Government Test Ch 6 & 7

  • Coalition -- A cooperative government that forms a partnership among several victorious parties in a multiparty system; each party pursues its agendas, and they negotiate control, allowing each party to participate in the new government

  • Coattails -- the ability of a victorious presidential candidate to get same-party Congressional candidates put into office on the strength of people voting for their political party, riding the high of the win

  • Critical election -- an election that starts a period of realignment, in which a bunch of people vote differently from normal and stay that way for the next couple of elections

  • Dealignment -- the weakening of party affiliation; increase in people claiming independents(separate from a party)

  • Divided government -- different branches of the national government are dominated by different parties

  • Electorate -- the portion of the public eligible to vote in elections

  • Faction -- a group that, in its size, passion, or intensity, has a dream that, if realized, would threaten common liberty

  • Fair Deal -- Truman’s domestic policy (goals for America) whose name was inspired by the New Deal to gain popularity

  • Gender Gap -- the difference in the voting pattern of men and women; Ex: since 1980, men are more likely to vote Republican

  • Great Society -- President Lyndon B. Johnson’s programs that got the government involved in social problems, such as hunger and poverty; was the largest federal involvement in the 20th century

  • Gridlock -- legislative disagreement resulting in nothing getting done

  • Ideological party -- a third party that supports something not expressly supported by the main two parties; rarely actually elected

  • Interest aggregation -- groups that have disagreeing agendas, but agree on enough to put them in the same party, bringing them together

  • Issue voting -- choosing who to vote for based on the issues they are addressing

  • Majority -- Winning 51% or more of the votes

  • Multimember district -- districts that have multiple representatives; found in proportional representation systems

  • New deal -- President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s domestic policy that tried to save America from the Great Depression

  • New deal coalition -- the Democratic coalition that supported the New Deal; made up of urbanites, minorities, unions, liberals, and southerners

  • Party identification -- an individual’s association with a political party, whether strong or weak, Democrat or Republican

  • Independent -- one who does not identify with a political party

  • Party in government -- the actual role the different parties play in government and their interactions with each other

  • Party in the electorate -- the actual role the different parties play among the general populous and their interactions with them

  • Party system -- a system of government with multiple parties that regularly compete over government

  • Patronage -- jobs, favors, and other resources (bribes) provided by party officials in exchange for political support and votes

  • Plurality -- winning the majority of the votes in an election

  • Political machines -- urban political parties that take patronage too far and trap people into voting for them to maintain power

  • Political party -- an organized group with similar political interests who elect officials to gain power in government

  • Political socialization -- how one obtains political knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs

  • Proportional representation -- an electoral system that splits representation based on the split of the votes; encourages participation of third parties, as it increases their actual votes

  • Realignment -- a shift from one party to another; a result of a lasting, long-term adjustment in the major groups that identify with parties

  • Reform party -- an unsuccessful organization built by Ross Perot that was meant to create a competitive third party

  • Responsible parties -- political parties where the member take clear positions on issues and vote as a unit

  • Single-issue parties -- third parties that form over one specific issue that the members feel is not adequately addressed; rarely win, but there are always a few around

  • Single-member district -- the structure in which each electoral district gets only one Congressional representative; the structure used in a winner-take-all electoral system

  • Splinter parties -- a third party that splits away from one of the main parties in protest; never lasts very long

  • Ticket splitting -- voting for candidates of different parties for different offices, rather than voting a party line; shows America’s growing independent tendencies

  • Party line -- voting for candidates for all the branches from the same party

  • Two-party system -- a political system in which only two parties have a realistic chance of winning; Ex: America

  • Tyranny -- the government denying liberty from the people

  • Winner-take-all system -- the electoral system in which the candidate that receives the most votes gets credit for all the votes

  • Caucus -- a system of candidate selection where groups of party members gather in a series of meetings and debates to choose delegates for the national convention

  • Expectation -- how well a campaign needs to perform in the primaries to achieve the level of support the reporter has predicted it will receive

  • Faithless elector -- an Electoral College elector who does not vote for the plurality winner in their state, like they are meant to; rarely happens

  • Federal Election Campaign Act -- an act passed in 1974 that was meant to limit the influence of big-money contributions on political campaigns

  • Federal Election Commission (FEC -- the federal agency in charge of administering and enforcing campaign finance laws

  • Focus group -- a small group of voters from a specific demographic gathered by a political campaign to determine how they feel about the candidate; meant to help the candidate better market to the demographic

  • Free media -- news coverage of major high office candidates that are paid for by the press instead of the candidate; cannot be controlled by the candidate and is not guaranteed to be in their favor

  • Front-runner -- the presidential candidate expected to win the election based on their campaign

  • Hard money -- money given directly to candidates or national parties by individuals or PACS for their campaign; contributions are regulated by federal law

  • Long shot -- a presidential candidate who is expected to not do well in the election based on their campaign; the “underdog”

  • McCain-Feingold Act -- aka the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002; prohibited the use of soft money in federal elections; was trying to close the loophole in the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act

  • McGovern-Fraser Commission -- a commission created by the Democratic Party after the riots during their 1968 convention; meant to make the selection of delegates for the party conventions more open, egalitarian, and mass-based, preventing the elite from controlling the nominations

  • Media events -- activities staged by campaigns or officials that are meant to create good free media

  • Momentum -- the ability of a presidential campaign to maintain its support by meeting or exceeding expectations during the primary period

  • Name recognition -- an informal measure of the public’s awareness of a politician, based on their ability to identify the politician

  • Nomination -- the official endorsement of a candidate by a political party to be the one to represent their party in the next general election

  • Paid media -- news coverage of major high office candidates that are paid for and produced by the candidate; often have broad or vague messages, trying to gather as much support as possible

  • Platform -- the “blueprint” for a party’s presidential nominee that outlines their philosophies and policies

  • Plurality -- winning less than 50% of the votes in an election, but the most votes compared to the other parties

  • Political Action Committees (PACs) -- organizations formed by interest groups to contribute money to political candidates

  • Popular vote -- the tangible votes cast by individuals in a presidential election that goes toward the electors who are representing the candidate in the Electoral College

  • Primary -- the first round of an election where the party members vote for their nominee or delegates to the national convention

  • Soft money -- unregulated money donated to state and local parties or national parties for “party-building” purposes, not to a specific candidate