In order for a political party to operate effectively, it must accomplish several basic but vital tasks: candidates must be vetted, decided upon, and promoted, campaigns must be put together and managed properly, and the public must be informed of the party’s ideas and platform. Without first attending to these matters– and attending to them in an intelligent and orderly manner – a party will find itself unable to perform any of the more complex maneuvers needed to gain an electoral victory. Parties must work diligently to establish a sturdy foundation if they and their candidates can ever hope to weather (much less triumph over) the tumultuous election cycle.

Historically, Americans have preferred divided government, where one party controls the executive, but voters typically vote the opposing party into the legislative. This may serve as an additional check and balance that the public invented themselves.

The responsible party model argues that the party represents a platform of policy propositions that should be adhered to by the members of the party above any other concerns.

Political parties in America are decentralized and thus not centrally controlled. They cannot discipline nor remove party members who go against the party platform. Additionally, the American electorate is largely moderate, so American parties must attempt to be catch-all.

A "marginal district" is a district in which the elected representative carries less than fifty-five percent of the popular vote is said to have won only marginally. The opposite of a marginal district is a "safe seat." Because marginal districts can change hands much more easily, they receive a disproportionate focus during campaign season.

This is a straightforward vocab question. Caucus is the correct answer. Remember: caucuses are relatively active events, where participants will debate, express support, and even sometimes physically move (as in to one side of the room or another) to show which candidate they think is worthy. Caucuses were once the most popular way of picking a presidential nominee, however, states that use the caucus now are in the minority.

Closed primaries– where only those voters who have registered beforehand as party members are permitted to vote – are legally allowed as part of the political process. While many more states choose to host open primaries, which allow any citizen (unregistered included) to partake, closed primaries remain a valuable tool that some parties continue to employ. Party machines, however, with their infamous fondness for dispensing overt patronage to those citizens who demonstrate loyalty but not necessarily ability, have been done away with by a series of new regulations put in place after the turn of the twentieth century. Soft money (funds stored aside by the party leadership to later distribute freely to candidates) has been more recently banned, as part of modern efforts to reduce corrupt party practices.

The Era of Good Feelings lasted from 1816 until 1824. It is called the Era of Good Feelings because the Federalist Party had receded from the national scene and the Democratic-Republicans, under President James Monroe, were the only Party in the political arena. The Era ended with the rise of Jacksonian Democrats and the Republican Party.

In the event that none of the candidates receive the necessary number of votes in the presidential election, the president is selected by the House of Representatives and the Vice President is selected by the Senate.  This process was established by the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

According to Article I, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, each state shall have two Senators, with each Senator serving a term of six years. All senators are divided as equally as possible into three "classes," which have a staggered system of when each term ends. Thus, roughly one third of all senators are up for election every two years.