Monthly Archives: April 2010
What is Involved in a Political Election?
A political election is a process by which a group of people or a population of people make a decision to choose an individual to hold office. Elections are usually the defining aspect of what a democracy stands for– being able to choose individuals in government to represent the people. Elections can be held to fill office in a legislative, executive, and judiciary branch both in local, state, and Federal governments. An election does not have to be political; it is a process that can also be held to elect corporate officials in a business or within a non-profit organization. What is Involved in an Election? There are many aspects of a political election, from the time that someone decides to run for office to the time of election day when people travel to political polls to cast their votes. Nomination: Nomination of a politician is the process by which the politician is chosen to represent a political party (such as the Democratic or Republican parties) to be voted in a political poll for office. Most partisan systems only allow certain parties to have nominated candidates put on political polls when an election is held for a certain position. This … Continue reading
Everything is Political
Politics are the process by which people or groups of people make collective decisions that affect an entire community or nation-state. Politics is a force of human nature by which the hierarchical human social construct of power is manipulated, transferred, and/or put into use for the benefit of the collective entity. It is human nature to be power hungry, each group or individual believes that their ability to make collective decisions is superior to the other. The ability to make collective decisions is what defines power. All political factions compete for power. Politics rule all forms of social activity because human beings evolved to create a division of labor and activity as an optimal means of surviving. It is very difficult to decipher which came first, politics or civilization; it is yet another variant of the “chicken or egg” dilemma. However, one thing is clear about their relationship, they constitute a self-perpetuating system of human interaction. Civilization could never exist without politics, in the animal kingdom, the issue of power is also crucial to the collective survival of wolves. Wolves do not challenge the status of the alpha male, they simply instinctively know who is strong enough to lead the … Continue reading
he Democratic Committee: the Engine of Political Strength
Politics can be very messy. What is crucial to political success is to stand against the political opposition in solidarity; that is why political parties do their best to stick to their ideological platform. Too much diversity of opinion within one political party can ruin a party’s chance of being a elected because the vote could be split along factions within a party; thereby causing the common adversary of the factions to win the election. To promote political solidarity, Democrats gather to vote on the platform to which they will stick. The Democratic Committee is responsible for the maintenance of the party’s platform. The Democratic committee is the organization that is responsible for understanding the trends in the core beliefs of the democratic party. They gather statistics and conduct surveys among registered Democrats to determine what kind of political issues that all factions of the Democratic party have in common. The Democratic Committee refers to the adherents all of the party’s core beliefs as the Democratic party’s base. The Democratic Committee then creates political strategies to appeal to the Democratic base without alienating them for being to different from their beliefs and issues of concern. In difficult political times, the … Continue reading
Democratic Party
The Democratic party is the older of the two American Political party. There are three incarnations of the Democratic Party, some historians think of each incarnation as three separate Democratic Parties. However, the modern Democratic Party owes much of its heritage to previous incarnations. Political pressures and historical events made the party change its platform a few times in 200 years of party history. Its earliest incarnation owes its existence to Thomas Jefferson, an Anti-Federalist, who favored a more direct form of American Democracy. He believed in landownership for all, greatly expanding the American landscape with the 1803 Louisiana purchase from Napoleon’s France. Historians refer to Thomas Jefferson’s vision of American Democracy as the “agrarian paradise” in which the power of the state rested in the hands of the valiant landowning yeoman farmer. Jefferson also believed in the destruction of the central bank in order to make lending practices fairer for the common man. Another reason why Jefferson believed in the destruction of the central bank was to stop the invisible tax of inflation on the poorer segments of the American population. The Democratic Party always had a tradition of policies that supported the creation of wealth for less advantaged … Continue reading
Democracy and Democratic Politics
Democracy as a form of government dates back to the time of the ancient Greeks. “Democracy” is actually a word of Greek origins using the Greek prefix “Demos” meaning people and the suffix “cracy” meaning to rule. Therefore, the meaning of “democracy” is literally “rule by the people”. The ability of the people to rule means that all who are considered citizens self-govern. Modern western democratic politics owes much of its heritage to the ancient Greeks. The main difference between the ancient and modern variants of the form of governments is who were considered citizens or people. The ancient Greeks only considered landowning males citizens whereas modern Western democracies allow political, enthnic, racial and religious minorities to vote. Ancient Greek democracy was the democratic politics in its purest sense when the “people” actually governed themselves directly when landowning males all gathered in the council of the Athenian city-state to discuss and vote on the political issues of their day. However, as with all human inventions, democracy has improved over the years and became more flexible to address potential for tyranny of the majority, or in the case of Athenian civilization – the minority. The ideas for modern Western democratic politics … Continue reading
Political Campaigns and the Importance of the Media
When an individual is ready to run for election, he or she, launches a political campaign. The person running a political campaign is referred to as a candidate. Before political campaigning is initiated, one must meet the requirements necessary to run for office. Political campaigns are fund raising machines seeking contributions from private individuals, private organizations, and private and publicly traded corporations. There are many campaign finance regulations that apply to the operation of a political campaign. Increasingly, in American political campaigns, money and images are good predictors of victory in elections. Political campaigns generate income from donations to run advertisements on newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet. Political campaigns are famous for their catchy slogans and memorable television ads. Advertisements like the infamous “Daisy Girl” ad had great power in deciding the outcome of the Lyndon B. Johnson campaign in 1964 against Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. The political campaign advertisement featured the image of a little girl and suddenly, the frame transitions to footage of the detonation of a hydrogen bomb. This political campaign is among the most controversial campaign advertisements in American history but showed clear results in LBJ’s victory over Sen. Goldwater in the ’64 elections. Johnson … Continue reading