The Rise of Political Action Committees

The Rise of Political Action Committees

Author: Emily J. Charnock

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0190075538

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Political Action Committees (PACs) are a prominent and contentious feature of modern American election campaigns. As organizations that channel money toward political candidates and causes, their influence in recent decades has been widely noted and often decried. Yet, there has been no comprehensive history compiled of their origins, development, and impact over time. In The Rise of Political Action Committees, Emily J. Charnock addresses this gap, telling a story with much deeper roots than contemporary commentators might expect. Documenting the first wave of PAC formation from the early 1940s to the mid-1960s, when major interest groups began creating them, she shows how PACs were envisaged from the outset as much more than a means of winning elections, but as tools for effecting ideological change in the two main parties. In doing so, Charnock not only locates the rise of PACs within the larger story of interest group electioneering - which went from something rare and controversial at the beginning of the 20th Century to ubiquitous today - but also within the narrative of political polarization. Throughout, she offers a full picture of PACs as far more than financial vehicles, showing how they were electoral innovators who pioneered strategies and tactics that came to pervade modern US campaigns and reshape American politics. A broad-ranging political history of an understudied American campaign phenomenon, this book contextualizes the power and purpose of PACs, while revealing their transformative role within the American party system - helping to foster the partisan polarization we see today.


The Politics of Upheaval

The Politics of Upheaval

Author: Arthur M. Schlesinger

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2003-07-09

Total Pages: 965

ISBN-13: 0547524250

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In the third volume of his series on Franklin Roosevelt, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian focuses on the turbulent final years of FDR’s first term. A measure of economic recovery revived political conflict and emboldened Roosevelt’s critics to denounce “that man in the White house.” To his left were demagogues—Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Dr. Townsend. To his right were the champions of the old order—ex-president Herbert Hoover, the American Liberty League, and the august Supreme Court. For a time, the New Deal seemed to lose its momentum. But in 1935 FDR rallied and produced a legislative record even more impressive than the Hundred Days of 1933—a set of statutes that transformed the social and economic landscape of American life. In 1936 FDR coasted to reelection on a landslide. Schlesinger has his usual touch with colorful personalities and draws a warmly sympathetic portrait of Alf M. Landon, the Republican candidate of 1936. “One of the most important historical enterprises of our time.”—Saturday Review “Vividly portrays…the concluding years of Roosevelt’s first term…[and] the sweep and excitement of an era more historically dramatic than most.”—Time


Monthly Catalogue, United States Public Documents

Monthly Catalogue, United States Public Documents

Author: United States. Superintendent of Documents

Publisher:

Published: 1930

Total Pages: 1362

ISBN-13:

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February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index