Political Behavior Unit

Warm-up
What is required to have a good
campaign?

Part 2: Elections & Campaigns

1. Announcement
2. Primaries/Caucuses
3. Conventions
4. Campaign
5. General Election
6. Electoral College
7. Inauguration

7 Steps in the
Election Process

Types of Elections Choosing a Delegate

1. Caucus: Meetings of state party leaders. Used to select delegates.
Now organized like a pyramid from local precincts to the states
convention.
Not used by many states.
Iowa caucus is first and considered the most important.
2. Primary: Elections in which voters choose the nominee.
Open primary: anyone can vote for a partys candidates
Closed primary: only registered members of the party can vote for that
party
Started by turn of the century reformers.
Most states use one of the forms of a primary.
Frontloading: tendency of states to hold primaries early - New
Hampshire is first.
Generally primaries serve as elimination contests.

The Nomination
Nomination: (leader in primaries wins Nomination)
The official endorsement of a candidate for office by a political party.
Generally, success requires momentum, money, and media attention.
Deciding to Run:
Campaigns are physically and emotionally taxing.
Other countries have short campaigns - generally less than 2 months.
U.S. campaigns (especially for President) can last 18 months or more.
National Convention: run by political party to select the party's nominee for
President, as well as to adopt a platform; now mostly ceremonial
Campaign Strategy:
The master plan candidates lay out to guide their electoral campaign.
General Election: after primaries are complete, and each party has nominated
its candidate, the general election takes place to determine the winner of the
election

The Campaign
Organizing the Campaign
Get a campaign manager
Get a fundraiser & counsel
Hire media and campaign consultants
Assemble staff / plan the logistics
Get research staff, policy advisors & pollsters
Get a good press secretary
Establish a website
Raise as much money as possible
The Campaign
Candidates travel giving speeches, appearing in interviews on TV, debates
with opponents
meet with state and local officials, special interests groups (auto unions, etc.)
Mobilize supporters to vote for them

Ways of Campaigning
1.Endorsements: when public people, such
as athletes, movie stars, and musicians
publicly support candidates (examples?)
2.Propaganda: ways to promote a person
or ideal to win elections
- positive & negative propaganda

Positive Propaganda
1. Stacked cards: the candidate only tells the good things he
has done; ex.: I have the best record on the
environment.
2. Bandwagon: the candidate gathers many people to make
it seem like everyone is voting for him
3. Glittering generality: the candidate never really says
what he will do for voters; ex. I will bring peace and
prosperity.
4. Just plain folks: the candidate acts common like the
average voters in an area; ex. Kissing babies, shaking
hands, making connections to local voters My father
was a coal miner.

Negative Propaganda
1. Name calling: candidates call each other bad names;
ex. He is a communist and a Nazi.
2. Baiting: when a candidate attempts to make an
opponent look weak by making them loose their temper
in public
3. Rumor mongering: saying false statements about an
opponent
4. Catch words/phrases: using statements like antiAmerican or He was for the war before he was against
it. to make opponents look bad
5. Passing the blame: blaming all current problems in the
country on the opponent

Campaign Finances
Federal Election Campaign Finance Act (1974): required
public disclosure of each candidates spending, established
federal funding of presidential elections, limited amount that
groups and individuals could give to campaigns
(corporations and labor unions cannot give directly to
campaigns)
Federal Election Commission (FEC): independent agency
that makes all federal election laws and monitors election
spending
2 Types of campaign funding: public & private

Public Funding
Presidential Election Campaign Fund: allows taxpayers to
designate $3 of their annual taxes to the fund by checking a
box on their income tax forms
After the national conventions, 2 presidential candidates receive
equal amounts of money from the fund, but they must agree
not to accept any more third party direct contributions
2004 Bush and Kerry each received $74.6 million
3rd Party candidates can receive funding if their party received
more than 5% of the vote in the previous election (ex. Ross
Perot)

Private Funding
- Most money raised for campaigns is private.
- Private funding comes from citizens, party
organizations, corporations, unions, and interest
groups.
- Fund-raising is supposed to stop after money from the
campaign fund is distributed, but candidates have
sidestepped the FEC Finance Act in two ways: soft
money donations and political action committees
(PACs)

Money and Campaigning

1. Soft Money: contributions given to political parties and

not designated for a candidates election campaign

Money must be used for general purposes, ex. TV
ads
Allows rich people and corporations to give larger
amounts of money
In 2000, more than $200 million raised in soft
money
McCain-Feingold Act (2002) banned soft money,
increased amount individuals can contribute

Money and Campaigning

2. Political Action Committees (PACs): political organizations

established by corporations, labor unions, and other special interest

groups designed to support candidates by raising money
- PACs donate funds to candidates who support their issue,
regardless of party affiliation
- Corporations and unions can give unlimited amounts of money to
PACs
More than 4,700 PACs
PACs contributed over $258 million to congressional candidates
in 2002
Not sufficient data that PACs buy candidates
Ex. Swift boat ads against Kerry