Interest Groups Essay

he head of public liaison is the main link between the president and interest groups. Their main focus is to know the history of the interest groups that have been allied with administration. The administration needs the support of these groups because the groups endorse their issues to their members and vise versa. The administration also wants members of groups to be motivated by their actions to work for or contribute to the party candidate in the future. Interest groups have changed the way elections work and have influenced campaign spending more in recent years than ever before. In 2014, televised ads had hit its peak. The most interesting finding was the link between the ads and outside groups. The groups would not give away its members,
in which their donors surpassed the parties in Senate races. Much of these findings are surrounding the idea of negativity towards the government. One can expect much more media involvement in the election process, not only through television, but through social media as well. One can expect an increase in super PACS and 501 © organizations. It will be easier for candidates to get their point across to voters and for researchers to understand how pollsters feel about presidential candidates and make future theories about who will be the next president of the United States. It will also be more competitive, since each candidate can get money from all sources of “dark areas” in order to win people over with their ideology and party platform (Fowler and Ridout, 2014).
Interest groups had a much more muted impact during the 2008 election in comparison to the one in 2012.
When it came to the areas of the issues agenda, public image of candidates and mobilization of voters, it is obvious that there is evidence of interest group activity here. Nonetheless, the economic concerns on the agenda included several different links to other issues as well. In result, interest groups chose to focus on congressional elections in 2008 instead of presidential elections. Interest groups did not play a huge role in campaign funding during presidential elections, but it did play a role in polarization as they were pointing fingers to problems that the other side was having. They also played a role in changing the way elections are administered (Kimball,
2008).
Interest groups were less noticeable in 2008 when compared to the 2012 campaign. Super PACS have affected election campaign funding. Presidential candidates have influential mega-donors to appropriate funds to their party platform. The Citizens United case has also impacted campaign spending. The implementations of the First Amendment in campaign support gives a candidate many options. One option may even add “dark money” to the equation (Smith and Kimball, 2013). Interest groups have had an affect on not only mobilization, but on ideology, polarization and party as well.
Interest groups respond to mobilization of the government just as much as the government responds to mobilization from interest groups. The social security program transformed the patterns of political mobilization for the entire elder generation. Increased government activity had a stimulating effect on the interest group community. Growth in the lobbying community and the size of the government could be driven by external changes in the socioeconomic environment. Growth in the interest group community is driven by interest groups themselves as they organize to seek economic advantage. Growth in the interest group community come from within the government system. An interest group's biggest problem is attention/time (Baumgartner,
2011).
There are many core findings that link the president, lobbyists, and interest groups. It is interesting that polarization and partisanship do not play a role when it comes to campaign spending. There are a few trends that link the president, lobbyists, and interest groups. Interest groups can use many different outlets to get their presidential interests out to the public and to get some outside interests onto the president’s agenda (Loomis, 2009).
Reformers need to focus on using technology to help voters and supporters change the way the system works. The offset power of big money is becoming a problem in politics. They need to stop working on highlighting the support of campaign donations. Money is not always the main success of an interest group’s policy success. However, civic engagement, cohesion, and mobilization are. Mobilization appears to be important regardless of the amount of campaign funds contributed by interest groups. If there is an absence of strong constituent mobilization on either side, then money would be a greater factor here. Some constituents even contact their legislators after seeing him at an event. They hear about them from friends or see them on television. Many contacts are coordinated by organized interests (Smith, 2015). Interest groups have impacted presidential policy and decision making. One needs to understand administrative agencies and their decision makers. Doing so is important because interest groups often target agencies in order to figure out what issues are salient or not. It is hard to know what an agency because it is difficult to measure an agencies or individual actors views in comparison to the ideological bipartisan views that the government has. There are a few findings, however. For example, preferences from career professionals differ from those who are political appointees. It is also hard to distinguish which agencies are liberal and which are conservative. Though, it seems that presidents will put liberal members in liberal agencies and conservative members in conservative agencies. It had been found that the liberal agencies seemed to be more liberal than the Democratic presidents and the members of the White House and that the conservative agencies seemed to be more conservative than the Republican presidents and the members of the White House (Clinton, 2012).