POL110 Week 6Scenario Script: Political Participation
Slide # / Scene/Interaction / NarrationSlide 1 / Introductory screen, containing the environment (an outside view of a government office building) and a title showing the scenario topic. There will be a “begin” button on the screen allowing students to begin the scenario.
Slide 2
Slide 3
Slide 4 / Scene 1
Amanda and Dr. Ryan standing in Dr. Ryan’s office.
Scene 2
Amanda and Dr. Ryan do a visual tour of a museum or historical exhibit in Capitol Hill that showcases the material that is covered. This is sort of a visual tour of Washington D.C. as well as a visual component to the conversation. / Dr. Ryan: Hello Amanda. Good to see you.
Last week we examined American political parties and how interest groups affect their behavior.
This week we’re going to cover political participation, focusing on the campaign process and the elections they lead to.
Before we get started, what are your thoughts about theseconcepts, Amanda?
Amanda:I think it’s important thatonly in a democratic society would you see campaigns free of violence and elections based on the principle of a one man-one vote system.
That’s not to say that we didn’t arrive at this stage without violence, because there are plenty of examples in our history.But we’re there now.
Dr. Ryan:Alright then, can you provide some examples?
Amanda: Easily.Women didn’t have the right to vote until 1920 and they had to agitate heavily for that against some pretty strong opposition.And blacks were discriminated against at polls throughout the South until the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.
Campaigns and elections are now very civilized affairs. But until the early twentieth century, voter fraud and the intimidation of black voters were common at polling stations, mostly in the South.And telling out lies about one’s opponentwas commonplace in campaigns at every level.
Dr. Ryan:So what do you think changed?
Amanda:I think we became a more sophisticated democracy in the twentieth century. That, and libel laws were more strictly enforced by the courts.
Dr. Ryan:Excellent observations.
In fact, voters were tired of the free-for-alls that marked the political process up to that point.They demanded more accountability from their elected officials. This made them start promising less and delivering more on the promises they did make.
Even now, candidates don’t always fulfill these promises.But at least the voter has made them become more realistic.
Amanda:This is why it is so ironic that, as politics has cleaned itself up, voter participation has dropped.
Dr. Ryan: Indeed it has. During elections in the nineteenth century and up through the middle of the twentieth century, it was not uncommon to see voter turnouts of seventy to eighty percent. But now that figure has fallen below seventy percent and in some presidential elections, we’re lucky if half of all eligible voters make an appearance.
That’s by far the lowest among all European democracies except Switzerland. What hasn’t changed, however, is that many people still tend to vote for candidates on the basis of their stand on just one issue. These single-issue groups have been around for well over two hundred years.
Regardless of what else you stand for ideologically, if you support their narrow agenda, then you will almost certainly have their vote.
Amanda: Another trend is that the percentage of eligible black voters participating in general elections has dropped off considerably.This has been since Franklin Roosevelt’s landslide victory in 1932, when they deserted the Republican Party, Lincoln’sparty.
They began moving to urban areas in the North because they saw New Deal Democrats offering them better employment opportunities. Ninety-five percent of them are still Democrats.But they usually don’t vote in large numbers because, as is the case with many other Americans, political apathy has set in.
Dr. Ryan: And one of the most significant reasons for this is because presidential campaigns usually begin over a year ahead of an election.By the time the election takes place, voter fatigue has set in because people are sick of hearing about politics.
Amanda: What else accounts for low voter turnout?
Dr. Ryan: Well, differences in states’ registration processes would have to lead the list. This is why Congress passed the Motor-Voter Law in 1993.This law made it easier for voters to register at state offices when they are obtaining or renewing a driver’s license.
Alright, now let’s talk a bit about campaign strategy.
Amanda:Okay.
Dr. Ryan: First of all, if you were a candidate running for public office, what are the two most fundamental strategies you would use?
Amanda:I guess one would be to select a positive, issues-only platform.And the other would be to take a negative approach and attack my opponent’s record.
Dr. Ryan:Good, but what do you notice usually happens?
Amanda:Candidates end up combining the two and they can’t help themselves.
Of course, it can get messy if your opponent digs up something really damaging about you. Then you have to spend precious resources defending yourself rather than spreading your message to the voters, isn’t it?
Dr. Ryan: This is what happened to George McGovern in the 1972 election when it was discovered that his running mate, Senator Thomas Eagleton, had once been treated for a psychiatric disorder.
It threw his entire campaign on the defensive, and in the end he had to drop his running mate and pick someone else. It was a public relations catastrophe for a campaign that was seen as incompetent and indecisive by the press and the public. He never recovered.
Nixon went on to win every state in the country except South Dakota, where McGovern was from, and Washington, DC.
Amanda:That’s an interesting example, Dr. Ryan!
And then there’s the critical question of where does a candidate spend his money?
Dr. Ryan: Regardless of how much money one raises, it never seems to be enough.So where to spend it becomes important.
Does the campaign tend to advertise heavily in what’s known as battleground states that are up for grabs and ignore those that it knows it cannot possibly win? Or does it hit the battleground states but also make a stab at a state known to be favoring an opponent, in the off chance that lightening may strike and it begins looking like the state might swing in his favor?
It can be a tough call for a campaign manager to make.
Slide 5 / Scene 3
Amanda and Dr. Ryan do a visual tour of a museum or historical exhibit in Capitol Hill that showcases the material that is covered. This is sort of a visual tour of Washington D.C. as well as a visual component to the conversation. / Amanda: On another note, at the House, Senate and Presidential levels, incumbents are usually re-elected.But what can upset this model?
Dr. Ryan: The advantage that an incumbent has is that he can run on his record. The disadvantage that an incumbent has is that he must run on his record.
Amanda: That’s an interesting approach…
Dr. Ryan: What I mean is that, if an incumbent has a decent record that voters likethen he has a tremendous reelection advantage over a challenger.
This means that he sponsored important legislation or his administration helped do something like lower unemployment and inflation and provide the country with a surplus, like Bill Clinton did.Name recognition helps a lot, too.
If however, he was like Jimmy Carter and got bogged down by the economy and an embarrassing event like the Iranian hostage crisis, then a challenger such as Ronald Reagan has a better chance of winning against a weak-looking president.
This is also what happened with Hoover and Roosevelt in 1932. It was because the Republican Party was rightly blamed for bringing on the Great Depression. Americans wanted a new face with new ideas in the White House. Thus was born the New Deal.
Amanda: Speaking of Roosevelt and Reagan, wasn’t it impressive how cleverlythey used radio and television to communicate with the voter?
These two presidents looked extremely comfortable beforea bank of microphones or a camera.They were so skillful in attacking their opponents’ records through the media that they swung a number of undecided voters their way.
Dr. Ryan: That, after all, is the whole point of a campaign. To remind voters of what you stand for in a language they can understand.Roosevelt and Reagan were masters at that.
Amanda: So what other factors help sway the voter?
Dr. Ryan: Easy enough. Those factors would be the candidate’s party affiliation, his character and the state of the economy.
If the voter sees a serious flaw in any one of these components of a campaign, the candidate can pretty much write his chances off. It was the economy that killed off Hoover’s, Carter’s and George H. W. Bush’s reelection chances.
It’s a very dangerous enemy for an incumbent to have to deal with if things like new housing start-ups, inflation, unemployment and the deficit aren’t going his way.
Amanda: Building strong coalitions would be a good idea at a time like this, too.
Dr. Ryan: Indeed it would be. I’ll use Reagan as an example again. Up to 1980, Southern Democrats tended to vote for Democratic candidates because Republicans had no viable candidates in that region.But Reagan was a conservative who drew huge numbers from this demographic, later called Reagan Democrats.It helped him virtually sweep the South and win two general elections.
Barak Obama is another good example of someone who had voters crossing party lines. In 2012, he came across as a moderate Democrat who captured independents, women, Hispanics, Blacks, and a number of moderate Republicans. These Republicans didn’t trust Mitt Romney’s tendency to flip-flop on almost every major issue he supported as governor of Massachusetts.
Slide 6 / Scene 4
Amanda and Dr. Ryan do a visual tour of a museum or historical exhibit in Capitol Hill that showcases the material that is covered. This is sort of a visual tour of Washington D.C. as well as a visual component to the conversation. / Dr. Ryan: Now let’s touch briefly on the media and the voter. Let me ask you this…do you think American voters are manipulated in any way by the media?
Amanda: I suppose people who can’t think for themselves are. But the average voter know what they want in a candidate and are not going to be guided towards someone if theydon’t want to be.
He or she may disagree with the particular media outlet as being too liberal or too conservative, but no amount of invective in the form of newspaper editorials or TV spots are going to change his or her mind.
Dr. Ryan: I will say this, though. There are undecided voters out there who could be looking for more information about a candidate.No one knows how large this segment is in American politics andso it’s difficult to tell if media stories help them make up their minds.
I’m sure they play a part, but we have precious little data on this demographic. As such, I don’t think these people are being manipulated as much as they are being informed.
Slide 7 / Scene 5
Amanda and Dr. Ryan do a visual tour of a museum or historical exhibit in Capitol Hill that showcases the material that is covered. This is sort of a visual tour of Washington D.C. as well as a visual component to the conversation. / Dr. Ryan: All of this electioneering takes a tremendous amount of money, of course, so where do you think it comes from?
Amanda: Most of it comes from political action committees and small donations.Other amounts come courtesy of corporations and unions.
And we’re talking about tens of millions of dollars here. This is because the federal government will match funds for presidential candidates from primaries onward if their campaign first raises a certain amount themselves.
They must win the primaries or they’re out of the running. Once they receive their party’s nomination, they can receive a block grant of sixty or seventy million dollars or more from the government.
Slide 8 / Scene 6
Amanda and Dr. Ryan do a visual tour of a museum or historical exhibit in Capitol Hill that showcases the material that is covered. This is sort of a visual tour of Washington D.C. as well as a visual component to the conversation. / Dr. Ryan: Alright, one more point and I think we can call it a day. Is it really worth it to spend all of this money running for public office when nothing ever seems to get done? Put another way, do elections really change public policy?
Amanda: I will say that, with so many elected officials in our system, it is difficult to get them united behind one policy.So it may seem as though little gets accomplished, but the wheels of government turn slowly. A president who is able to work with Congress can have a lasting effect on public policy.
Where the process stops in its tracks, however, is when these two branches are controlled by different parties and then remain in opposition.
Dr. Ryan: Good response. Now, I have a couple of questions for you on this week’s material?
Slide 9 / Interaction
What would best describe our electoral process today?
- dominated by corporations and unions
- run by political machines
- made ineffective by extensive corruption
- X representative of the majority’s wishes
- manipulated by the media
Slide 10 / Interaction
Of the following, which is the most likely to occur with a presidential candidate?
The candidate:
- X must win primaries to get the nomination
- can be nominated without winning primaries
- will definitely be able to affect public policy
- need not worry about forming coalitions
- needs corporate and union support in order to win
Slide 11 / Scene 7
Amanda and Dr. Ryan back in Dr. Ryan’s office. / Dr. Ryan: So that takes us to the end of our examination of the relationship between campaigns and elections. Next week we can analyze how Congress functions.
Make sure to participate in this week’s discussions on political participation.
Good job once again, Amanda. I’ll see you again next week.