Who controls the Democrats? Who controls the Republicans?

For GOVT 2305 - 11 week students. Here are a few articles that ought to help with your most recently opened written assignment.

This groups highlights conflicts within the Republican Party:

- Outside Groups Eclipsing G.O.P. as Hub of Campaigns.
- Can’t Fire Him: Republican Party Frets Over What to Do With Trump.
- Donald Trump’s Comments Resonate With Some in G.O.P.
- The Koch brothers and the Republican Party go to war — with each other.
- Tea Party Forces Still Control The Republican Agenda.
- The GOP Is Dying Off. Literally.
- A Guide to the Billionaires Bankrolling the GOP Candidates.
- The GOP presidential primary: A brawl of billionaires?

Here are a few that do the same for Democrats:

- No, Liberals Don't Control the Democratic Party.
- Why Liberal Democrats Are Skeptical of Hillary Clinton, in One Paragraph.
- Who Controls the Democratic Party?
- The Real Party of the Rich: Democrats Have More Top Donors, Millionaires in Congress.
- Hillary Clinton’s Team Is Wary as Bernie Sanders Finds Footing in Iowa.
- Bernie Sanders calls Hillary Clinton ‘the candidate of the Democratic establishment’.
- Compromised to death.
- Jim Webb says Democratic Party has lost its way.

I'll add more soon. This is enough to ruin your weekend.

More on the battle over control of the Harris County Republican Party

This pick up from a story below on local party organization.

- Click here for the story.

Previously, Republicans had "something of a luxury in that their opponent was not especially well organized," said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones.

That has changed in a big way with the arrival last year of Battleground Texas, a Democratic campaign that has pledged to spend tens of millions of dollars identifying and communicating directly with persuadable voters, particularly in the Houston area.

"For Republicans there's a concern, I think, that if they don't get their ground game into high gear, then they risk losing the county altogether," Jones said.

Simpson and his supporters paint the race as a battle over management style, accusing Woodfill of weak fundraising and outreach at a time when the county is growing and diversifying - and, by many measures, becoming more Democratic. They also have suggested that Woodfill has focused too much on divisive social issues, such as same-sex marriage.

At a Houston Chronicle editorial board meeting last month, Emmett complained that the local party is "driving young people away," that hundreds of Republican precinct chair positions are vacant and at least 80 percent of the party's money comes from its own candidates.

"The party is supposed to be supporting candidates," he said. "Right now, the party is living off a few candidates that can raise money. I look at it and I say, 'Look, we need a county party that understands it's about winning elections, it's not about giving speeches.' "

Republican political consultant Jim McGrath said "a lot of people have been looking for a viable alternative to Jared just because he's not getting the job done, and we need to hold him accountable for a lack of results."

From the NYT: Billionaires Going Rogue

Some thoughts on what havoc unleashed billionaires might have on elections in the wake of the Citizens United decision, It also provides some interesting insight into the difference between the two parties organizationally:

While, the rapid growth of well-financed and autonomous competitors threatens all existing power structures, the bulk of the costs are likely to fall on the Republican Party. The right wing of the Republican Party has more disruptive potential than the left wing of the Democratic Party because it is more willing to go to extremes: see the billboards showing Obama bowing down before an Arab Sheik, or the ads and DVD claiming that Obama is the bastard son of the African American communist, Frank Marshall Davis.

There are, furthermore, structural and historical differences between the parties: the Republican Party and the conservative establishment is institutionally stronger than the Democratic Party, with an infrastructure that served as a bulwark through the 1960s and 70s – the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Olin Foundation, etc. — when Republicans appeared to be a permanent congressional minority. Its financial prowess enabled the party to enforce more discipline on its consultants and elected officials. The Republican establishment also exercises more authority over policy and candidate selection than does its Democratic counterpart.

In recent years, the Democratic Party organization has gained some strength and it plays a much more active role in campaigns at all levels than in the past, but as an institutional force capable of command and control, it remains light years behind the Republican Party.

Republicans, in contrast to Democrats, prefer hierarchical, well-ordered organizations, and are much more willing to cede authority to those in power. Democrats, despite the discipline of individual campaign efforts, tend more toward anarchy than hierarchy. Historically, one result of this partisan difference is that the Republican establishment has tightly managed candidate selection at the presidential level. With extraordinary consistency, the party has crushed insurgent candidates and selected the next in line. Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole, for example, both had to wait until it was their turn.

From the NYT: Outside Groups Eclipsing G.O.P. as Hub of Campaigns

In 2301 (16 week) we are discussing parties. One of our topics is the relative health of the two parties and this NYT story about the increasing strength of outsider groups - or individuals not directly affiliated with the party. Their power may be eclipsing the party's:

About once a month, a dozen or so of the country’s most influential Republicans meet in a bare-walled conference room in Washington to discuss how to make further gains in the Congressional elections next year and defeat President Obama.

They share polling and opposition research, preview their plans for advertising and contacting voters in swing states, and look for ways to coordinate spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 12 months, drawing on years of experience laboring for the party.

But almost none of them hold office or a job with the Republican Party itself. Instead, they represent conservative groups that channeled tens of millions of dollars into last year’s Congressional campaign. And as 2012 approaches, the groups — among them the Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, the American Action Network and Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the billionaire Koch brothers — have gathered into a loosely organized political machine poised to rival, and in many ways supplant, the official Republican Party apparatus.