real issues with real solutions. Check it out!!

A New Party

This week’s blog is to focus on what would happen if a new political party formed and what would it look like? I would like to take this stance as if the Republican Party collapsed. What would come from the so called “ashes” is what I feel would be a moderate party.
It seems that in the past elections the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party has become very polarized. The Democrats seem to be more to the left than ever and Republicans more to the right. This polarization is forcing people to pick sides and most people these days are shifting more to the Democratic Party.
In our readings it is said that the political party must be understood in three parts. Those three parts are the party in the electorate, the party in government, and the party in an organization (Aldrich, p.164). As far as the new party goes in the electorate the moderate new party would have to work more with liberal views and make them more right leaning in order to gain support from still conservative voters. Also by doing this in elections this might shift our traditionally conservative states that went democrat in the past election back to being more Republican. As far as the party in government they will obviously have to take a more moderate stance on issues that the Republicans would normally own. This would push Republicans more to the left, but it is much better than pushing them completely out and only having one political party. As for party organization the party will have to organize to persuade those states that have been in the past more conservative to being more moderate.
The party’s leaders can no longer be someone who is a polarized candidate, but somebody with more moderate views. A name that comes to mind as a possible candidate would be Nancy Pelosi. As far as the platforms goes at first it must be more moderate, but as time goes by the party could push itself back towards the right which would mean a more competitive race for office.

Should GOP go upscale

This article is called "Should GOP Go Upscale."
It talks about who the GOP should target for better results in the 2012 election as well as how targeting a crtaon group could help them win. Check it out.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/the_gop_should_go_upscale.html

module 9--- GOP

I do not feel that GOP will be unable to compete for presidency or congress after 2006 or 2008. As we all know this has happened in the past just as the Democrats lost big time in 1994 and in 2002. People were sick of the way things were going with the Republican Party, so they voted differently back in 2008. There were many factors, the major one being the economy that moved people to vote Democrat. Just because they did this in this election doesn’t mean that they will never get the chance again to be in office or congress.
As far as I’m concerned this is just a normal political cycle and that when the Democrats start doing things that the people don’t like they will once again vote back to the Republicans. The thing that I feel the Republicans could have done better was to choose a better candidate than McCain and this might have improved their chances of election or an election that was not so broad when it comes to the numbers. I don’t think that the Republican Party is ever going to diminish, but they definitely need to do some sort of reforming in order to get back on track. In our readings it says that a strategic party should allocate sources if it will make the difference between winning and losing. If the Republican party re-evaluates their platforms they would most likely gain more support and be able to be more competitive in the next election.

electoral mandate fpr obama

This article looks at what Obama will have to to do in order to get things done in office as well as the support he will need.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/mbarone/2008/11/10/does-barack-obama-have-a-mandate.html?s_cid=rss:does-barack-obama-have-a-mandate

As far as Barack Obama goes and if he has a mandate, I’m going to have to say yes he does? Just looking at the electoral map there have been some major changes in this election compared to previous elections. There are states that haven’t voted democrat in decades that have recently voted in the past election in favor of Obama.
To also prove that he has a mandate just look at the numbers from the election. Obama won with 53% of the votes. That is a majority. Not to mention that he also kicked McCain’s but with the 364 electoral votes compared to McCain’s 163 votes.
Looking at now and whether or not Obama has a mandate I’m still going to have to say yes he does. It seems that more and more of Obama’s policies are being considered while some have already been put into action. For our country this means that the mandate for Obama will push us to the left and make policies less conservative.
The definition of an electoral mandate has to deal with a command on a given issue by the electorate. This is why I feel that Obama had a mandate and still does. He is continuing to work to get his policies pushed through as well as using bi-partisanship to get more support for these policies.

Race in 2008

http://townhall.com/columnists/TonyBlankley/2008/05/14/race_and_the_2008_election

This article is called "Race and the 2008 Election." It discusses how race runs deeps throughout history and how things are turning out and being talked about now that Obama is president.

Looking at the exit polls from this past election there were many things that were different compared to previous elections. The only group that prevailed for John McCain was the 65 and older age group. In past elections while this group has normally been more conservative leaning others who have also been shifted towards Obama and the Democratic party.

There was a strong support coming from minority and young voters for Obama which in the past hasn't been very strong. Also another biggie for Obama was the first time voters and the number of minority voters that came out this election.

Looking at some things from our readings and the exit polls they are pretty accurate. For gender and race, males voted 49% for Obama while 56% of females voted for Obama. This goes to show that the gender gap is continuing to be open and not as close as it was back in the 60's.
As for race this could be the most promintent gap with black males voting for Obama 95% compared to white males who voted for him 41% of the time. This is by far one of the widest "gaps." And the same goes for white women compared to black women.

Looking at race alone Whites tended to be more evenly divided with 43% to Obama and 55% to McCain. For African American's this was 95% to Obama and only 4% to McCain. All other minorities as well had over 60% of the vote going towards Obama.

Looking at the exit polls and refering to our readings this week the gaps for this election seem to be a lot wider than those of previous elections. The most prominent seems to be race. This election could be the most talked about and publicized in all of presidential history for the simple fact that in this election there were a lot more first time voters as well and minorities and young people who exercised their right to vote.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/obama_the_great_divider.html

This article is called "Obama: The Great Divider?" This article talks about how Obama first brags about "championing bipartisanship," and the author talks about how he really hasn't which is what Congress is all about...... Competition!!

The Role of the Minority Party

In Congress the role of the minority is to help the majority party shape public policy. While majority rules in Congress the minority still can develop influence. Outside of Congress the minority party must work to gather and unite its members so that the party is strengthened. The idea is party power.
The minority also must work for the support of the majority party. The key here is BIPARTISANSHIP!!! I’m not saying that the majority party is going to just go ahead and give power to the minority, but the minority will try to get some of the members of the majority to see their side of the story on issues. This is what happened to Nancy Pelosi. A side from her being the first woman speaker of the House she exercised her minority party power and persuaded the majority to vote with some issues that would have gone the other way if there wouldn’t have bipartisanship.
Another characteristic that the minority needs to have besides uniting members of the party is to be aggressive. Nancy Pelosi was aggressive and pushed forth many issues of the minority party. This helped her gain more support not only from her party, but also gained the support of the majority party on legislature that was important to both parties.
The calling for bipartisanship is and will continue to be something that will always happen in Congress. As we talked about there will not be a median voter, there will not be median party either. There will be continued turmoil in Congress and especially among the majority and minority parties.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/02/10/political-parties-%E2%80%98must-embrace-technology%E2%80%99.html

This article is called "Political parties must embrace technology." I thought it went along with this weeks topics of technology and candidates. It talks about the increasing number of people using the internet and other technological sources. It then talks about the candidates having to use this as well to be more effective in campaigning.Check it out!!

What Happened In 2008?
As I was searching though McCain and Obama’s web-sites there wasn’t really that much information anymore. In McCain’s was a thanks for your support message and in Obama’s not much at all. Since the elections have ended so have the sites as well.
From our readings this week it focused a lot on candidates and their vulnerability of incumbents. Incumbents tend to be not so safe after all when it comes to elections. 2008 was Bush’s last year in office so there was no possibility of him returning to office. Many people wanted change because of the current situation with the economy among a lot of other issues. There seemed to be no chance that the Republicans would win in 2008. Democrats also had a leg up on the Republicans seeing that they run Congress.
As for party centeredness and campaigns the goal is to win elections. Each candidate can be associated with a political party, but when it comes to campaigning the idea is to win and party affiliation seems to take a seat on the back burner. I’m not saying affiliation is ignored, but what comes out of the candidate is how far left or right they are in their ideals.
As far as technology goes, this to me benefits the candidate and not so much the party. With these advances, such as YouTube, Facebook, and blogging, the campaigns in my opinion become candidate-centered. With these advances candidates are able to make it all about themselves. Also with new technology a trillion news stations and on-line sites are able to pick and choose who they wish to support as well as bash.
In conclusion, it’s hard to say if technology is useful in campaigns. I feel that if it is targeted at the right groups then it can be. It’s clear however that candidate’ campaigns are centered around just that- CANDIDATES, and parties take the back seat during elections.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/18/foreclosure.plan/index.html

This article has to do with the Republican analyzing and questioning the plan that Obama has presented for the economy. This goes to show how the parties are going head to head with one another on issues that each party feels strongly about. The economy is definately in a jam, but Republicans are skeptical of the stance the Democrats have taken on the issue and since coming into office.

Primaries have been said to be an effective way in which candidates are chosen for president and vice president. Each state has control over what type of primary they use whether it be open, closed, non-partisan, run-off, or in the past blanket primaries. Even though there are many ways in which parties pick candidates, primaries still pose some problems. An example is from our book on p.75, it states that primaries do not help with competition. Incumbents also are rarely ever defeated in elections. One of the biggest components of elections is finances. This aspect tends to either make or break a candidate and their campaign.
Looking at the regulation of campaign finance, there are many concerns. The first is that the cost of running a campaign has risen so much that some candidates are seriously hurt to point that makes it impossible for them to run. The rising costs of campaigns also only lets the voters see the candidates and parties with large amounts of money. This could possibly be the reason why our country only has two major political parties. They have become so large and rich that there is no possible way for other candidates to come in and compete.
In some ways I feel that the regulations of money to campaigns are a good thing. There needs to be some sort of contribution limits otherwise there would be even less competition among parties. Also having restrictions helps prevent corruption and candidates from getting money illegally. As far as parties go the restrictions on them make them have to go out and work for the contributions and this I feel makes them stronger as a party. Parties have to work together to get voters to contribute.
In conclusion money matters in elections and it needs to be regulated. If it is not there is the possibility of corruption as well as a decrease in political competitiveness.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801403.html

This article is called "Political Parties, Under Challenge, Seems to have Justices' Sympathy." This article goes right along with this weeks readings. It talks about cases being brought to the Supreme Court and for political parties to be able to select their own nominees. It talks abaout the "blanket primary" and why it was unconstutional as well what Supreme Court judges said about this particular subject.

To start out, decentralizationeffects political parties in a number of ways. First off decentralization creates the parties. Without government decentralizing there wouldn't be distributed power to states or institutions. Decentralization allows individuals to coordinate with one another. This coordination and cooperation of these people help form political parties. The political parties are made up of individuals who share similar goals which primarily is to win elections and get their party voted into office.

As for party discipline this is difficult because across state boundaries each state has different view points such as a state being Republican and then switching over to being more Democratic. Decentralization is also a challenge for parties because they vary across the board. For example from our module video Professor Tofias mentions how different Mitt Romney and Mike Huckaby are, yet both are part of the Repblican Party.

For heterogeniety, decentralization is logical because our country is large as well as diverse therefore we need large and diverse parties. Because of the diversity in large parties this causes disparity across the major political parties.

Obviously when Bush was in office the government was run by the Republican Party. As the elections approached people were very dissatisfed with Bush and his administration. The elections in the past have been close, but this one was not. The states that were normally battleground states this time around had shifted. They had shifted to the Democratic Party. This goes to show that decentralization helps politicla parties change and evolve from year to year, election to election.

So we will just have to see where the economy takes us and where the newly in office Democratic Party leads.

Party Article

This is an interesting article talking about the shape of the Republican party since the elections!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2009/02/nj-gov_could_republicans_final.html

What is a party?

As discussed in module 1 the questions of if parties are representative of our preferences or if they are institutions that help translate preferences really helped me answer what a political party is. I feel that I feel that political parties do represent our, and by our I mean citizens, preferences on issues. Also I feel that political parties do translate our preferences. I guess in a political party this would be the busy aspect and the actual work part of a party.

One good way to explain a political party I feel was in the Federalist No. 10. I think that a party is a united group of people "acutuated by some common impulse of passion or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." Political parties are used to maintain power in the government and help maintain order.

A political party I feel also has to deal with certain ideologies which also goes along I guess with the passions and interests of citizens. Political parties compete for power with one another which is what they need to do to survive and is an important feature for parties to exist.

A political party to me is a group of individuals that get together for a specific cause which has to do with political preference and certain ideologies. Interest groups are not political parties, but however they sometimes work closey with them in order to get legislation passed.

I would like to start off by telling you all a little about myself. My name is Naomi Pena. I am 23 years old and was born and raised in Milwaukee. Alot of people usually are negative about Milwaukee, but to tell you the truth I love it here!!!!! Except for -30 degree below zero wind chills and 20+ inches of snow. I am a senior here at UWM and will graduate in May. I have a 5 year old little boy named Devin and a fiance named Brent. We are tying the knot June 13th 2009 :)

Enough about me and on to the course material. I hope to learn a great deal about parties and how they operate in this course. I hope to explore not only parties on an individual level, but how they interact with one another. I have recently become more interested in party poltics since the elections. I am curious to explore how events such as elections affect political parties and how they come to into power.

As far as fears goes I don't really know that I have any real fear, but a lot of curiosity surrounding parties. I guess I am curious to know why can't parties just be one big happy family and get along? I guess that could be a reason for our country being as successful as if has been. There needs to be some sort of balance in countries and I guess that parties are a way to maintain peace within.

I look forward to this class and learning about parties. I also look forward to reading all of your blogs and op