3 The two-party system
The patterns of sectional, class, pluralistic and individualistic political behav-
iour in the American electorate suggest, at first sight, that the most likely
shape for the party system would be a number of different parties, each giving
expression to the interest of an important section of the political universe.
Surely only a multi-party system could give expression to such diversity. Yet
a second look at the evidence of the previous chapter throws some doubt
on this suggestion. Are the numerous cross-pressures of American politics,
the overlapping patterns of group behaviour, consistent with the existence
of a number of relatively stable political parties of the kind to be found in
continental European countries? In fact, two political parties, the Democrats
and the Republicans, dominate the scene without any serious rivals on the
horizon. There have been important third-party movements in American
history, and even today there are many minor parties. In 1968 George Wal-
lace, the candidate of the American Independent Party, polled 13.5 per cent
of the total vote, and in 1924 Robert La Follette, the Progressive candidate
for the presidency, attracted the vote of one-sixth of those who went to the
polls. In 1992 Ross Perot, running as an Independent, polled 19 per cent of
the total vote, and may have been responsible for the defeat of George Bush.
Perot ran again in 1996 but attracted a very much smaller proportion of the
vote. Ralph Nader, the candidate of the Green Party, attracted only 2.7 per
cent of the presidential vote in 2000, but his intervention meant that George
W. Bush rather than Al Gore carried the state of Florida, which ensured
the election of Bush. Another type of third-party movement, the breakaway
States Rights Party of 1948, won five of the Southern states that normally
went to the Democratic Party. In 1964 there were six minor candidates for
the presidency, including the first black ever to run for the office, and in
1980 an independent candidate, John Anderson, polled over 5.5 million votes,
7 per cent of the total. However, when there is no stimulus for a protest vote
to draw electors away from the two major parties they may between them
poll over 99 per cent of the votes cast, as they have done in most of the elec-
tions since 1952.
Thus the diversities of political life suggest that we might expect to find