In the constitution, parties to begin with were never listed or mentioned as the Founding Fathers wanted to prevent all means by which an authoritative figure could become immensely powerful. However as society changed so did the mind-set of political leaders especially after the abolition of slavery. Parties began to develop in 1780’s when the newly independent states decided to form a government; they divided themselves into the federalist and anti-federalist. The federalists represented the commercial and business interests of the new republic whilst the anti-federalists represented the agricultural and land-owning interest of the public. In modern society these parties are now recognised as the major parties: Republicans (Federalist) and Democrats (Anti-federalist).
The Republican Party became dominated by two strands: the social and fiscal conservatives whilst the Democrats became dominated by: Traditional Democrats and Blue Dog Democrats. Although the parties have traditionally played a limited role in congress and Bipartisanship was the norm in terms of getting bills passed through Congress, these major parties have become more ideologically cohesive and more ideologically distinct from each other in recent years with the Republican Party becoming recognisable as conservatives and the Democrats as more liberal. David Broder a political scientist developed a thesis suggesting an increase in Party decline whereas other observers have argued a party renewal. The arguments and factors explored are mainly in: the candidate selection process, the development of manifestoes as well party unity and ideological polarisation as they explore the thesis on both decline and renewal and come to the definite conclusion that Party decline or Party renewal solely relies on the personalities as well as circumstances of a particular periodIn addition to that, Incumbency as proved to be a major flaw of parties causing party decline rather than party renewal. Incumbent...