Основы политической системы США (стр. 9 )

3.  заявлять о своем намерении

4.  стать легкой мишенью для нападок

5.  проводить единые президентские выборы в масштабах всей страны

6.  отсеять слабых кандидатов

7.  согласиться отдать свои голоса в обмен на…

8.  оказаться в очень невыгодном положении

Section 2.

Glossary

run for election/stand for election - баллотироваться на выборах

heckle - осыпать критическими замечаниями

heckler - человек, шумно выражающий свое несогласие с выступающим оратором.

glad-hand - пожимать руки (потенциальным избирателям)

gaffe - оговорка, неудачное высказывание

spin doctor/spin controller – политтехнолог, специалист по урегулированию конфликтов и связям с общественностью. running mate - кандидат на должность вице-президента

dream ticket - идеально подобранная команда двух претендентов на посты президента и вице-президента

dig for dirt - выискивать компрометирующий материал

to sling mud at sb (mudslinging) - обливать грязью конкурента

cast votes/cast ballots - отдавать свои голоса

to tally ballots - подсчитывать голоса

abstain (from) – воздерживаться от

Electoral College - коллегия выборщиков

landslide (to win a landslide victory) - резкое изменение голосов между партиями (одержать внушительную победу)

the incumbent president - действующий президент

president-elect - избранный, но еще не вступивший в должность президент

TEXT 1

1.  What is the difference between popular vote and electoral vote?

2.  Which type of vote elects a president?

COLLEGE BOUND?

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Electoral College system - and now have to ask

by Matthew Cooper

Q. Let’s start with the Electoral College. Why did the Founders set up this system?

A. They were divided. Some wanted Congress to pick the President. Others wanted the citizens to choose directly. The Electoral College was the compromise.

Q. So these electors, who are they?

A. States decide how they’re chosen, but usually they are loyalists chosen by their parties. Five hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes are distributed among the states - one for each member of the House and Senate. (The District of Columbia gets three.) An elector is chosen for every electoral vote available to a state. Electors can’t hold federal office. Some celebrities have been electors, like Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow. Amazingly, the US Constitution does not require that electors be popularly chosen - only that the states come up with some method for appointing them.

Q. When and how do they vote?

A. On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December - we’re not making this up - electors gather, usually in state capitols, and vote.

Q. Can electors vote how they please?

A. Twenty-six states have no requirement that electors vote in accordance with the popular vote. Nineteen states and D. C. mandate that they vote in accordance with the popular vote, but there’s no penalty if an elector fails to do so. Only five states have penalties for deviating from the popular vote. But in most of those states, the sanctions are relatively minor – in Oklahoma, for instance, it’s a $1,000 fine. But it’s worth nothing that no elector has ever been prosecuted for being unfaithful. Throughout U. S. history, only nine electors out of some 18,000 have violated their pledges. It’s going to be hard to find one who’s going to break his or hers. Frank Straka, a Bush-Cheney elector from Arizona, told TIME, for example, that he wouldn’t switch even if Gore won the popular vote nationally. “It’s like the playoffs,” he says. “One team may score more runs, but if they don’t win the four games, they lose.”

Q. Will we know how the electors voted?

A. The Constitution says they shall submit their votes “sealed” to the president of the Senate, but generally the balloting has been quite open. We’ll know for sure when the Senate president reads the results before a joint session of Congress.

Q. Wait. The Vice President reads the results?

A. Yes. He remains the president of the Senate until Jan. 20, when a new President takes office. Vice President Richard Nixon, in 1961, had the dubious honor of announcing his own defeat. Martin Van Buren, in 1837, and George Bush, in 1989, had the pleasure of announcing their own victories.

Q. What if no candidate gets an electoral majority?

A. It goes to the House, which chooses among the top three electoral vote getters.

Q. And is it the new House or the old House that makes the choice?

A. It’s the new House. When it takes office, it is required to immediately begin picking a new President if there’s a deadlock in the Electoral College.

Q. So the House just votes?

A. No. It gets weirder. Rather than having individual members cast ballots, each state delegation gets one vote. Tiny Rhode Island has as much clout as California.

Q. Does the District of Columbia vote in the House?

A. Nope. The Constitution is pretty clear that only state delegations can vote.

Q. What if a delegation is evenly split between parties?

A. If a candidate doesn’t win a state’s majority, then the state is listed as “divided” and its vote is forfeited.

Q. Do you need 26 state-delegation votes to win, or just a simple plurality?

A. You need 26 states.

Q. What if no candidate gets 26?

A. It goes into more balloting, and horse-trading for votes. Some members may be pressed to switch to the way their states, their districts or the national majority voted. Some may be swayed by the prospect of an ambassadorship or a big Cabinet job.

Q. The Vice President is picked by the Senate, right? And he can be of a different party from the President?

A. Yes! The Constitution says the Senate must pick from the two highest Vice-presidential vote getters in the Electoral College.

Q. We know it’s the new House that votes. But is it the new Senate?

A. Yes, and in contrast to the House, its members vote as individuals, not by state.

Q. O. K., let’s assume a total nightmare. The Electoral College doesn’t pick a President, the House and Senate don’t pick a President - all by Jan. 20. What happens?

A. The Speaker of the House becomes President. If he can’t serve, the president pro tempore of the Senate, becomes President.

Q. The President pro tempore of the Senate?

A. Under this system, anything’s possible.

1.  What is the difference between popular vote and electoral vote?

2.  Which type of vote elects a president?

***

Comment on the excerpt from a dialogue between an imaginary U. S. President and his Vice President.

“Do you know the biggest problem with the world today? There are no more statesmen. Countries are being run by politicians. There was a time not too long ago when this earth was peopled with giants. Some were good, and some were evil - but, by God, they were giants. Roosevelt and Churchill, Hitler and Mussolini, Charles de Gaulle and Joseph Stalin. Why did they all live at that one particular time? Why aren’t there any statesmen today?”

“It’s pretty hard to be a world giant on a twenty-one-inch screen.”

“Windmills of the Gods”

Sidney Sheldon

FOR YOUR INFORMATION…

Televised Debates: How it All Started …

The most important events of presidential elections are the televised debates between the candidates. Very many voters make up their minds on the strength of these performances.

There are now debates in primaries, too, and the result is that a candidate who performs well on television starts with a great advantage over his rivals. The first presidential debates were in 1960, between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Kennedy came off better. Nixon never debated again.

The practice did not revive until the 1976 election, when President Ford and Jimmy Carter staged a debate during the presidential campaign.

It was an important and also farcical event. Just as the moderator was about to start the show, the telephone connection to the two speakers failed. Both remained stuck at their lecterns, like two dummies, for the next forty minutes.

Once the problem was resolved, it became clear that Ford, who had spent his career in the House of Representatives, was not good on television. Jimmy Carter was a preacher and came over as sincere, honest and trustworthy.

***

Donkeys and Elephants

A famous 19th century cartoonist, Thomas Nast, first drew the Democratic Party as a donkey and the Republican Party as an elephant in 1874, in separate cartoons. These symbols caught on immediately. A contemporary described the Democratic Party as being “like a mule – without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity”.

The elephant was defined in 1904 thus: “Among the elephant’s known characteristics are cleverness and unwieldiness. He is an animal easy to control until he is aroused; but when frightened or stirred up, he becomes absolutely unmanageable.”

These two symbols have been used by political cartoonists ever since.

State	capital	motto	nickname
Alabama	Montgomery	We Dare Defend Our Rights	The Cotton State
Alaska	Juneau	The Great Land
Arizona	Phoenix	God enriches	Apache State
Arkansas	Little Rock	The People Rule	Bear State
California	Sacramento	Eureka, I Have Found it.	Golden State
Colorado	Denver	Nothing without God	Centennial State
Connecticut	Hartford	He Who Transplanted Still Sustains	Nutmeg State
Delaware	Dover	Liberty and Independence	Diamond State
Florida	Tallahassee	In God We Trust	Sunshine State
Georgia	Atlanta	Wisdom, Justice, Moderation	Empire State of the South
Hawaii	Honolulu	The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness	The Aloha State
Idaho	Boise	Exist Forever	Jem State
Illinois	Springfield	State Sovereignty, National Union	Prairie State
Indiana	Indianapolis	Crossroads of America	Hoosier State
Iowa	Des Moines	Our Liberties We Prize and our Rights We will Maintain	Hawkeye State
Kansas	Topeka	To the Stars through Difficulties	Sunflower State
Kentucky	Frankfort	United We Stand, Divided We Fall	Bluegrass State
Louisiana	Baton Rouge	Union, Justice, and Confidence	Pelican State
Maine	Augusta	I Direct	Pine Tree State
Maryland	Annapolis	Many Deeds, Womanly Words	Old Line State
Massachusetts	Boston	By the Sword She Seeks Peace, but Peace only Under Liberty	Bay State
Michigan	Lansing	If You Seek a Pleasant Peninsula Look About You	Wolverine State
Minnesota	St. Paul	Star of the North	Gopher State
Mississippi	Jackson	By Valor and Arms	Magnolia State
Missouri	Jefferson City	The Welfare of the People Shall be the Supreme Law	Show Me State
Montana	Helena	Oro y Plata, Gold and Silver	Treasure State
Nebraska	Lincoln	Equality before the Law	Cornhusker State
Nevada	Carson City	All for Our Country	Silver State
New Hampshire	Concord	Live Free or Die	Granite State
New Jersey	Trenton	Liberty and Prosperity	Garden State
New Mexico	Santa Fe	It Grows as It Goes	Land of Enchantment
New York	Albany	Excelsior, Ever Upward	Empire State
North Carolina	Raleigh	To Be, Rather than To Seem	Tarheel State
North Dakota	Bismarck	Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable	Flickertail State
Ohio	Columbus	An Empire within an Empire	Buckeye State
Oklahoma	Oklahoma City	Labor Conquers All Things	Sooner State
Oregon	Salem	The Union	Beaver State
Pennsylvania	Harrisburg	Virtue, Liberty and Independence	Keystone State
Rhode Island	Providence	Hope	Little Rhody
South Carolina	Columbia	While I Breathe, I Hope	Palmetto State
South Dakota	Pierre	Under God, the People Rule	Sunset State
Tennessee	Nashville	America At Its Best	Volunteer State
Texas	Austin	Friendship	Lone Star State
Utah	Salt Lake City	Industry	Beehive State
Vermont	Montpelier	Freedom and Unity	Green Mountain State
Virginia	Richmond	Thus Always to Tyrants	Old Dominion
Washington	Olympia	Bye and Bye	Evergreen State
West Virginia	Charleston	Mountaineers Always Free	Mountain State
Wisconsin	Madison	Forward	Badger State
Wyoming	Cheyenne	Equal Rights	Equality State

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THE CONSTITUTION