Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Summers, Mark Wahlgren, PUBLISHER: University of North Carolina Press, Much of late-nineteenth-century American politics was parade and pageant. Voters crowded the polls, and their votes made a real difference on policy. In "Party Games," Mark Wahlgren Summers tells the full song>toong>ry and admires much of the political carnival, but he adds a cautionary ong>noteong> about the dark recesses: vote-buying, election-rigging, blackguarding, news suppression, and violence. Summers also points out that hardball politics and third-party challenges helped make the parties more responsive. Ballyhoo did not replace government action. In order ong>toong> maintain power, major parties not only rigged the system but also gave dissidents part of what they wanted. The persistence of a two-party system, Summers concludes, resulted from its adaptability, as well as its ruthlessness. Even the reform of political abuses was shaped ong>toong> fit the needs of the real owners of the political system--the politicians themselves.