POLS 1101 UGA Glas Exam 3 Study Guide

Basic constitutional guarantees in the United States allows citizens to express their views freely and compel government leaders to take the public's opinions into account if they want to keep their jobs. The constitutional guarantees make it possible and essential for political leaders and policy advocates to try to shape and mobilize public opinion on behalf of their causes. Public opinion is so multi-dimensional because of the multitude of expressions by people.

How is public opinion multi-dimensional?

The media is the primary source of information about the government for the public. The media often pulls the 'fire alarm' to alert the public and keep them informed about what is happening in the government.

Explain the relationship between the media, the public, and the government

Political parties influence government by coordinating the group activities necessary to translate public preferences into public policy. They recruit and train leaders, foster political participation, teach new citizens democratic habits and practices, and knit citizens and leaders together in electoral and policy coalitions and allow citizens to hold their elected agents collectively responsible for what the government does.

Identify and define what a political party is and how they influence government

Lobbyists are professionals who work to influence public policy in favor of their clients' interests. Lobbying is activities through which individuals, interest groups, and other institutions seek to influence public policy by persuading government officials to support their groups' position.

What exactly is a lobbyist and what is lobbying?

Political participation is activities of citizens that attempt to influence the structure of government, the selection of government officials, or the policies of the government. There are two kinds: conventional (voting, volunteering on campaigns, giving money to candidates) and unconventional (protesting, striking, demonstrations).

Define political participation and give examples of different ways in which people can participate in the democratic process

Political socialization, political cognition, and political knowledge influence what people believe is the most important in the aspect of public opinion.

How do people weigh different dimensions of public opinion differently, based on their own values?

Democratic and Republican

Which parties are dominant in the US?

Voting, volunteering, and giving money are the most common forms of political participation because they are the easiest and don't pose a high cost (opportunity or monetary) on participants. Most people participate in these ways also because not many are particularly mobilized by any candidate/party to participate any further.

What kinds of political participation are the most common and why?

A political party is a group with common beliefs/goals that organize to win elections, operate the government, and make public policy. An interest group is a group of people who share common policy interests who interact with governing branches to persuade government actors to find legislation in their favor

What is/are the primary differences between political parties and interest groups?

News media links the public and the government. They report on the events happening in government and can easily influence what viewers think about what's happening in government, encouraging them to hold elected officeholders accountable.

Explain the role that media plays in informing the public about politics and government

Political participation allows voters to hold those in office accountable for their actions. Voters influence decisions impacting the public by deciding who stays in office and who leaves office. By voting, citizens maintain democratic accountability and can elect their preferred candidate

Why does political participation matter? Identify the key role that individuals play in the government.

The Democratic party is the oldest political party in the US, drawing its roots back to Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans, formed to oppose the Federalists. The Democratic party was solidified by Andrew Jackson's era as president. The Republican party emerged in 1854 as an antislavery coalition, drawing members and leaders from different failing parties. Strangely, the Republican party was triumphant in challenging the two-party system, electing their first president, Abraham Lincoln.

What are the origins of our current parties?

In the digital age, consumers expect a nonstop (24-hour) news cycle, forcing news outlets to want to be the first to report on breaking news. However, this speed often ends up causing them to run headlines that have incorrect facts or are entirely wrong. Editors package the news in more sensational ways with bigger, bolder, and more salacious headlines. Political bias comes out in the selection of which news is reported on and how it is reported on.

How do market forces shape the frequency, tone, and reliability of news in the digital age?

Inattentive publics often free ride off the efforts of interest groups, benefitting from the policy that the groups push to produce without having contributing to any of it (monetary or time-wise). There is a strong incentive to free ride and rely on the groups to provide benefits, because if there's a policy change, it applies to everyone, even if only a certain few spent their time/money/resources to make the change.

Explain the free rider problem interest groups face?

With contributions from members, interest groups can advocate for the members' best interests through policy that protects them or proliferates their interests. For example, people in certain industries pay dues for union workers to advocate for better wages, benefits, and regulations for their members. Private interest groups are mostly unions that represent workers and laborers.

What kinds of incentives to interest groups provide supporters, and prospective supporters, for their contribution to the group or participation in its efforts?

Those that: have higher levels of education and income, have the ability to take time out of their day, are older, have higher internal efficacy, and have stronger partisan views and electoral preferences are most likely to vote. People participate when they believe all the costs involved in the process are worth the potential benefit of seeing their candidate of choice elected to office. Voting is rational for the individuals who derive personal satisfaction from going to the polls. Expressing themselves through voting outweighs the typically modest cost of voting.

When are people most likely to vote or participate in politics? Why?

The Founding Fathers believed that there should be as many parties as there are interests in the United States. Realignment occurs frequently, but it's not predictable. Slavery was the main defining factor of political parties, and the parties fed the American people that issue, until the 1890s when it was abolished and they had to think of something else to supply American people with political issues. During the Progressive Era, people start identifying with a party based on ethnicity, race, religion, and other personal factors. Certain parties attracted certain types of groups (Republicans were pro-immigration, white-collar, big business people while Democrats were anti-immigration, blue-collar, working-class people). Social groups became the basis of party alignment. During the Great Depression, African Americans (who previously supported Republicans, the party of Lincoln) began to support FDR and the Democratic

How and why have parties in the US changed over time?

People often let their political identities (attitudes, perceptions, and viewpoints about government and politics) cloud their ability to think logically. Other things that affect public opinion include: political culture and socialization, limited political education, and how views are shaped by the government, and mass media

What factors influence public opinion? How does partisanship cloud people's ability to process political information logically?

Mass communication is easier and cheaper because of the Internet. As more people read newspapers on the internet, the need for physical newspapers has declined steadily. The Internet has promoted a nonstop, 24-hour news cycle. On the Internet, stories are packaged in a way to appear more sensationalized to grab readers' attention.

Legacy media is "old media"--print, radio broadcasting, and television. Digital-only media is digitized content that can be transmitted over the internet or computer networks. Social media is networks that link people and allow the exchange of personal/professional information and common interests.

How has the internet changed the production of news? What is the difference between legacy media, digital-only media, and social media?

Political socialization, the transmission of values, social networks, and environmental factors. Experience also shapes political values.

How are political values shaped?

Advantages: The two-party system makes voting easier, running for office easier, creates a more effective government, and groups together common positions that are easy for the general public to understand and assign a mental shortcut to understanding.

Disadvantages: The two-party system oversimplifies politics, prevents third parties from being represented, limits debate, and leads to partisanship. It also prevents people who do not greatly align with D or R to be represented, as their candidates never win or they don't have enough faith in them to win so they strategically vote another way.

Explain the advantages and disadvantages of a two-party system

People that: see voting as a civic duty, have higher internal efficacy, live in areas with active campaigns, have lower legal barriers to registration, have deeper roots in their communities. Political party identification is the number one predictor of how someone will vote. Demographics are also a good indicator of how they will vote (age, race, etc). A voters' parents political affiliation is a large indicator what party they will vote for in an election. Affiliation in previous elections is another large indicator of how someone will vote--it is unlikely they will change parties between elections.

Identify other factors that affect the likelihood of voting and for whom someone will vote.

Lobbyists focus politicians on what the well-funded people are asking for from their government.

What sorts of benefits do politicians receive from lobbyists?

Newspapers no longer relied on the money supplied by political parties with the emergence of newspaper chains. They were incredibly lucrative and thus did not require the money to keep them in business, therefore they did not have a party loyalty. Newspaper publishers discovered that this freedom from party control enabled them to influence public opinion and, in turn, national politics. Because of this, politicians frequently found themselves bowing to powerful editors and publishers. The rise of radio, then television, then the Internet has caused severe decline for the newspaper business over the years. With the loss of the monopoly on news, large publishers disappeared from the political landscape

How did the rise of newspaper chains affect the political influence of the press? What ultimately eroded the political power of these chains? How and why has the influence of newspapers continued to decline today?

The power and resources possessed by lobbyists tend to reflect the power that the groups they represent have in society. The power of interest groups makes the public believe that "special interests" are winning above the "public interest". Many citizens believed that the powerful interest groups and lobbyists could "buy" public policy for their benefit.

If interest groups are so beneficial, why do citizens view them with such suspicion?

Third parties highlight issues that are otherwise ignored by the large parties. Any idea promoted by a third party that proves to be popular will often be adopted by one of the established parties hoping to gain their vote. Many third parties tend to be single-issue parties. Third parties are frequently denied office in the winner-takes-all electoral system. Third parties can't win in the majoritarian, 2-party system of the United States because the 2 main candidates constantly fight over the middle-of-the-road voter (most voters align with this ideal), leaving the third parties nowhere to align themselves on the spectrum.

How and why do third parties function in political systems, such as the one we have in the US? Why do minor parties gain representation in most other countries, but not in the US?

Politicians have trouble getting their message to voters because they attract too little news coverage and direct communication is far too expensive. So, politicians want to generate favorable coverage. They often show up at the sites of disasters

How and why do political figures seek to manipulate the news? What strategies do they use to generate beneficial coverage?

Voter turnout dropped to a low in the 90's-early 2000s but is on the rise again. Starting in the late '90s, institutional efforts were made to ease registration with the hopes of increasing turnout in elections. Poor, uneducated, young, and nonwhite people do not vote as frequently as wealthy, higher-educated, older white people. People with a higher income, higher education, experience, free time, and self-confidence in politics are more likely to vote.

What trends do we observe concerning voter turnout? Is it on the rise? In decline? Something in between? Do some groups of people turnout in higher rates than others? Which ones?

Basic constitutional guarantees (regular elections, broad suffrage, freedom of speech and press, freedom to form and join political organizations) allows citizens to express their views freely and compel government leaders to take the public's opinions into account if they want to keep their jobs.

How does the public influence the government?

The growing scope of government activity has encouraged the proliferation of organizations in the nonprofit and public sectors. After the creation of public works by governmental policies, professional associations were created at the suggestion of public officials who realized the political value of organized constituents working to promote their program from outside the government. Many interest groups can qualify as nonprofits, exempting them and their donors from taxes. Groups that benefit from government programs also get organized after new programs that threaten older programs are in place.

What actions have the government taken to foster interest groups? How do governmental policies themselves create potential interest groups?

Voter turnout in the U.S. is far lower compared to other industrialized nations due to institutional barriers, voter registration laws, and socioeconomic status.

How does the U.S.'s voter turnout compare to that of other industrialized nations?

Politicians and political parties have their own communication staff as well as PACs and other partisan apparatuses to spread information (ex social media, media outlets that are ideologically motivated etc). These methods may be effective at reaching hardcore supporters, but are unlikely to reach or sway the general public.

What resources do politicians have that might allow them to "go around" the press and communicate with the public directly? In general, how successful are these attempts?

Party activists follow politics much more closely than the average voter, particularly when it comes to issue areas that positively show their party. Activists are also much more ideological than rank and file voters, where party activists rarely miss an election while rank and file voters may skip the primary and only vote in the general. Lastly, party activists are extremely loyal to their party and are extremely unlikely to ever split-ticket vote, whereas rank and file voters may occasionally deviate and vote for figures on the other side. Consequences of these actions are listening to activists rather than rank and file voters lead to further polarization and the fact that activists make up the bulk of voters in the primaries puts moderates at a disadvantage and may force politicians to say things and take positions that help them in the primary but hurt them in the general election.

How do party activists differ from rank-and-file voters of their party? What consequences does this difference have for American politics?

Candidates are constantly seeking reelection

Why would/should the government listen to public opinion?

Insider lobbying is used by people who have direct access to politicians. They directly lobby Congress members to modify/pass laws, lobby bureaucrats to change the enforcement of a law, and finance litigation (test cases) to test boundaries of the court and can rest their claims on constitutional rights that do not have the political clout to influence elected politicians. Outsider lobbying tactics are used by those who do not have access to politicians. They run issue-awareness campaigns, contact voters, participate in demonstrations and rallies, and circulate petitions. Insider lobbyists usually offer electoral help, while outsiders more commonly threaten electoral harm.

How do 'insider' and 'outsider' lobbying tactics differ? What situations favor the use of each? When might an interest group choose to enlist litigation as it tries to influence policy?

Through polls and surveys

How is public opinion measured?

Polarization is the ideological divide between the parties. This gap is ever-widening the more people align with political parties. The more actively engaged Americans are in politics, the more polarized along party lines they have become.

What is polarization? Has it been increasing or decreasing in recent years, according to your textbook?

State-by-state variation in voter registration laws, criminals are sometimes denied the right to vote, voter ID laws, lack of same-day voter registration, and no absentee voting are some examples of institutional barriers to voting

What are some examples of institutional barriers to the franchise commonly employed in the US?

In the United States, the media is purely profit driven. They ignore public services and promote the production of entertainment media. Areas like Eastern Asia and Cuba have state-run media that are hired by the government to spread propaganda. Countries like Russia, India, and places like East Europe are forced to report on every bit of 'news'--attention grabbing or not.

How does the media in the U.S. differ from the media in other countries?

PACs receive access to legislators, a necessary condition for insider influence. Some believe that PACs contributions buy votes and policy. However, research suggests that PAC contributions are driven almost entirely by party, ideology, and state or district interests and exert, at most, only a modest effect on a legislator's decisions

What do political action committees get in return for their donations to candidates? What evidence exists that such contributions are corrupting our political system?

Agenda setting occurs when the readers and watchers of news that relates to issues or topics are influenced by what the press covers in a very specific way (influences what they think about, not what they think). (example: anything that the president does is considered 'breaking news')

Priming occurs when readers and watchers of news that relates to the criteria with which we evaluate candidates or elected leaders are influenced by what the press covers in a specific way (again, the press influences what they think about, not what they think). (Cover one candidate's bad qualities over another)

Framing is providing context that affects the criteria citizens use to evaluate candidates, campaigns, and political issues. Where agenda setting and priming only influence what viewers think about, framing influences how they think. (Reporting news through a liberal or conservative angle)

Compare and contrast the concepts of agenda setting, priming, and framing. Give examples of each

The 15th amendment gave African Americans the right to vote (states that no citizen of the US will be denied the right to vote based on their race, color, or previous condition of servitude), the 19th amendment gave women the right to vote (states that no citizen of the US will be denied the right to vote on account of sex), and the 26th amendment lowered the voting age to 18 (states that no citizen of the US will be denied the right to vote if they are over the age of 18). These 3 amendments expanded suffrage to previously disenfranchised groups.

In what ways did the 15th, 19th, and 26th amendment eliminate certain institutional barriers?

Polls are the most trustworthy when they have a large sample size, the demographics of those polled reflect the demographics of the electorate (different for local, state, national elections), and when the questions posed are nonbiased and not leading questions.

When can polls be trusted?

Critical elections are when party coalition swaps are temporary--maybe a bat candidate, bad rap sheet, etc. Secular realignments are a gradual realignment of a party, based more on the changing demographics and less on one-time changes/shocks in the political system.

What are critical elections? How do they differ from secular realignments?

The court decision removed the restraint placed on PACs that required them to raise the funds for candidacies in small chunks, putting a functional limit on what they could raise and spend. SCOTUS ruled that independent spending by corporations and unions was speech protected by the first amendment and could not be limited/constrained. This meant a corporation or union could now use money directly from its treasury to fund political advertisements in support of or against candidates. Super PACs emerged.

How will SCOTUS' Citizens United v. FEC decision shape the role of interest groups in federal elections? Are there ways to reconcile the protection of the first amendment rights of interest groups with concerns about their influence over elections and policy?

Random sampling is a sampling technique in which each person in a population has an equal probability of being chosen for sampling. In random sampling, you randomly select people from the population with no individual selection bias-- everyone has an equal chance of being selected. A truly random sample of any large population is rarely feasible because there is no single directory where everyone is continently listed and so can be given an equal chance of being selected, which is what strict random sampling requires

Discuss the concept of sampling. What is random sampling? Why does random sampling produce representative samples?

Referendum is an approach to direct democracy in which a state legislature proposes a change to the state's laws or constitution that all the voters subsequently vote on.

Initiative is an approach to direct democracy in which a proposal is placed on an election ballot when the required number of registered voters have signed petitions.

Recall is an approach to direct democracy in which people vote or dismiss an elected official from state office before their term has expired.

Know the differences/similarities between a referendum, an initiative, and a recall

By choosing someone to act on our behalf, we face the risk that they will put their interests ahead of ours. It is very difficult to discern if they are faithful agents. Elections give ordinary citizens a say in who represents them, future elections give officeholders a motive to be responsible agents, and they give incentives for the small set of citizens who seek to replace current officeholders and keep a close eye on the representatives.

What are the potential problems with delegating authority to representatives in government? How do elections help reduce these risks?

Yellow Journalism is a style of journalism born of intense competition and characterized by screaming headlines and sensational stories. Muckraking is journalistic investigation and exposure of scandals, corruption, and injustices.

Both began around the time of the Progressive Era. Yellow Journalism exaggerates the truth, where Muckraking exposes what politicians and corporate owners wanted to keep secret.

What is yellow journalism? Muckraking? What is the difference?

An iron triangle is a stable, mutually beneficial political relationship among a congressional committee, an administrative agency, and organized interests concerned with a particular policy domain. Iron triangles do not enforce the common good and attempt to advance narrow and specific interests. Issue networks are loose, informal, and highly variable relationships among representatives of various interests who are involved in a particular area of public policy.

What is an "iron triangle"? Why might such an arrangement be problematic for American democracy? What are issue networks and how do they differ from Iron Triangles?

The benefits of elections are collective benefits. People get to enjoy the payoffs even if they did not help produce them by voting. By voting, people get to exert an influence over the leaders, forcing them to care about people's' interests, opinions, and values. People frequently free ride in elections, counting on others to elect the candidate of their choice because individual votes count for nearly nothing.

What benefits do people get from voting? Which of these benefits do they still recieve if they personally do not vote?

public opinion

"These opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed". According to this definition, every government, democratic or otherwise, has to pay attention to THIS in some fashion. This greatly affects political behavior, which is the main political act of the great majority of ordinary citizens.

The parties themselves are made up of decentralized, fragmented party coalitions that are maintained by professional politicians.

How are parties organized? Are they centralized or decentralized?

Some believe that the current strain on relationships between politicians and the press is tied to the widespread suspicion among reporters that presidents will lie to them whenever it serves their interests and they think they can get away with it. Watergate conditioned reporters to greet all White House claims with suspicion of duplicity.

How did the Watergate scandal affect the way media covers news issues?

Insider Lobbying Tactics

Interest group activity that includes normal lobbying on Capitol Hill, working closely with members of Congress, and contributing money to incumbents' campaigns. Test cases are also considered these tactics. Contrasts with outsider tactics

Dramatization (formatting bias)

Tendency of the news to focus on violent, happening-right-now news (like traffic, weather, and crime). It is often highly sensationalized with high levels of focus.

Outsider Lobbying Tactics

Interest group activities designed to influence elected officials by threatening to impose political costs on them if they do not respond. Tactics include marches, demonstrations, campaign contributions to opponents, and electoral mobilization

Voters use cognitive shortcuts, rely heavily on the media, campaign advertising, opinion leaders, and their own political experience to inform their prediction. When voting, voters analyze past performance and incumbency status of a candidate (sometimes analyzing future policy options of each candidate), using the media and judging the candidate's personal characteristics, and identifying the candidate's party label. However, the single best predictor of the vote in federal elections is the party identification.

Voting, in effect, makes candidates choose between a future governed by candidate A and one governed by candidate B. Most voters can't predict the future. What tools allow voters to make these predictions of future performance?

The Founding Fathers widely disliked political parties and believed they were dangerous to good government and public order. The Constitution says nothing about political parties.

How did the founding fathers feel about political parties? What does the Constitution say about them?

political attitude

Views about the policy-making, the government's role, the pace of change, and freedom and equality.

Authority-Disorder Bias (formatting bias)

Media acts as a watchdog, focusing on scandal and disasters in politics

Personalization (formatting bias)

Ways in which the news is presented and the stories that are focused on. This causes little variation in what is reported--the same stories are retold. This type of bias also focuses on individuals embedded in a story and not the process as a whole.

Fragmentation (formatting bias)

Because the news is constantly cycling, a lot of people that only tune in occasionally often feel disconnected

"Horse Race" Campaign Coverage (formatting bias)

Coverage of a campaign that focuses on polling data, public perception of candidates instead of the candidates themselves, and exclusive reporting on candidate differences as opposed to candidate similarities.

Public Interest Group

An organization that supports causes that affect the lives of Americans in general. More like a union, advancing their cause may help the general public as well as their primary concern of advancement of their members.

The single best predictor of the vote in federal elections is the voter's party identification

What is the most important personal characteristic for predicting a person's vote in a federal election?

An issue public is a group of people that pay special attention to particular areas of public policy. Political parties tend to round up many different issue publics under one big tent to rally their cause, thereby gaining their vote. They also engage political leaders and the media in these issues and show interest in the creation of party coalitions on behalf of their cause.

What role do issue publics play in the creation of party coalitions?

gender gap

A term that refers to the regular pattern by which women are more likely to support Democratic candidates. Women tend to be significantly less conservative than men and are more likely to support spending on social services (welfare spending and regulations designed to protect the environment, consumers, and children) and to oppose higher levels of military spending.

Persuasion is most likely to occur when the recipient has favorable thoughts towards the message

Under what conditions (source, message, audience) is persuasion most likely to occur?

straw poll

An unscientific, biased survey used to gauge public opinion on a variety of issues and policies. They are biased and not representative of the population

A group of people within a political party united by a belief that differs from the rest of the members of that party. They are very significant within the parties, meaning that there are many intra-party factions. They are very common in the US political system. Some examples are the Blue Dog Democrats and liberal Republicans.

What is an intra-party faction? Are they normal or unusual?

The president's approval rating is a strong predictor. Unpopular presidents like Carter and H.W. Bush tend to lose elections, while presidents whose approval rating is high basically always win. When the incumbent president is not up for reelection, their approval is also a good indicator of how their party's nominee will do.

What is the most important aggregate statistic in predicting which party is likely to win a presidential election?

Moral Incentives

The personal satisfactions of active self-expression through contribution or other involvement to social causes

party identification

An individual's enduring affective or instrumental attachment to one of the political parties. The most accurate single predictor of voting behavior

Open Primary

Primary election in which any voter, regardless of party, may vote

Advertising (television and radio) is the largest expense, mainly because a fundamental goal of every campaign is to reach voters with the candidate's message. Money is certainly not enough to win--candidates must be qualified for office (or they must be perceived by the public to be qualified) and have a powerful message. Campaign money does not help all candidates equally--as long as they spread their message adequately, they can get votes (but that requires money). Campaign money matters greatly in presidential primaries, in which voters can't rely on a party label as a cue. Campaign money is most important to challengers and other obscure candidates--as challenger spending increases, so does the likelihood of winning.

What do candidates spend most of their money on? Is money enough to win? Does it help all candidates equally? What type of candidate benefits the most from increased spending?

Selective Incentives

Private goods or benefits that induce rational actors to participate in a collective effort to provide a collective good

Infotainment

Increasingly popular, nontraditional source of political information that combines news and entertainment. Examples include talk shows and political comedy programs

Prior Restraint

A government agency's act to prohibit the publication of material or speech before the fact. The courts forbid prior restraint except under extraordinary conditions

political ideology

A comprehensive, integrated set of views about government and politics. They promote constituency among political attitudes by connecting them to something greater, a more general principle or set of principles. These often combine attitudes linked more by coalitional politics than by principle. The most common ideological labels in America are liberal and conservative.

Closed Primary

A primary in which only registered members of a particular political party can vote

Conventional Participation

Relatively routine political behavior that uses institutional channels and is acceptable to the dominant culture. Includes voting, donating to a campaign, and writing letters to officeholders.

Social Movements

Amorphous aggregates of people sharing general values and a desire for social change

Unconventional Participation

Political participation that attempts to challenge or defy establish institutions and dominant norms through unusual or extreme measures, such as protests, boycotts, and picketing

random sampling

A method of poll selection that gives each person in a group the same chance of being selected. Not very feasible in practice because there is no way to ensure that every single person in the population has a truly equal chance of participation.

Political Party

A coalition of people who seek to control the machinery of government by winning elections. Not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, these make mass democracy possible by coordinating the group activities necessary to translate public preferences into public policy

Policy Gridlock

Political paralysis in the face of pressing national problems

Beat

A regularly assigned venue that a news reporter covers on an ongoing basis

Leak

The strategic release of secret government information by government officials to the media, on the condition that its source is not identified by name

Political Action Committee (PAC)

A federally registered fund-raising group that pools money from individuals to give to political candidates and parties

Socioeconomic Status

A person's position in society as determined by income, wealth, occupation, education, place of residence, and other factors

Party Platform

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 committee whose members are chosen in rough proportion to each candidate's strength. It is the best formal statement of a party's beliefs.

sample

A relatively small proportion of people who are chosen in a survey so as to be representative of the whole. A truly random sample of any large population is rarely feasible because there is no single directory where everyone is continently listed and so can be given an equal chance of being selected, which is what strict random sampling requires

Grassroots lobbying

lobbying activities performed by rank-and-file interest group members

Franchise

The right to vote in public, political elections

Party Organization

honeymoon period

The time following an election when a president's popularity is high and congressional relations are likely to be productive

Credibility Gap

The widespread suspicion among reporters that presidents will lie to the media when doing so serves their interest and they think they can get away with it

Astro-Turf Campaign

A group makes it appear that they are a grassroots movement, but they don't have a true organic following that actually want to get involved. Groups pay professional actors to come and protest, feed them talking points when they're asked questions. This method is common with corporate-style campaigns

margin of error

The range of percentage points in which the sample accurately reflects the population. The sample's division should fall within 3 percentage points of the entire population's division