¶ … Money in the Bank
You deposit money in the bank. It earns interest. At the end of the year, you look at your statement, and you feel confident that you made a worthwhile investment. It's the same thing wit political investments. An interest group spends a great deal of money to publicize its views, and come election time, if its candidate wins, it has made an excellent investment. Of course, the views of a special interest group may not be the views of the majority of voters. In fact, this is quite often the case. Millions of Americans favor gun control, or support a woman's right to choose, but few of these individuals have the kinds of resources at the their disposal as say a group like the National Rifle Association or the many pro-life religious organizations. Such influence peddling poses many questions regarding the nature of American democracy. If public officials are bowing to the will of their biggest contributors, are they truly acting according to the desires of their constituents, or even more importantly, are our officials choosing money over right?
In modern day America, it costs an enormous amount of money to get elected to national or statewide office. In 2002 alone, Democrats and Republicans spent somewhere in the neighborhood of one billion dollars on their various campaigns. This includes both soft and hard money, with the Republicans out-fundraising the Democrats in hard money by more than two to one: $289 million for the Republicans, and $127 million for the Democrats. (Oppel, 2002) Television, radio, print, and Internet advertisements do not come cheap, and it is rare that a candidate can raise the sums necessary from individual supporters alone. Candidates need well-heeled, organized groups to help them fill their war chests. These do not necessarily have to be organizations with extensive grassroots support. They may represent purely local or even very narrow corporate or sociopolitical concerns. Creationism is a big issue in Tennessee, but not in New York. Drilling for oil in National Parks concerns Alaskans but not Ohioans. In general, a candidate's stand on environmental issues is of much greater concern to California voters, than to their counterparts in Texas. What matters in the battle for campaign funds is not the...
Interest Groups Describe the different types of interest groups (single issue groups and public interest groups) and the goals that each type pursues. Single-issue interest groups are exactly that: groups concerned with one issue, and one issue only. Although the single interest might overlap with broader issues or related interests, the main goal of a single-interest group is to promote legislation related to the target area. For example, the National Rifle Association
Interest groups are organizations of people with similar policy goals who intend to influence a process to achieve their policy goals. Interest groups have been their since time immemorial with some being as old as the independent United States. Interest groups normally persuade elected representatives to share their point-of-view especially in democracies. In fact, they are a necessary requirement for democracies. A more universal definition of interest groups is a
Interest Groups in 2012 Presidential Election President Barak Obama was elected in 2008. This was an historic occasion in American history, given that Obama was the first African-American ever to assume the nation's highest office. His victory was also remarkable because of the overwhelmingly 'young' demographic composition of the voters who elected him. Voting turnout has been on the decline for many years in the United States, but has been particularly
Interest Groups and How Their Influence on Public Policy Interest Groups and their influence on public Policy Interest groups are clusters of people that come into existent to make stresses on government. The leading interest groups that are located in the United States are financial or occupational, but a range of other clusters -- philosophical, public interest, foreign policy, government itself, and ethnic, religious, and cultural -- have memberships that cut across
Interest Groups Seek Influence Public Policy Interest Groups Seek Influence Making Public Policy Define an interest group, with examples An interest group can be described as an association that is formally organized that is in pursuit of influencing public policy. The wider description, scholars using it increasingly, older contrasts with it, narrower ones, which are inclusive of private associations only that their formal organization is distinct like Italy's General Confederation of industry and
Interest Groups A FORCE TO RECKON WITH Special Interest Groups An interest group, or a special interest group, is a group of concerned individuals who share common goals (JB-HDNP, 2012). They connect the public to lawmakers and vice versa. They try to sway public opinion, election, and public policy (JB-HDNP). Special interest groups make strong demands on the government (Magleby et al., 2010). These groups may be economic or occupational, ideological, public interest,
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