The Political Process

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Running for Office

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Americans elect thousands of officials at all levels of government. The people who run for office vary greatly in terms of ideology, goals, campaign strategies, and outlooks, but all must campaign to win.

Eligibility

All federal offices have eligibility requirements, some more stringent than others. The eligibility requirements for elected federal offices are summarized in the following table.

 

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR FEDERAL OFFICES

Office	Requirements
Representative	At least 25 years old, a citizen for at least 7 years, and a resident of the state he or she represents
Senator	At least 30 years old, a citizen for at least 9 years, and a resident of the state he or she represents
President and Vice President	At least 35 years old, a natural-born citizen, a U.S. resident for at least 14 years

Traits of Office Seekers

Most elected officials are older, white males and usually wealthier than the average citizen. In the last few decades, more women and minorities have taken office at the state and federal levels, but they hold office in disproportionately low numbers. Following the 2002 elections, for example, just sixty-two women served as members of the House. After the 2004 elections, only one African American served in the Senate. The homogeneity of officeholders does not reflect the diversity of the population of the United States.

Professional, Ambitious, and Driven

Most people who run for office are professionals, such as businesspeople, doctors, and, above all, lawyers. Blue-collar workers and manual laborers occasionally run for office, but not in proportion to their numbers. Because they are predominantly professionals, candidates are, on the whole, more educated than the average citizen.

Political Scientist as Politician
Thus far, only one president has had an academic background. Woodrow Wilson held a PhD in political science and both taught at and served as the president of Princeton University before entering politics.

All office seekers, however, are ambitious. Running for office—even a low-level one—is extremely demanding. Only people with a strong commitment to winning will put up with the intense schedule of campaigning. At higher levels, candidates face even more challenges.

Example: Presidential candidates often campaign for eighteen hours a day. But the last few days of a presidential campaign are particularly grueling. Candidates give up sleep to campaign nonstop for the last few days. At the end of the 2000 campaign, Democrat Al Gore campaigned for forty-eight hours straight, attending rallies at all hours of the day. His opponent, Republican George W. Bush, followed a similarly grueling schedule.

Presidential Candidates

The longest, most difficult, most expensive, and most visible campaigns are those for president. The process begins when a candidate chooses to run. Then he or she must win the party nomination, endure the primaries, attend the national convention, and, ultimately, campaign in the general election.

Choosing to Run

Candidates usually spend the two years before the first primary raising money, cultivating support from important party activists, and getting their name known by the public. Many people spend a number of months preparing to run for office only to eventually decide not to run because they cannot generate enough support or they find the process too demanding.

Winning the Nomination

After candidates enter the race, they must fight for the party’s nomination with the other candidates. Before 1972, party leaders chose nominees through negotiation and compromise. Since the early 1970s, the parties have opened up the nomination process to voters through primary elections: The winner of a primary becomes the party’s nominee. In a closed primary, only party members may vote; most states hold this type of primary. In an open primary, all voters, regardless of party, may vote as long as they participate in only one primary.
In the presidential campaign, a candidate must win a majority of convention delegates in order to win the nomination. Each state holds either a primary or caucuses (meetings of party members to select a candidate). Candidates win a number of delegates based on how many popular votes they receive in these primaries; these delegates go to their party’s national convention to vote for the party’s nominee. The candidate with the most delegates wins the nomination. Superdelegates are prominent party members (including elected officials and party organization leaders) who automatically get to vote in the national convention. Winning delegates also helps candidates raise money: The more delegates they win, the more legitimate they appear as contenders. The candidate who appears to have the lead is called the front-runner.

The Big Mo
Momentum—dubbed “the big mo” by President George H. W. Bush—is crucial in the primary campaign. Supporters will often abandon a candidate who appears to be faltering. Momentum seems to have a life of its own: A candidate who has momentum surges forward, even if other candidates have more money or endorsements. Often, a candidate who gets momentum early can run away with the race. In most presidential campaigns, the eventual winner is apparent long before the final primaries.

Front-Loading Primaries

Over the past few election cycles, many states have moved their primaries up to an earlier date, a process called front-loading. Due to front-loading, the nominations are decided early, usually by the end of March, even though the national conventions do not meet until late summer. States do this in order to maximize the impact they have on the nomination. States with primaries toward the end of the campaign have little impact because one candidate has emerged as the clear winner. Front-loading also limits the time in which party members disagree about candidates and potential nominees, allowing the party to unite in preparation for the general election.

Example: In 1988, a group of southern states agreed to hold their primaries on the same day, early in the campaign, in order to increase the chance of nominating a moderate southerner. Since then, many states have held primaries on the same date in March, now known as Super Tuesday, during the election year.

The National Convention

Every four years, the major parties hold massive conventions, whose major purpose is to choose the party’s nominees for president and vice president. Delegates from across the country arrive, meet with party leaders, and vote on a number of matters. The credentials committee established by each party decides which delegates are legitimate and therefore allowed to participate.

Delegate Controversy
Most of the time, certification by the credentials committee is a formality. Every now and then, however, a dispute arises that forces the credentials committee to make unpleasant choices. At the 1964 Democratic convention, for example, two different slates of delegates claimed to represent Mississippi: an all-white group opposed to civil rights and a mixed-race group supporting civil rights. In this case, the credentials committee accepted the pro–civil rights group, but in doing so, they alienated many southern whites.

Parties officially nominate their candidates at national conventions. Delegates chosen in primaries gather together and vote for the party’s nominees; they also approve their party’s platform. In theory, conventions could be bitterly fought affairs, but in practice, the voting is a formality: By that point, the party’s nominee has become clear. Conventions have become highly staged and scripted and serve primarily to rally the party behind the nominees.

The General Election Campaign

The general election commences after the conventions. Candidates from Republican, Democratic, and independent parties vie for votes by giving speeches, shaking hands, holding rallies, proposing policies, courting the media, and debating one another. In modern campaigns, the media relentlessly follows candidates and polls likely voters, so coverage often seems akin to sports reporting on pennant races. Many voters rely heavily on the debates to make their choice.

Debates in the Television Age
Although presidential candidates have debated for a long time, the television age changed the character of debates. In 1960, the debates were broadcast for the first time on television. Many people were drawn to the visual appeal of John F. Kennedy: He appeared attractive, athletic, and confident, while Nixon (who was suffering from the flu) appeared uncertain and unattractive. Many famous moments in recent political history occurred during the debates. In 1980, for example, Republican Ronald Reagan began his attack on Democrat Jimmy Carter by saying, “There you go again,” to thunderous applause. George H. W. Bush, meanwhile, hurt himself in the televised presidential debates when he repeatedly looked at his watch while Bill Clinton was speaking. Even though Bush was merely timing Clinton’s speech, many viewers misinterpreted the action as a reflection of boredom and disinterest, which led to drop in the polls for Bush.

The Electoral College

The Electoral College officially decides the presidential election. Each state has the same number of electoral votes as it has total seats in Congress. In most states, all of the state’s electoral votes are awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in that state, whereas the losing candidates receive none. Presidential candidates, therefore, usually focus their energies on winning the popular vote in the large states that have many electoral votes or in states in which the voters are deeply divided. Republicans stand little chance of winning liberal California and New York, for example, and Democrats are no longer popular in conservative Texas, but both parties have spent millions of dollars on campaigns in recent presidential elections in the populous swing states of Florida and Ohio.

Campaign Finance Reform

Political campaigns, especially presidential ones, cost a lot of money to run. During the 2004 presidential race, for example, both major party candidates spent more than $100 million. Generally, the candidate with the bigger war chest tends to win the race. Campaign finance laws limit the amount of money people and corporations may donate to a campaign, as well as dictate how candidates may spend that money.

Early Attempts at Regulating Campaign Finance

For much of American history, there were no regulations at all on campaign finance: Anyone could give as much as he or she wished, and candidates could spend all they had in any way they saw fit. Two landmark laws in the early twentieth century regulated campaign finance for the first time:

• The corrupt practices acts: This series of laws, starting in 1925, limited expenditures by congressional candidates and controlled corporate contributions to candidates.
• The Hatch Act: Passed in 1939, this act limited the political actions of federal civil servants and restricted contributions by political groups.

The Reforms of the 1970s

The 1970s saw the first significant campaign finance reforms. In 1971, Congress passed the Federal Elections Campaign Act (FECA), which began to substantially regulate campaign contributions. It limited spending on media advertisements, required disclosure of all donations over $100, and restricted the amount of money candidates could donate to their own campaigns.

Watergate and the 1974 Reforms

The Watergate scandal exposed a wide range of illegal activities being performed by the Nixon Administration, among them campaign finance law violations. For example, the Nixon reelection campaign had a large “slush fund” of cash to be used for covert purposes. In response to these revelations, Congress toughened campaign finance regulations by amending FECA and by doing the following:

• Creating the Federal Election Commission, an independent regulatory agency that monitors campaign finance
• Introducing public financing for presidential campaigns (both primary and general election campaigns); candidates who qualify can receive assistance in paying for their campaigns
• Imposing limits on campaign spending by presidential candidates who accept federal funding
• Limiting contributions to campaigns (no person can donate more than $2,000 to a candidate in an election and no more than $25,000 total to all campaigns; political groups were limited to $5,000 per candidate)
• Requiring that campaigns disclose all contributions

In 1976, Congress allowed businesses, unions, and political groups to form political action committees (PACs) in order to give money to candidates. PACs are significant because they allow a variety of organizations to donate money to campaigns. Also, although each person can only donate $5,000 to a PAC, he or she may donate $5,000 to as many PACs as he or she wishes. The PACs can then, in turn, donate the money to the campaigns.

Loopholes in the Reforms

Since the 1970s, campaigners have found a number of ways around the reforms of the 1970s:

• Soft money: The new laws placed few limits on political parties and PACs. Although these groups could not give unlimited contributions to campaigns, they could spend an unlimited amount of money (known as soft money) on such activities as voter education, registration drives, and getting out the vote.

Example: In 2002, several wealthy donors, including Haim Saban, whose $7 million donation was the largest in history, gave money to the Democratic National Committee to build a new headquarters.

• Independent expenditures: In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court ruled that, based on the First Amendment, a candidate may spend his or her own money in whatever way he or she wishes. This means that wealthy candidates may legally donate millions of dollars to their own campaigns. Individuals and groups, for example, can spend as much as they wish on issue advertising. Such ads cannot directly say “vote for X” or “vote against X,” but they can say virtually anything else.

Example: Most issue ads are clearly designed to sway voters. An ad supporting a candidate may say flattering things about the candidate and conclude by saying, “Call X and tell her you appreciate her work.” An attack ad can portray a candidate very negatively and finish by saying, “Call Y and tell him he’s wrong.”

• Bundling: This is the practice of collecting donations from a number of people, then sending them together as a large payment to the candidate. The large donations might make a candidate feel indebted to the people giving the money.

McCain-Feingold Bill

For much of the 1990s, Senators Republican John McCain and Democrat Russ Feingold fought to reform campaign finance laws, aiming at restricting or banning soft money. In 2002, however, the two men finally generated enough support to pass the McCain-Feingold bill, now called the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act. The House passed the bill as the Shays-Meehan Act, and President George W. Bush signed it into law. This act placed more stringent restrictions on campaign finance by doing the following:

• Banning all soft money donations to the national party organizations
• Limiting the time period during which independent groups can run issue ads

The new law did not ban soft money donations to local and state parties, although it did limit the amount of such donations. It also increased the amount of money an individual could donate to $4,000 and upped the limit on donations to all campaigns to $95,000 in each two-year election cycle. Many political scientists think that the bill might ultimately weaken political parties and strengthen independent groups, which can still raise and spend large amounts of money.