The two-party system 63American possessions such as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. This re-
sults in a large gathering but the Democratic National Committee is much
larger still, reflecting the fact that in the 1970s the Democrats decided to
ensure that the various groups that made up the party, particularly women,
young people and ethnic minorities, should be represented both in the Na-
tional Committee and in the National Convention. The Constitution of the
Democratic Party provides that, in addition to ‘the chairperson and the high-
est ranking officer of the opposite sex of each recognized State Democratic
Party’, a further 200 members are elected by state parties, apportioned ac-
cording to a formula taking into account each state’s population. Representa-
tives of Democratic congressional leaders, state governors, mayors and other
Democratic local and state officials, the National Federation of Democratic
Women and Young Democrats are also included. The size of the National
Committees makes them ineffective for conducting electoral campaigns, the
real responsibility falling upon the party’s National Chairman and the staff.
The National Chairman is formally elected by the National Committee, but
is in practice the nominee of the party’s presidential candidate.
Thus the really important part of the national party machinery, except for
the nominating conventions, is the National Chairman and the staff, which
is strongly augmented in an election year. The National Chairman is there
to promote the election of the party’s presidential candidate, but after the
election is over the chairman of the defeated party may remain in office until
the next convention four years later, although the person to whom he or she
was committed is no longer even the titular head of the party. A defeated
presidential candidate has no automatic claim to the leadership of the party,
and usually the defeated party goes virtually leaderless through the lean
years between elections. Once the election is over, the staff of the National
Committees is cut back to a minimum and the national party has little to
do until the next presidential election. Even in the mid-term election years,
when congressional elections are taking place, the National Committee is
largely dormant. Senators and Congressmen have separate campaign com-
mittees and resent attempts by the National Chairman to dictate policy or to
interfere in congressional affairs.
Party organisation consists, therefore, of a ‘pyramid’ of committees, but
this does not in any way imply that the lower levels of the pyramid are sub-
ject to control or direction by the levels above them. In a highly organised
city party, the city leaders may be in a position to appoint and replace ward
leaders at will, and some county chairmen still exercise a power reminis-
cent of the old-time bosses. But the state chairman is not in a position to
issue orders to city and county leaders. Still less can the National Committee
give directions to state chairmen or committees; it can only work towards
gaining their cooperation. The sanctions that are available to central party
committees in more highly centralised countries have no place in American
national politics. The ideological links between party members are weaker
than in European political parties, so that mere appeals to party allegiance