Effective party organisation is vital for success in America's
political structure. For the purposes of this work, parties
refers only to the Democrat and Republican Parties. Other
political parties do exist in America politics but their
national political clout is essentially non-existant. The
parties are decentralised within America but the depth and
pattern of organisation varies from state to state. There are
differences even from county to county. This can be explained by
their strongly held belief in statesí rights over federal might.
|"In organisation, it is more accurate to regard the US as
having a hundred parties rather than two." (Bowles)| The US
party system is a loose confederation of parties drawn into a
nominal two-party system. As early as 1954, Maurice Duverger
labelled parties as "decentralised and weakly knit." This still
remains true today. The party machinery no longer has a
hierarchical command structure. Washington does not tell
California what to do; California does not Orange County w