Chapter 9 AP GOV vocab

The official endorsement of a candidate for office by a political party

nomination

The master game plan candidates lay out to guide their electoral campaigns

Campaign strategy

The supreme power within each of the parties. The convention meets every four years to nominate the party’s presidential and vice president candidates and the write the party’s platform

National Party convention

A commission formed at the 1968 Democratic convention in response to demands for reform by minority groups and others who sought better representation

McGovern-Fraser Commission

National party leaders who automatically get a delegate slot at the democratic party’s national convention

Superdelegates

The period before any votes are cast when candidates compete to win early support form the elite of the party and to create a positive first impression of their leadership skills

Invisible primary

A system for selecting convention delegates used in about a dozen states in which voters must attend an open meeting to express their presidential preference

Caucus

Elections in which a state’s voters to go the polls to express their prefernces for a party’s nominees for president

Presidential Primaries

The recent tendency of states to hold primaries early in the calendar in order to capitalize on media attention

Frontloading

A political party’s statement of its goals and policies for the next four years. the platform is drafted prior to the party convention by a commitee whose members are chosen in rough proportion to each candidates strength. It is the best formal statement of a party’s beliefs

Party Platform

A method of raising money for a political cause or candidate, in which information and requests for money are sent to people whose names appear on lists of those who have supported similar views or candidates in the past

Direct mail

Donations that are made directly to a candidate or a party and that must be reported to the FEC.

Campaign Contributions

Expenses on behalf of a political message that are made by groups that are uncoordinated with any candidates campaign

Independent expenditures

A law passed in 1974 for reforming campaign finances. The act created the federal election commission and provided for limits on a disclosure of campaign contributions

Federal Election Campaign Act

A six-member bipartisan agency created by the federal election campaign act of 1974. The federal election commission administrators and enforces campaign finance laws

Federal Election commission

Political contributions earmarked for party-building expenses at the grassroot level or for generic party advertising. for a time, such contributions were unlimited, until they were banned by the McCain-Feingold Act

Soft money

Independent political group that are not subject to contribution restrictions because they do not directly seeks the election of particular candidates.

527 groups

A 2010 landmark supreme court case that ruled that individuals, corporations, and unions could donate unlimited amounts of money to groups that make independent political expenditures

Citizen United v. Federal Election commission

Groups that are exempted from reporting their contributions and can receive unlimited contributions.

501 Groups

Independent expenditure-only PACs that may accept donations of any size and can endorse candidates. Their contributions and expenditures must be periodically reported to the FEC

Super PACs

The phenomenon that people’s beliefs often guide what they pay the most attention to and how they interpret events

Selective perception

The legal right to vote in the united states, gradually extended to virtually all citizens over the age of 18

Suffrage

The belife that one’s political participation really matters- that one’s vote can actually make a difference

Political efficacy

The belief that in order to support democratic government, a citizen should vote

Civic duty

A system adopted by the states that requires voters to register prior to voting. Some states require citizens to register as much as 30 days in advance whereas other permit election day registration

Voter registration

A 1993 act that requires states to permit people to register to vote when they apply for a drivers license

Motor voter Act

The idea that the winning candidates has mandate from the people to carry out his or her platforms and politics.

Mandate theory of elections

Electoral chocies that are made on the basis of the voters policy preferences and where the candidates stand on policy issues

Policy voting

The key states that the presidential campaigns focus on because they are most likely to decide the outcome of the electoral collage vote

Battleground states