12 CHAPTER 1|UNDERSTANDING AMERICAN POLITICS
short-lived as Republican Scott Brown won a special election in early 2010 to fi ll
the late (Democratic) senator Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts, and as Demo-
crats lost additional seats in the 2010 midterm election.
As the cloture example implies, the ability to determine political rules empowers
the people who make them. To paraphrase a favorite saying of Representative John
Dingell, a long-serving Democrat from Michigan, “If you let me decide procedure
and I let you decide substance, I’ll beat you every time.”Key Idea 3: Politics Is Everywhere
Even though most Americans have little interest in politics, most of us encoun-
ter it every day. When you read the newspaper, watch TV, surf the web, or listen
to the radio, you’ll almost surely encounter a political story. When walking down
the street you may see billboards, bumper stickers, or T-shirts advertising a candi-
date, a political party, an interest group, or an issue position. Someone may ask you
to sign a petition. You may read about the war in Afghanistan and wonder whether
members of Congress and the president were right to pursue their current policy.
Politics is also a fundamental part of how Americans think about themselves.
Virtually everyone can name their party identifi cation (Democrat, Republican,
or independent)^6 and can place their views on a continuum between liberal and
conservative.^7
Politics is everywhere in another important way, too: actions by the enormous
federal government touch virtually every aspect of our lives. Figure 1.1 shows a
timeline for a typical college student on a typical day and the myriad ways in which
federal programs, spending, and regulations infl uence that student’s day. As you
will see in later chapters, it’s not surprising that the federal government touches
everyday life in so many places. The federal government is extraordinarily large in
terms of spending (over $3.5 trillion for fi scal year 2012, ending in October 2012),
number of employees (nearly 10 million, including contractors and the postal ser-
vice), and new regulations (over 80 thousand pages in 2011).^8
Moreover, the idea that politics is everywhere has a deeper meaning because
people’s political behavior is similar to their behavior in other contexts. For exam-
ple, many voters form judgments about candidates based on their ethnic back-
ground, gender, or age. Such stereotyping also shapes people’s judgments aboutPOLITICAL PROCESS MATTERED IN THE
2012 presidential election, from
determining the candidates to
affecting which states received
the most attention from the
campaigns.
THE IDEA THAT “POLITICS IS
everywhere” is evident when
government policies infl uence
highly personal decisions, such
as those pertaining to marriage,
divorce, and abortion. Gay
marriage has been controversial,
and many states have passed laws
and constitutional amendments
defi ning marriage as being
between a man and a woman.