POLITICAL PARTIES
What is the purpose of political parties?
Political parties in the United States do a lot of stuff! When a candidate runs for office, the endorsement of a political party is usually a critical step towards incumbency—parties provide lots of resources to the candidates they support. Those resources can include:
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Money
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Voter data (like phone numbers to call, or houses to canvass)*
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A bigger campaign staff
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Publicity opportunities
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Meetings with donors
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Strategic guidance
But why? Political parties are usually interested in getting the stuff they say they want to get done, done. Whether it’s improving healthcare, making education more accessible, expanding civil rights, or a whole host of other things, parties have pretty big agendas. Supporting a candidate, and helping that candidate win, helps a party advance its policy agenda, too!
Are political parties run by people or politicians?
Political parties are run by a large number of people, and most of them have never run for public office in their lives.
Instead, the people who form the inner structure of a political party tend to be enthusiasts—people who are passionate about the party’s agenda, message, and politicians. From current high school students to retired workers, there are plenty of different people who volunteer their time to help guide their political parties toward success.
What have political parties been capable of in the past?
Historically, political parties have done a lot. Major policy accomplishments are often seen as watershed moments in U.S. history, and almost every major policy accomplishment is the result of an extensive period of advocacy and strategy, carried out by or through a political party.
These efforts are really big. It can sometimes take thousands of party members, hundreds of thousands of protestors, and multiple generations of political campaigns—not to mention millions of dollars—to gather enough political capital to get something huge accomplished.
Nationally, these accomplishments include things like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Affordable Care Act, and the Social Security Act. Here in Minnesota, recent accomplishments include free school lunches, weed legalization, and abortion rights legislation.
Political parties gather political capital by organizing protests, canvassing, making phone calls, and electing popular candidates. This happens at every level: national, state, and local.
How does the DFL work?
The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is made up of multiple levels of organizing units (OUs) which are staffed by volunteer party members and perform a wide variety of tasks. Each OU is led by a central committee (CC), typically composed of somewhere between four and ten people. Each OU can choose officers by appointing them or by holding an internal election. ​​​
There are far more officers than there are CC members. Officers fill new subcommittees, represent specific areas within the region represented by their OU, or fill new, org-wide positions that the CC creates. For example, an OU that represents a specific senate district (SD) might appoint additional officers to represent each precinct within that SD. This is a classic role in party politics, and is sometimes referred to as a ‘precinct captain.’
The most important job I ever had was precinct captain.
—Harry S. Truman
OUs are important because they make endorsements, or write ‘letters of support,’ for local candidates. They also organize canvassing and phone banking events for their endorsed candidates. Without these organizations, it would be very hard for the state to keep track of and support every single DFL candidate.
