Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Historically, political parties played a critical role in American democracy. The parties served as “schools of democracy” by educating citizens in the responsibilities of republican government. They also strove to bind the presidency to the people, serving as bulwarks of local self-rule and thwarting attempts at executive aggrandizement. By the end of the 19th century, however, the localized, highly mobilized party system posed a formidable obstacle to progressive reformers who considered the expansion of national administrative power essential to economic and political reform. Progressive and New Deal reformers looked to a “modern” presidency, emancipated from the suffocating grip of the decentralized parties, to become the principal agent of this reform. The institutionalization of the presidency and the establishment of extensive national administrative capacity during the New Deal ruptured the limited but critical bond that linked presidents and parties and pointed toward a more centralized and bureaucratic form of democracy that focused American political life on the president and administrative agencies.

These developments have resulted in a more active and better equipped national state, but one that has troubling consequences for American democracy. Most damagingly, they have encouraged presidents to pursue their programmatic aspirations through executive administration rather than through collaboration with Congress and the parties and thus have devalued collective responsibility for public policy. As a consequence, the parties – the critical link between the government and the citizenry – have experienced a period of decline, while the presidency, isolated from the stable basis of popular support once provided by the parties, has become dependant on a demanding constellation of interest groups and volatile public opinion for its political sustenance. These outcomes have in turn contributed to declining public satisfaction with government and waning participation in the political process.

The rise of the modern presidency has not meant the end of party politics. Beginning with the New Deal realignment, and culminating with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the erosion of old style partisan politics allowed for the development of a more national and issue-based party system. Reagan and George H.W. Bush supported efforts by Republicans in the national committee and congressional organizations to restore some of the importance of political parties by refashioning them into highly untraditional but politically potent national organizations. Nonetheless, the more national and issue-based party system that emerged by the 1980s served more as vehicles of presidential ambition than as organs of collective responsibility. At the same time, the national, issue-based parties failed to stir the passions and allegiance of the public, as declining partisan identification and voting rates seemed to attest. Thus the national issue-based parties failed to restore the link between the people and the presidency and foster a more collaborative political process.

Given the development of the institutionalized presidency and the decline of parties as organs of collective responsibility and mass mobilization, it is desirable to consider the meaning and institutional consequences of the party leadership of President George W. Bush. Bush has further advanced and benefited from the more national programmatic organizations that arose with the resurgence and transformation of conservatism during the Reagan presidency. Indeed, no president since FDR has tended so carefully to the health of his party. Bush’s historic intervention in the 2002 midterm congressional elections, his cultivation of Republican candidates for office, and his exertions to attract record numbers of new donors to the Republican Party illustrate a commitment to strengthening party seldom observed among modern executives. Equally important, with his campaign’s unprecedented efforts to mobilize grassroots Republicans for the 2004 election, Bush has sought to infuse the mass electorate with the partisanship that had, in past elections, primarily animated only Republican activists within the national party. Finally, Bush’s public expressions of religiosity and steadfast use of moral language, his shrewd exploitation of morally divisive issues like gay marriage, and his efforts to firm up support among social and religious conservatives have served to consolidate a Republican identity of moral and religious conservatism that has strongly differentiated Republicans from Democrats and energized Republican partisans.

How do we evaluate this new Republican Party in light of the decline of the old party system? Does the current Republican Party represent a new stage in the development of a national programmatic party system? Relying on interviews with officials from the Republican and Democratic parties, discussions with officers from both presidential campaigns, and contemporary news coverage, we trace the development of the new Republican Party machine, focusing on important innovations during George W. Bush’s tenure as president and placing them in historical context. We contrast the Republican Party apparatus with the equally massive, but far more decentralized and fragmented mobilization efforts undertaken by Senator John Kerry’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and sympathetic “527” organizations. Secondly, we evaluate the importance of the Republican national machine in the 2004 election. Contrasting the strengths of the Republicans’ mobilization strategy with the weaknesses of the Democrats’ more fragmented efforts, we find that the revitalized Republican Party apparatus played a critical role in identifying, organizing, and mobilizing support for the president and Republican candidates. Bush’s surprisingly easy victory in the 2004 presidential election, the consolidation of Republican control of both houses of Congress, and the highest voter turnout since 1968 were in part due to the strength of the new national Republican Party organization. The Democrats’ impressive, but ultimately disappointing showing, on the other hand, can be understood as a function in part of the relative weakness and fragmentation of their campaign organization.

We intend to press beyond description of the new Republican Party and appraisal of its impact in the 2004 election toward an assessment of the historical importance of the development of a nationalized and programmatic party in the era of the institutionalized presidency. First, given its critical role in the 2004 campaign, will this revitalized party apparatus endure beyond the 2004 election to play a role in future electoral competition? Secondly, will the Democrats adopt the more centralized, hierarchical campaign techniques embraced by Republicans? If the answer to both of these questions is “yes,” are we witnessing the birth of a new party system?

If so, it remains to be seen whether this nascent party system can fulfill the crucial democratic functions performed by its predecessors. Can these new parties reestablish the critical link between the presidency and the public and serve as organs for collective resolution of national problems? Or will they merely serve, as Bush’s top advisor Karl Rove suggested to us in a personal interview, as a critical “means to the president’s ends”? Drawing heavily on our discussions with Democratic and Republican party officers and officials from both presidential campaigns, and on our analysis of the structure and scope of the new party organizations, we attempt to reach preliminary conclusions about the capacity of the reinvigorated parties to serve as a means for mass participation, collaborative decision-making, and collective responsibility in the 21st century.