Voting
Voting based on your assessment of a candidate's past performance
What is retrospective voting?
When every person has a roughly equal chance of being contacted by a poll.
The legal basis of the Citizens United v. FEC decision
Corporations have 1st Amendment rights equal to that of individuals.
The media and interest groups both connect people to the government so they are examples of this.
The main impact of the Electoral College on presidential campaigns
What is swing states are the focus of $ and time?
What are libertarians?
This indicates the interval or range of confidence a polling organization has in it's survey.
What is sampling error?
What agency was created to enforce campaign laws and financial disclosure laws?
Federal Election Commission
Term for the role of the media in uncovering government corruption or scandal.
What is investigative or "watchdog" journalism?
The name for a meeting conducted to select delegates to the national party convention and one impact of selecting this method.
What is caucus and a) low turnout OR b) more extreme/ideological voters?
A person's confidence that they can make a difference in politics.
What is political efficacy?
The process by which family, media, peers, etc. influence the development of our political attitudes.
What is political socialization?
The ruling in Citizens United V FEC.
Corporations and unions are free to spend as much money on elections as long as they do so INDEPENDENTLY of the campaign itself (i.e. unlimited direct spending for independent expenditures was authorized)
The difficulty interest groups have with non-members benefiting from their activities.
What is the free rider problem?
The main reason the U.S. has a two-party system.
What is the winner-take-all system of elections (single-member districts) OR our lack of proportional representation?
Voting based on what a person perceives to be in their individual interest.
What is rational choice voting?
What is generational effects?
What were two types of fundraising organizations that expanded after the Citizens United ruling?
What were SuperPACs and 501 (c) groups?
The term for the media's focus on polling results rather than substance in campaign reporting.
What is horse-race coverage?
This caused party leaders to grow weaker in the nomination process over the years.
What is primaries (also McGovern-Fraser commission)?
Three ways federalism (state-by-state variations) impacts voting.
Voter ID laws, absentee ballot access, voter registration rules, felony restrictions on voting, recount rules, voting methods/machines, early voting (times, locations)
Three factors that influence the validity of public opinion polls.
What are: sample selection, contact methods (how voters are interviewed) and question wording?
Two things done by the McCain-Feingold/BiPartisan Campaign reform Act of 2002.
It eliminated soft money (money given to parties for "party building"). Restricted the timing of ads from outside groups before an election. The stand by your ad provision. Doubled hard money limit.
This is how interest groups can influence rulings in the courts.
What is amicus curiae brief?
This occurs when a political earthquake forces new party coalitions to replace old ones.
What is a party realignment (or critical election)?