288 Chapter 8Chapter 8 || Political PartiesPolitical Parties1996, won 8.4 percent of the popular vote. Perot also ran as an Independent in 1992,
winning 18.2 percent of the popular vote. And Ralph Nader received about 5 percent
of the popular vote in 2000.Unique Issues Facing Minor Parties The differences between major and minor
political parties in contemporary American politics grow even more substantial when
considered in terms other than election outcomes. For most minor parties, the party
in government does not exist, as few of their candidates win office. Many minor
parties have virtually no organization beyond a small party headquarters and a
website. Some minor parties, such as the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and
the Reform Party, have local chapters that meet on a regular basis. But these modest
efforts pale in comparison with the nationwide network of offices, thousands of
workers, and hundreds of millions of dollars deployed by Republican and Democratic
party organizations.
The most significant factor working against minor parties is the basic structure
of the American political system. This principle is summed up by Duverger’s Law,
which states that in a democracy that has single-member districts and plurality
voting, there will be only two political parties that are able to elect a significant
number of candidates to political office, which is the case in contemporary America.
Given these electoral institutions (see Chapter 9), many people consider a vote for a
minor-party candidate to be a wasted vote, as there is no chance that the candidate
will win office. As a result, well-qualified candidates are driven to affiliate with one of
the major political parties because they know that running as a minor-party nominee
will put them at a considerable disadvantage. These decisions reinforce citizens’
expectations that minor-party candidates have no chance of winning elections and
that a vote for them is a wasted vote. Although there is no evidence that the Founders
wanted to choose electoral institutions that made it hard for minor parties and their
candidates, there is no doubt that the rules of the American electoral game have
these effects.
A second problem is that the issues and issue positions taken by minor parties
and their candidates are almost always very different from those espoused by the
major parties. The Constitution Party, for example, advocates ending government
civil service regulations; banning compulsory school attendance laws; withdrawing
from the UN and all international trade agreements; abolishing foreign aid, the
income tax, the Internal Revenue Service, and all federal welfare programs; and
repealing all campaign finance legislation, the Endangered Species Act, and federal
firearms regulations. These positions are extreme, not in the sense of being silly or
dangerous but in the sense that relatively few Americans agree with them. Even in the
2016 presidential contest, Libertarian Gary Johnson proposed major cuts in defense
spending and domestic programs—positions that attract support from only a relatively
small minority of Americans.Duverger’s Law
The principle that in a democracy
with single-member districts and
plurality voting, only two parties’
candidates will have a realistic
chance of winning political office,
as in the United States.
single-member district
An electoral system in which
every elected official represents a
geographically defined area, such as
a state or congressional district, and
each area elects one representative.
plurality voting
A voting system in which the
candidate who receives the most
votes within a geographic area wins
the election, regardless of whether
that candidate wins a majority
(more than half ) of the votes.Minor-party presidential candidates,
such as Libertarian Gary Johnson in
2016, sometimes attract considerable
press attention because of their
distinctive policy preferences,
but they rarely effect election
outcomes.“Why
Should
I Care?”
You may dislike political parties or party leaders in Congress, but the fact is, the parties
are key players in congressional policy making and in negotiations between Congress
and the president. If you are trying to decide whether a new program (or nominee) has
a chance of being approved, one of the first things you need to consider is whether the
party caucuses in the House and Senate (particularly the majority-party caucuses) are
in favor or opposed.Full_09_APT_64431_ch08_262-295.indd 288 16/11/18 1:41 PM