Gale Researcher Guide for: The American Two-Party System

By Price and G. David

Gale Researcher Guide for: The American Two-Party System in the United States is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781535857963

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Gale Researcher Guide for: The American Two-Party System

G. David Price

Santa Fe College

Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences

G. David Price earned his PhD at Miami University and has graduate degrees in history (University of Memphis) and political science (University of Georgia) and has followed American elections and political parties since the 1980s. Over the years, he has covered elections as a freelance journalist and as a political commentator for local TV and radio. Since 2000, he has taught history and politics at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida.

Although the Founding Fathers publicly decried organized political factions, they quickly created them after the federal government was established and voting started taking place. Perhaps that was because, for all the bluster of separating from Britain and founding a new nation, they had to rely on Britain for examples of political processes. Successful British politicians were members of either the Tory or Whig faction. Almost from the beginning, then, America had a two-party system. It took a few decades for the parties to achieve their modern configuration of Republicans and Democrats, but American politics has