|
Narrative
|
The Executive BranchThe executive branch of government consists of the president, vice president, and the Cabinet. Unlike in many other nations, the US president is both head of state and head of government. His principal powers are to sign or veto bills approved by Congress and to appoint Cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, Supreme Court judges and other federal judges (all with Senate approval), sign treaties subject to Congressional approval and issue pardons, which are not subject to anyone's approval. Additionally, the president is also the commander-in-chief of the military and is the highest-ranking individual in the chain of command, though he is not himself considered part of the military. Lastly, the president may issue "executive orders" - directives to the Cabinet instructing them on the enforcement of laws passed by the Congress. These are essentially laws, which have to fall under the domain of pre-existing laws while claiming to clarify law. Most modern executive orders actually cite the original legislature that they work on. These orders only have to be followed while the president that made it is still in office. Most executive orders are kept running by the next President in line. Presidents protect the prerogatives of the office. Go figure. All that gets summed up under the amorphous heading of "leadership", with all the free credit and lightning-rod for dissatisfaction that entails. You don't have to be crazy to run for President. That benefit will be provided by the Office at some point (if the campaign didn't already). The vice president, in contrast, has little authority and more often functions as a government spokesman. John Adams, the very first vice president, described his office as "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." The vice president is described as chairman of the Senate, though he often defers this job to a senior senator called the President Pro Tempore (and even that guy rarely actually presides), and can not speak or vote in the Senate except in the case of a tie. If the president dies, resigns, or is otherwise rendered incapable of discharging his duties, the vice president is the first in succession. At several points in American history the vice president has been, in effect, the Highest Elected Patsy, and "taken the fall" for the administration. A presidential term lasts four years, and an individual President is limited to two terms in office, originally as a tradition until it was codified in the Constitution through the 22nd amendment in 1951 after Franklin Roosevelt stayed in office for four terms, leaving only due to a case of Critical Existence Failure. Presidential elections are held every four years, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Historically, the president is a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, though not always—JFK was Catholic, which was a big deal, and current president Barack Obama has an African father, which was an even bigger deal. Historically, the President has also always been male, though fiction has delighted in depicting female presidents and the option is considered more-or-less inevitable by now (Hillary Clinton contested Obama for the Democratic nomination). Both these generalizations apply equally well to the vice president (twice a woman has actually won a major party's nomination for veep). Article 2, clause 5 of the Constitution doesn't really go into race or gender, but does have some qualifications:
Presidential SuccessionThe president and vice-president positions were pretty well set up after 1800 as to who got them, and what they did. This lasted until 1841, when William Henry Harrison became the first man to die in office. The exact text of the Constitution said that should something happen to the President making him unable to actually use the President's powers (dead, incapacitated, thrown out), 'the Same shall devolve on the Vice President'. Note that it doesn't explicitly say that the veep became President. This caused a huge stir, which was settled when Harrison's vice president, John Tyler, just took the damn oath and did it anyway. This was finally patched by the 25th Amendment in 1967. This of course leaves a hole in the Vice Presidency; up until the 25th Amendment came around, it was just left empty. That amendment lets the sitting president just name his new vice president, with Congress's approval. This led to the only man who was never got even one electoral vote ascending. In 1973, Spiro Agnew resigned from the vice presidency, and was replaced by Gerald Ford. The guy who was president? Richard Nixon. Guess what happenned the next year. The 25th Amendment also allows a President to temporarily relinquish the office due to incapacitation. This has happenned a few times, when a sitting president goes in for surgery for example. The amendment does allow the VP and a majority of the Cabinet to make this declaration for the President; see Air Force One for an example. The Constitution itself lets Congress decide what happens if both POTUS and VPOTUS ((Vice) President of the United States) are gone. Currently, this falls under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. It goes from President, to Vice President, to Speaker of the House, to President pro tempore of the Senate, to the Cabinet members in order of the Cabinet post's longevity. Since the US hasn't gone past 'vice president' yet on the list, the fact that it ends at the Cabinet hasn't been tested. What does worry some people are what seem to be paradoxes—say, if the top 4 were removed, and the Secretary of State moves up, but the House chooses a new speaker, or if a member of the House really should be part of the line in the first place. This is, naturally, a rich source of drama.The Electoral CollegeThe president and vice president are not elected directly by the people, but rather by a group called the Electoral College, an office created by the Founding Fathers to preserve the power of the smaller states in the voting process. They also were not happy about the idea of the "mob" directly electing the president, so they had the state legislatures of each state choose the electors. It is only since the 20th Century that all states allow the common people to choose the electors. Each state boasts a number of electors equal to its Congressional representation: two senators plus however many representatives. When the College meets, about one month after the actual election, each state's electors vote for the presidential candidates; each state is allowed to set their own laws for how the electors vote, but in recent years all states have granted all their votes to whomever received the majority of popular votes in their state. Whichever presidential slate receives 50% + 1 of the electoral votes (that is to say, 270) is elected. In the rare event that no candidate receives the needed number of electoral votes, the House of Representatives votes in the new president. To date, the House of Representatives has chosen the President on only two occasions: in 1801 and in 1825. To date, the Senate has chosen the Vice President only once, in 1837. Originally the vice president was the runner-up in the presidential election (and the electoral college voted for two men on each ballot), but after a disastrous 1800 election, the 12th amendment changed it so that presidential and vice-presidential candidates run on a single "ticket"; a vote for one is a vote for both. On those occasions when a loser of the popular election gains office through this process - thankfully a rare occasion, but the most recent case was in 2000 - many Americans become confused and outraged. Newspapers and TV news are required to run articles explaining this all again for about two weeks, at which point it is promptly forgotten by Americans who have since moved on to something else outrageously confusing, like why all the rich celebrities are ending up in rehab all the time. In fact, because of the number of electors being equivalent roughly to population density, all one has to do is be elected president is to win the 11 states that have the most delegates (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Texas and California), and they will win the election even if their opponent wins all of the delegates of all the other 39 states and the District of Columbia. In the course of these campaigns, presidential hopefuls spend millions upon millions of dollars on advertising, travel, staff, and various other campaign expenses, all for a job which pays a mere 400,000 dollars per year over four years. (The President does get some benefits after leaving office though.) And yet, the winner is largely in charge of how the American government spends its revenue. The irony of this is not lost on the American people.The CabinetThe cabinet currently consists of 15 departments - State, the Treasury, Defense (formerly War), Justice, the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs (there are a lot of US military veterans) and Homeland Security. Each department is headed by an officer called a Secretary (except for the Department of Justice, whose head is called the Attorney General, though the AG functions as a Secretary), who is appointed by the president at the beginning of each new term, subject to Senate approval. The average American has heard of maybe two of these guys, usually taken from the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Defense, and the AG. The powers of the Cabinet are not expressly delineated in the Constitution and have changed often throughout US history. Unlike many other countries, the Interior Department is not in charge of police or security (on the federal level, that goes to the FBI, one of the "agencies" mentioned below), but with federal lands and resources. The Cabinet Secretaries are in the Presidential line of succession, in the order listed above, though they're preceded by the Vice President and the two leaders of the legislative chambers (the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore.) Oh, and you still have to qualify under the Article 2, clause 5 bit; during the Clinton presidency, foreign-born Madeline Albright, despite being Secretary of State, would have been skipped were succession to go that far. Beneath the cabinet are various government agencies: the Federal Aviation Administration, for example, reports to the Secretary of Transportation. Some agencies may be (or were) in counter-intuitive departments. The Secret Service (originally founded to combat counterfeiting) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reported to the Treasury Secretary before the Department of Homeland Security was created. There are also a number of "independent agencies", like the Federal Communications Commission, that don't report to any of the above, in order to make organization charts that much more confusing. In aggregate, this is commonly referred to as the Bureaucracy: the number two government source of fear, after the Internal Revenue Service, which reports to Congress (see below), which means that whatever the IRS does has no single master. You can sue City Hall. Any suit against the IRS will not be decided in your lifetime.The Legislative BranchJohn Adams: "I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two become a law firm, and that any group of three or more is called a Congress!"
1776, paraphrased from the historical Adams' writings
The legislative branch of government consists of a Congress made up of two houses - the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The House of Representatives has 435 members apportioned among the states based on their population. States with a population smaller than 1/435th of the total population (approximately 693,000 at present) receive one representative, while larger states receive a larger share. Apportionment is recalculated every ten years, after each national census. Each state is free to determine how congressional districts (similar to Parliamentary constituencies in the UK) are drawn up, with the proviso that each district must be roughly equal in population.
This can (and frequently does) lead to a practice called "gerrymandering" where the party in charge draws up ridiculously-shaped districts so as to secure as many safe districts for themselves while splitting up the other party's strongholds across multiple districts. Gerrymandering is legal, believe it or not; both parties squawk about reform, but neither is willing to be the first one to give up its precious safe seats. The name, incidentally, goes right back to the beginnings of the Republic, first appearing around 1812 and taking its name from Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry. The practice might have started even earlier.
Representatives are elected every two years and there is no limit on the number of terms one may serve.
While the House of Representatives is generally referred to as the "junior" house, this has little practical meaning, as bills can originate in either house, with the exception that bills for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives. The House also reserves the power to impeach the president or other federal officers upon a simple majority vote, whereupon a trial is carried out in the Senate. The House is chaired by an officer called the Speaker, who is generally a senior representative from the majority party in the House. (Like the president pro tempore, the Speaker rarely actually presides and typically delegates that duty to a rotating roster of Senators, usually from the majority party.)
The Senate consists of two Senators from each state. Originally, Senators were appointed by the state legislatures, but after the passage of the 17th amendment in 1916 they became publicly elected officers. Senators serve a term of six years and have no limit on the number of terms they can serve. The Senate is described as the senior house of Congress, and reserves the power to confirm presidential appointees, ratify treaties, and conduct the trial of an impeached president or other officer, whereupon the accused may be removed from office by a two-thirds majority. Only two presidents have ever been impeached - Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton - and both escaped conviction. Richard Nixon would have been impeached, but resigned first. The Senate is chaired either by the vice president or by the president pro tempore, traditionally the most senior senator of the majority party.
In order for a bill to become law, it must pass by a simple majority in both houses and receive the president's signature. The president has the power to "veto" a bill, though Congress may override his veto with a two-thirds majority. Overridden vetoes are somewhat rare, and were virtually nonexistent for the first 90 years of the nation's history. The Senate is considered the more 'deliberative' of the two houses, especially in that its rules place no time limit on how long debate can go on for before a vote is held on a bill. A senator determined to block the passage of a bill can 'filibuster' its vote by lodging endless procedural motions to delay, or simply getting up and talking for hours and hours until the bill's proponents get tired and go home. The record for a speech on the Senate floor is 25 hours. Indeed, it takes more votes to end debate and bring a bill to a final vote - three-fifths of the Senate - than it does to actually pass the bill once it comes to a vote. Scrapping the filibuster - the so-called "nuclear option" - has been considered by various blocs over the years, most recently the Republicans in 2005, but the general feeling has been that for a majority party to do so would weaken their position when and if they become the minority party.
Because Senators are elected by the entire population of each state, serve longer than Representatives, and number the same from each state regardless of the size of the state's population, the Senate also tends to be more conservative and less radical than the House - in other words, less subject to the changing whims of the people (hence why the Founders originally made them elected by the legislatures).
Congress can also propose amendments to the Constitution, which must receive two-thirds majority in both houses and must then be approved by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. There is no limitation on the scope of what an amendment may do, except that no state's Senate representation may be reduced without its consent. Unless explicitly stated in the text of the bill proposing it, there is no time limit on ratification; the proposal that eventually became the 27th amendment, for example, was first proposed shortly after the Constitutional Convention in 1789, and was fully ratified and enrolled in the Constitution two centuries later in 1992. The states also have the power to bypass Congress, and by the request of two-thirds of the state governments may call a Constitutional convention for proposing amendments, which upon approval by the convention must then be ratified in the normal fashion.
Yes, the representation that Americans fought for in the Revolution is this. Essentially two committees, one with 435 members and one with 100. Pretty clever way to keep government busy in such a way that it can't get too uppity.
The Judicial BranchThe judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court and the lesser Courts of Appeals established under it. The Supreme Court consists of a number of judges, called justices, who are appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation, and who serve for life. The number of justices is not set by the Constitution, but is set by the Legislative Branch. For quite awhile now the number has been nine. The Supreme Court is the highest body of appeal in US law, and is charged with the task of reviewing cases where the constitutionality of a law or governmental act is in question. If a law is deemed "unconstitutional" - that is, contradictory to the letter or spirit of the Constitution - the Court has the power to declare it null and void by a majority vote of justices. The Court also has the power to settle disputes between the states themselves, but this power rarely has a chance to exercise itself. The Court is led by the Chief Justice (currently John Roberts), a position that has the duties of chairing any meeting of the Court for both selection of cases to review and ruling on said cases. However, he or she does not have more power in any actual vote. The Chief Justice also has the Constitutional duty of presiding over any impeachments of the President or Vice President (but not other officers), and traditionally administers the Oath of Office to new presidents and Supreme Court Justices (including his or her successor) unless unavailable. The Chief Justice is also administrator of the Federal Court system, making his position the technical equivalent of a cabinet secretary. In short, this committee tries to make sense of the output of the other two committees. They have a tougher rule to follow, in that they cannot "tie" on an issue, no matter how much they try to (the 5-4 Court vote is one of the most dreaded things in American politics). Since a justice might be absent from a case due to illness or he "recuses" (removes) himself because of a conflict of interest (it is up to the justice themselves to decide if they wish to recuse themselves) it is possible to have a 4-4 tie. Since almost every case before the court is an appeal, in the case of a tie, the decision of the court below the Supreme Court is upheld. On the plus side (for them), legally the only person that can overrule the Court decision is a later Court Decision or Constitutional Amendment. Given that the Supreme Court claims to follow a policy of stare decisis, or sticking with old decisions whenever possible, and amending the Constitution is difficult, this is typically rare (Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, which outlawed segregation, was one such case). However, in practice, Courts of Appeals can twist decisions to mean nearly anything. The "interstate commerce" clause of the Constitution is particularly abused in this regard. Still with us? This is the committee that is meant to simple things up. The Supreme Court is theoretically an apolitical body, though more often than not presidents will appoint a judge whose political opinions agree with their own. Of course, it's hard to tell how a justice will rule once he's on the bench - David Souter, a justice appointed by George Bush Sr., is commonly considered one of the more liberal-minded justices. At present, seven of the nine justices on the bench were appointed by Republican presidents. Of the nine, four are typically considered "conservative", two "liberal", and three "right-leaning moderate". The fact that Justices serve for life means that they, unlike Congress and the President, are free to issue rulings purely based on their own judgement and conscience, without worrying about the whims of public opinion, party support, or reelection. Supreme Court justices theoretically can be impeached, however, this has only occurred once, and the justice in question was aquitted.The StatesThere are, at present, 50 states in the Union. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia are called Commonwealths in their full names, but there is no distinction between them and states. There is also the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which are possessions of the United States, and not states at all. Clear as mud so far? Good, because it gets more interesting as we go along. Each state is required by the Constitution to guarantee its citizens a "republican form of government". For the most part, state governments are identical in their structure and function to the federal government, but on a smaller scale. Nebraska has a single-house legislature; the other 49 mimic the Federal Government, although some states have a Senate and an Assembly instead of a House of Representatives (and due to unique circumstances of history, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland each have a House of Delegates). The chief executive of a state is called a governor; his/her deputy, who may or may not be elected on the same ticket, is called a lieutenant governor. Not, however, in the case of Arizona, Wyoming, and Oregon, which have no lieutenant governor. There, when the Governor has either resigned or been impeached, the elected official who is technically the chief clerk of the state, the Secretary of State, becomes governor. Nearly all 50 states have an elected chief clerk who is called the Secretary of that state, who, because that is an elected official, is not considered a cabinet secretary in the same way as the other cabinet departments of the Governor's Cabinet. As noted above, in most states, the Secretary of State of that state is the third in line to become Governor after the Lieutenant Governor. Note that while each state has a Secretary of State, this should not be confused with the head of the U.S. State Department, who is also called the Secretary of State. The one who runs the State Department in Washington (in the area of D.C. called Foggy Bottom) deals with the relationships between the United States and other countries, while each state's Secretary of State deals with the operations of that particular state. Nice and confusing, isn't it? New states may be admitted to the Union upon Congressional approval. States may not raise their own armies, sign treaties (but with permission of Congress they may enter into a Compact with other states), or coin money on their own, and when a conflict between state and federal law arises, federal law wins out. Conversely, federal laws have little impact on the lives of most Americans except in the broadest terms, with most everyday legal and criminal issues being decided and enforced on the state level. However, when a Federal court has to decide an issue regarding state matters, it must use state law to decide the issue. This is why most large corporations are chartered in Delaware or Nevada, because the rules of the state law where the corporation is chartered determines how it is to be governed. One major difference between the states and the federal governments is that states hold a lot more elections. A state need not limit its elections to the legislature and the governor, as the federal government does; they can also hold elections for secretary of state, attorney general, comptroller, state supreme court judges, judges of lower courts, district attorneys, sheriffs, and/or dog catchers. Much of this will be specified in the state constitution, which is generally amended by popular vote as well. Many states also have a procedure where an elected official may be removed (recalled) from office in a special election if a sufficient number of petitions are gathered. A recent example of this occured in 2003, when California governor Gray Davis was successfully recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger in a special election that included 135 candidates for the office. All this voting theoretically makes state governments more accountable to the people. In practice, this doesn't quite work. Which is why in some states you have Initiative and Referrendum, where, if the legislature doesn't pass an acceptable law, the people can propose one (meaning some well funded group or bunch of people ticked off enough send out people to collect signatures to have a ballot proposal put up for election). This is how the famous Proposition 13 slashed property taxes in California. It's also how a major manufacturer of gambling equipment and supplies was able to get a state lottery created there as well. As these referenda are often written by non-politicians, or people with little formal legal training, they may ultimately prove to be of dubious constitutionality when enacted into law, and parts or all of them are often struck down by the courts after their passage. Proposition 187, a 1994 initiative in California that sought to deny certain entitlements and legal protections to illegal immigrants, was eventually struck down by the courts, and the recently-passed Proposition 8 (which reversed the state Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage) may be headed to a similar fate.Local GovernmentThe Constitution says nothing about government below the state level, so states are free to set up whatever structure they'd like. There's a lot of variation from state to state here (Connecticut has no county governments, while Hawaii has no municipal governments), so this is just a general overview. 48 of the 50 states are divided into counties. (The exceptions: Louisiana is divided into "parishes", which are identical to counties in all but name. Alaska is divided into "boroughs", which actually are a bit different from counties, but not enough to matter for our purposes.) County governments are usually headed by a "Board of Supervisors" or "Board of Commissioners" or the like, and may have a "County Executive" overseeing the executive departments. Size doesn't matter, nor does population. The least populous county is in the largest state, Loving County, Texas, and at last count, had 69 people. Number doesn't matter; Texas has 250 counties, Delaware has 3. Some states have laws that set minimum sizes on counties, or prohibit adding more counties. The smallest county is Arlington County, Virginia at 26 square miles. The largest (aside from the Alaskan boroughs) is California's San Bernadino County, which is bigger than each of the nine smallest states. For an example of comparisons, this troper on his blog gave an example of how - for the purpose of allocating resources for fighting potential terrorist attacks - the states of Iowa (56 thousand square miles/2.9 million people), Kansas (82/2.6), Oklahoma (69/3.5) Nebraska (77/1.7), Minnesota (87/4.9), and Colorado (104/4.3) as a region have over 476,000 square miles and 19.9 million people. But this entire region obviously deserves considerably less attention and less resources than New York City, which has 468 square miles and 18.8 million people, even though New York has 1/1000 of the area and fewer people. Municipal government can take various forms; depending on the state, municipalities can be called "cities", "towns", "villages", "townships", "boroughs", or something else, which may or may not have different meanings or governmental structures. A 'town' is usually the smallest type of government, but there can be towns that have more population than some cities. Larger cities usually have their executive power vested in an elected mayor, with the city council (also elected) having legislative power over local ordinances. Smaller cities and towns tend to use a "city manager" system, in which the city council appoints a professional city manager to run the executive departments, and the office of mayor is either nonexistent, ceremonial, or a glorified City Councillor. The services provided by counties and cities overlap a lot (the police/sheriff's department, fire department, transportation, parks, etc.) and the precise arrangement varies from state to state, and sometimes within states as well. If there are any areas outside municipal governments, the county will provide all services there. (In some states, mostly in the Northeast, cities and towns cover the entire state; this is how Connecticut gets away with not having any counties at all.) Cities can be combined with a county (Like Denver and San Francisco), cross county lines (like Dallas, in five different counties), exist outside any county (like Baltimore, St. Louis, and all 'cities' in Virginia), or take up entire counties and merge with the county governments (New York City's five boroughs are five separate counties, none of which has an independent government). In rare cases you might get a city that crosses a state line (Kansas City Missouri/Kansas). There are also elected school boards that operate local schools independent of any government in much of the country, as well as special districts or government corporations providing services, but describing all of them would make this article even more complicated than it is. In short, then, the membership of all the elected committees in American government — federal, state, county, and municipal — is north of 60,000. In a country where getting five friends to agree on where to have dinner can result in fist-fights.Additionally ...Separate from the states are several US territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands, that are also under American sovereignty. Thirty one states were territories (or part of a territory) at one point, but these in particular have for various reasons never received statehood — Puerto Rico in particular has had several elections on the matter, all of which have been voted down by its citizens. Their citizens also receive United States citizenship, meaning that if they choose to "emigrate" to any of the states, they have no legal problems. Unlike states, territories do not have representation in Congress; however, they also do not have to pay federal taxes, so many would argue they got the better deal. This is part of the reason that Americans are bewildered when non-Americans have opinions about all Americans. On any apartment corridor in the States you can have, per door, a different language, philosophy, level of education, financial condition ... How in the Nine Circles does anyone generalize from that?Political PartiesThe Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution with the intent of creating a state free from the influence of political parties. In this they failed, as parties began forming while the ink was still wet on the parchment, arguing over whether the federal government or individual states should have the greater power. Though parties have less official influence than they do in most countries, they still hold an immense amount of sway in the government, largely due to the funding they can collect for candidates who agree with their policies. There are two major parties in the US today. The general feeling among Americans about these parties is that one of them is evil, and the other is incompetent. Which is which depends on who you ask. Neither party is as heavily united ideologically as parties in other countries, although a great deal of common ground exists, and officials known as "party whips" are employed to keep each party's representatives in line.
 that plurality elections tend to lead to two-party systems, which is exactly what happened in America.
Going into the new Congress (2009-2010 session), both houses of Congress have a Democratic majority. As the executive and legislative branches are distinct in the US government, it is possible for one or both houses of Congress to be controlled by the opposite party than the president, and indeed this is more often than not the case — Democrat Bill Clinton had a Republican congress for six years of his presidency, and George W. Bush worked with a Democratic Congress for the final two years of his term. While such differences can often lead to a political stalemate — a budgetary standoff between Clinton and Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich lead to a federal government shutdown in 1995 — more often than not, compromise rules the day.
The Constitution makes no mention of political parties anywhere in the document. However, various laws have been passed (especially during the 20th century) that have given them official powers. Many of them are designed to make it very hard for a third party to acquire any real influence. Political parties are considered "private" organizations who just happen to be given government power in a number of ways. Since they are not "officially" part of the government, they are not required to adhere to the general principles of "the will of the people" or such. Understanding this will help in the next chapter on Primaries.
PrimariesEvery election for an office more important than dog catcher for Tinyville will involve two major candidates, one Republican and one Democrat. How each party picks their candidate is totally up to them. Every state has laws which regulate this practice but each law is written by the parties, so they can choose whatever they want. To use a current example, the Democratic party recently had a primary election to decide if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be their candidate for president. One might think that the party would simply have all members vote for who they want and which ever one gets the most votes would win. This is not how it works. The leaders of the Democratic party, who are not elected, can choose any method they want to decide who their candidate is. The current method involves having the vote of the members choose most of the "delegates" (who themselves are chosen by the party), while the remaining delegates are high ranking party members. Depending on state law and state party rules, the delegates who were voted for might or might not be required to support the candidate they were elected to. Just to mention, the Republican party rules are pretty much the same as far as this goes. Except they make far less use of caucuses and allocate delegates by winner-takes-all for a state, not proportionally to popular vote. As a general rule, winning a primary requires Pandering To The Base, while winning a general election requires appealing to centrist "swing voters". Expect accusations of "flip-flopping", particularly from an incumbent opponent who has the luxury of sitting out the primary (it's considered a Very Bad Sign of a politician's career if he faces a primary challenge as an incumbent). |
This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.